**This is actually a repost from my DA journal. I’m cleaning it up, and separating my art from my personal writings. I’m copying and pasting this as I don’t think I could handle rewriting it again. **
My dad died.
On Feb 16th, 2007 he had a heart attack. A bad one. He collapsed at his day job and crashed his forklift. Several of the people he works with managed to revive him, and get him to the hospital. Apparently, the type of heart attack he had usually results in people dying at an alarming rate, and it was a long shot that he survived to the hospital at all.
At the hospital, the doctors managed to place a stint in the right artery to his heart. Both arteries were pretty well blocked. He was put into the ICU on sedation with a breathing tube, pacemaker wire, heart balloon and plenty of IV lines.
Over the next days, he slowly improved. His heart got stronger and most of his other vitals came up. He remained sedated cause of the breathing tube. We were able to wake him a little and let him know we were there. Eventually he came off the pacemaker wire and heart pump.
By that point, he had developed a minor infection from one of the IV lines, and had some fluid in his lungs. None of this was particularly unusual for the shape he was in. Still sedated. They were giving him anti-biotics to stave off pneumonia and the infection
They tentatively scheduled the surgery for Feb 28th. The day before, they removed the sedation were going to try to wake him up before the to check him over for surgery. I went to the hospital to be with him and wait out the surgery. Most of my family is pretty scattered around the state, and are unable to come down all at once. I was supposed to call my mom and let he know when things were underway so my brother could driver her down.
He didn’t wake up.
The next morning they took him in and ran a full body CAT scan to check for infection and such. They found the left side of his brain severely swollen. Sometime in the preceding 2-3 days, he had had a major stroke.
Dad was gone.
I called my sister, and both of us went over to tell my mom.
The next day, after all the phone calls were made to all the people that had to know, we went to the hospital to say our goodbyes. We had the Pastor from dads church come down to pray for him as well. After everyone had a chance to be with him, we had the doctor remove his support.
It took a little less than an hour for him to pass on. His kids stayed with him through the end. Myself, my brother and my sister. My mother could not bring herself to be there. I can’t blame her. I held his hand through the end, and hugged him as he died. March 1st.
Per his wishes and family tradition, we had him cremated. His memorial service was today at the church he worked at (second job..) for over 36 years. I was not able to speak at his service.
That’s about all I have to say on that right now.
