How My Daddy Died Part 2

John was on the phone. He said You need to leave right now. I'm looking up plane tickets so you can fly out as soon as possible. Mama says they're keeping him alive until you and Angie can get there. Just try to stay calm until you get home. Drive slow and careful. So I hung up the phone and found Chris and told him what John had said and he said Go! Take care of everything and call us when you can. So I went. I bawled all the way through the parking lot and all the way home. I trembled and quaked and sat down at the computer to find the first flight back home. I found one out of Boston that left in less than two hours. I threw clothes into a carry-on bag. Underwear, sweatshirts, a pair of jeans, my laptop and charger, my journal, a toothbrush, my birks. I was wearing a t-shirt and a sweater and holey jeans and thick socks and Soloman hikers so that I could run through the airport if I had to. We left the house and I called Angie. She was already on the road and said she'd pick me up at the airport when she got into Charlotte. It snowed a little on the way to Boston. It was cold. The airport was crowded and the plane was packed. I sat at the window. Scrunched into the window seat wearing three layers of clothes including a winter coat. I cried the whole time. Shaking and queasy. Praying Please don't let me lose my Daddy. Please let this not be what it is. But all the while knowing that it was futile. That this was exactly what it was. I arrived in Charlotte and ran through the airport. Called Angie and she was 10 minutes away. She picked me up. We didn't talk much. Traffic was bad. It was 5pm rush hour. It took an hour for us to get to the hospital and it was strange because it was the new hospital which I'd never been to. Angie dropped me off while she parked because my stomach was so upset I had to run to the bathroom and heave and poop. After I came out, Angie was just coming in and Sarah and Katie had come to the front waiting area to bring us back to the ICU. That long hall way. Shining floors and fluorescent lights and my head throbbing with every thump of my heart, with every foot step and Mama standing at the end of the hallway. She held me and I sobbed, I wailed. I'd never known the wailing and gnashing of teeth until that moment. I was near hysterical and Mama was very calm, and pale. She was wearing Daddy's John Deere tractor jacket and it hung down past her knees and she whispered to me. He's hooked up to machines, they're keeping him alive. He and I talked about that and this is not what he wanted. His kidney's shut down and he's eat up with the infection. He's on dilaudid and morphine but he can still hear us. We're all going to go in there and we can stay as long as we want. We can talk to him and be with him and then when we're ready, they'll unplug the machines and eventually he'll stop breathing. The nurses said it could be anywhere from a couple of minutes to a few hours. But not until we're ready.

How My Daddy Died

Daddy fell three times that Friday. The first time was early in the evening and Mama had to ask Jimmy to come over and help her get Daddy up. The second time was some time around 9 o'clock. That time she called both of the Billys and they got Daddy into the bed. The third and final time was a couple of hours later. Mama called me and said that she had called 9-1-1 and that the ambulance was on the way. She had asked Daddy before hand what he wanted her to do and he said he wanted to go to the hospital. He was too weak to take care of himself and Mama was not strong enough for the both of them. So the ambulance came. They EMS workers got Daddy up and then kept asking him if he didn't just want to get into bed. Was he really sure he wanted to go the hospital? Wouldn't he be more comfortable in bed? Finally, Daddy got pissed off and told them he wanted to go to the damn hospital. I'm sick and I want to go to the hospital. So they took him. Mama had already told me that she was certain he had a urinary tract infection. That she could smell it on him even after he had showered. It was inside of him. At the hospital they pretty much confirmed that he had MRSA. Not just an ordinary infection. They put him in CCU. He never left. It kept getting worse and worse. His kidney stopped working. They talked of dialysis but he'd have to go to Charlotte. And they didn't think he'd make the flight. They said he was so swollen. He had all this fluid going into his body and next to nothing coming out.

I asked Mama what I should do. Should I come? She said she didn't think so. I asked Wendy what she thought. She said she didn't know what to tell me. Tuesday I decided that if they were going to transfer him to Charlotte then I would fly down Friday and spend the weekend at the hospital. I wanted to see my Daddy. Mama told me Tuesday night that his eyes didn't look right. That it seemed like he'd had a stroke. That one side of his face seemed like it had drooped. They were planning on doing another CT scan Wednesday morning around 9am. I called John from work on Wednesday. It was my morning break. 9:15am. Had they done the scan? Not yet. I asked him to call me either way. I wanted to know the answer either way. I found Chris and gave him a run-down of my situation. Told him I was expecting a call. He said he'd patch it through to me as soon as he got it. I told him I wouldn't be able to work over on Friday because I needed to fly out that evening. He asked if I needed to take the day off. I said, No. I didn't think so. The morning passed. My stomach in knots. My heart in my throat. All out of whack. I'd hear the phone ring and wait... But no calls for me. That's good, I told myself. Good news is easier to with hold. Maybe John thinks it'll be better for me to find out good news on my lunch break. Lunch time crept up. Twelve o'clock. I raced for the break room. Grabbed my coat and lunch and was nearly out the door when Denise Gliddon grabbed me. Janet! There you are! I just paged you. You've got a phone call.