LackOfNothing

It has been a long time since I’ve posted, and there has been so much that has happened in the past 4 months. My dad was placed on a liver transplant list in early September, I went through one of the busiest seasons of work in the month of September, I turned 30 in October (with a surprise visit from my mom)… and then November came.

November, my life changed forever.

On November 2nd, I attended the baby shower of one of my dearest friends. She is one of the most thoughtful, sensitive and sympathetic people that I know. Her baby shower, in itself, was not hard for me. It was a sweet time of celebrating baby S (who had already made his arrival in time for the shower). I just held that sweet baby boy, and loved on him.  At the shower, I had overheard a conversation between 2 friends, and my ears tuned in as I heard talk of “waiting”, “never being able to have children”–  words that are very familiar to me. (After the shower, I was able to sit in my car and talk with this sweet girl for over 3 hours, but I’ll get to that in a bit).

I had received a text at the beginning of the shower from my sister informing me that dad was being admitted to the hospital for pneumonia.  Unfortunately, I did not think this a huge deal… Dad was sick so often, and had conquered pneumonia MANY times in my life. He would have almost annual trips to the hospital for respiratory issues.

At 6:00 PM, I was told they were moving him to ICU.  This caused concern for me. I started seriously praying.

At 7:00 PM I was given his respiratory, pulse O2  and heart rate stats; it was obvious dad was having major issues breathing. I started praying, and asked two of my friends at the shower to pray for my dad.

After the shower, while sitting in my car conversing with the friend mentioned earlier, I got a text at 9:45 PM stating that the doctors were going to drain dad’s lungs to prevent them from having to intubate him, and that dad was doing pretty well. I read this text in the middle of my conversation, and did not mention it to my friend. I wanted to keep our conversation on point, and be able to learn from each other; I was elated to have met someone who understood my pain. As our conversation continued past midnight, I received a text at 12:18 AM (now Nov 3rd) stating that they had drained about 1.5 liters off of dad’s right lung, but ended up intubating him to make it easier for him to breathe. They sedated dad to make the tube more bearable. I decided I needed to mention it to my friend; she said that she would be praying for my dad; our conversation concluded just a few minutes after that. I began my drive home.

At 12:30, after I had just gotten onto the highway, I received a call from my sister; she was hysterical:

“Beth, dad flat-lined. They are doing CPR on him right now. Stop what you’re doing and pray! I have more people to call. I love you. Bye”.

I called D immediately; I knew he would be at home awake waiting for me. I asked him to start praying, and that I would see him when I got home. I drove through tears, praying, frantically trying to think of others that would be awake at that hour. I texted baby S’s mom (knowing she would be awake with a newborn), I texted my car-conversation friend, and I texted my co-worker who NEVER sleeps.

Before I arrived back at home, I received another call.

“They were able to revive him, but he isn’t out of the woods yet.”

I arrived at home; I don’t even remember what I did. I think I tried to go to bed. At 1:26 AM, I got a text “He has coded twice now. If he can start keeping his blood pressure up on his own, he will make it through.” I laid there wide awake, crying, praying, and aching that I was 1,000 miles away from my dad. At 2:12 AM, the text message read “They think that when they drained his lung that it shocked his system and that is why he flat-lined. They started a pic line of antibiotics into his heart. He is sedated still; with blood pressure medicine, his b.p. is holding at 128 / something.”

I must have  fallen asleep shortly after that text. I woke up at 3:45 AM, picked up my phone and saw 4 missed calls. I got out of bed and called my sister, slightly panicked.

“Beth, the doctors are telling us that we need to call the family to get here. It doesn’t look good at all.”

I set up camp in the living room on the sofa with a tissue box, the laptop, my cell phone and crackers (I felt like I was going to vomit). I NEEDED to fly home; I knew I NEEDED to be there for my dad and to help my mom through all of this. What was stopping me from just booking a flight? Two of my co-workers (of my 4 person dept) were flying out on Sunday (the 4th) for training. After many texts and calls between me and my co-workers, at 6:00 AM I got a call. “B (president of the company) said you need to go! Training can be rescheduled. Go home.” A few minutes later, I got a text from my boss “We will figure it out. Go spend time with family that you need to, and just let me know how things are going. I’m really sorry Beth. I can’t understand how hard this must be.”

What a relief. I booked my flight (the first flight out was 10:45 AM). As soon as I purchased that ONE-WAY flight, my stomach settled and I could take full breaths again. I flew out, and got to the hospital about 3:00 PM on Nov 3rd. Dad was sedated, hooked up to a ventilator, and he was looking quite jaundiced (his liver condition wasn’t bad enough for him to yellow before, but his body was failing now).

I come from a big family, and to say that there are so many of us, we are all very similar. We don’t argue over big issues, which was very beneficial during this terrible time in our lives. As we sat in the hospital room day after day, hearing test result after test result, we worked as a team. Many times, a new ICU nurse would come in the room and say, “Um, I need everyone who is NOT immediate family to leave.” We would just laugh, inform them that we were ALL immediate family, and then watch the shocked look on their faces. We would have family meetings with my dad’s doctors; many meetings ended with the doctors saying “Your dad is lucky to have so many wonderful kids. We find that patients that have good family support are able to pull through more quickly than those who did not have as many loving people around them.”

One benefit to being sad; people don’t question your tears. As I heard doctor after doctor talk about the benefits of children, and the joy of having large families, and the support system families provide, I would break down. Every time.

It was bad enough that I was watching my dad waste away before me, but to be reminded of my future… my childless future…

My dad was 40 when I was born. He had just celebrated his 70th birthday in September, one month before my 30th. I knew I was going to get the short end of the stick being the youngest, and having parents that are much older than me. This is one of the reasons I always said I would NOT have children late in life. Who knew I wouldn’t have any control over that issue.

Once all of the tests came back, it painted a completely bleak picture for my dad. It turned out that the pneumonia had caused a bacteria to get into his blood. Haemophilus influenza.  This bacteria caused his body to go into shock, which caused him to flat-line. The damage that was done to his heart was permanent; his heart was only working 20%. His kidneys were working at 20%. His liver already was failing. His lungs were not improving despite the antibiotics being pumped into his heart, and they were full of fluid. And, after the sedatives had “worn off”, dad was still unresponsive. He only responded to pain during the neurological exam. He was in multi-system failure.

As we watched the monitor, his heart barely beating, his blood pressure only staying in the normal range because of the medication, it was obvious dad could not pull through this. The ventilator was no longer a “treatment” to assist his breathing and get him through this. We knew he was not going to make it to the next day. We started talking about the many family members that dad was going to see when he got to Heaven: his own mother, his brother, my mom’s parents, his 7 miscarried grandchildren, and his only great granddaughter who had been born stillborn a few years prior.

I sat there, wishing I could say that I had a baby waiting for him in Heaven. I knew it was an evil thing to wish or say, but I wanted to have the joy of saying that my dad was going to be able to meet one of my children.  I had no way to prove that that was going to be the case; for the first time I wished I had experienced THAT kind of loss so that losing my dad would bring something sweet; he would know my children.

We, as a family, decided to remove the ventilator a little after noon that Thursday. Dad breathed on his own without the ventilator, as we expected him to. He was Super Man. His heart took its final beat at 8:37 PM.

That night, for the first time in a week, we left the hospital. And for the first time in our lives, we were children without a father.

As I was driving my dad’s truck back to my mom’s house, I said to my sister, “I need to tell you something, and I’m going to say it, and that’s it. We’re not going to discuss it and you aren’t going to ask any questions. OK?”.  She agreed.

“D and I still don’t have a plan on how we are going to grow our family. Our life is paused. We have no money to ‘invest’ in children. Sitting in the hospital, hearing doctors say how important children are when we grow old, I found myself getting angry because there is nothing I can do. I find myself resenting everyone in my life. I find myself lost in my own life. I pray for answers, but I find no relief.”

She put her hand on my shoulder and we finished the drive in silence.

This is the only the 2nd time I have spoken those words.

I pray that someday God will give me a child. A child through whom I can honor my dad in name, and in raising him to be a great man. A child through whom I can honor my Heavenly Father.

I didn’t know I still had that prayer and desire inside me… until I truly realized what I had lost.