I found out today what I had suspeected for a couple of days, that my
Dad is dying.  He went into the hospital last Tuesday with severe
Congestive Heart Failure, his lungs had almost filled completely with
fluid, on top of that he had a kidney infection that was probably
septic, and the stress of all of it caused him to have a heart attack.
In the meantime, he has developed pneumonia on each lung - one
responding to antibiotics, the other not.

But what is the hard part is to keep his blood pressure up they put him
on a Dopamine drip.  It is considered to be a form of life support since
they didn't know if they would ever be able to take him off of it.  They
 hoped it would give his body those precious few days to heal and be
able to take care of its own blood pressure.  But it is not to be and
they are going to take it away in two days.  Actually, since it is life
support, they are going to ask me to take it away.

The perverse thing about this life support is that with it, my father is
awake, alert, oriented, thinking clearly and is able to enjoy the time
he has.  He is comfortable, in no pain - even without his pain meds and
in good spirits.  If it weren't for the fact that the dopamine drip has
other consequences on the body - like increases his risk for another
heart attack, and they can't treat any of his other illnessess, like the
heart attack or give him lasix because they all drop his blood pressure,
I would want him on it indefinitely.  It also has other side effects
that would start that I don't want him to go through.

The bottom line is that I am going to be pulling life support on my Dad
who is still functioning.  It isn't like he is hooked up to a machine.
That would be easy.  I talked to my father about it tonight.  No one had
told him.  He is ready to go.  We had a priest come in and do last
rights, so it doesn't matter if he has a heart attack tonight.

I went to the nursing home to pick up a couple of things he wanted and
the nurses all wanted to know how he was doing.  I cried my way all the
way through those explanations and they cried with me.

I have a friend who is willing to come stay with me after they take my
Dad off the Dopamine drip until he dies, even to taking time off work.
She is very comforting and I intend to take her up on it.  I don't want
to go through this alone.

I've got to find a home for my Dad's cat now. He has someone picked out
so I have to ask her if she will because he wants to know before he
dies.  That is his only unfinished business as far as he is concerned.
I guess I just managed to make this on topic.  If she doesn't want his
cat, then I have a couple of ideas.  But we will have to see.

Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom for those of you who did.

Bridet