He was the eternal do-it-yourselfer, my father!
I have one delightful memory of this self-sufficient way of his. This occured when I was about 9 years old. My sister, two and a half years my younger, and I were playing in the front yard of our home on a beautiful Saturday summer morning, as most summer mornings in Southern Oregon are. My mother, wisely, was at a meeting. Whether this was planned (which I now, in 20/20 hindsight, am certain it was) or coincidence I did not at the time know.
What I did know was that Dad was working on the Upstairs Toilet and he was Not To Be Interrupted.
Along the front of the house, separating the front walk to the front door from the lawn where we were playing, was a hedge of about three and a half to four feet high. My sister and I were playing peacefully and enjoying the morning when our young, virgin ears heard a few loud obscenities being yelled from inside the house.
The next thing we knew, the front door swung open and Dad takes a flying leap over the hedge, running into the yard to the fence along the street to turn off the water main.
My sister and I watched, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, my father demonstrate track and field skills we never knew he had (doubtful he knew until that moment as well) and then, with only a single glance in our direction as if to say, "Don't you DARE mention any of this to your mother..." walk back into the house, this time around the hedge and up the walk to the front door.
Dear Dad--you filled my life with so much laughter, with so much understanding, comprehension and love. You were my teammate, you were my number one supporter. My mind remembers the fun-filled moments like this we shared--and then I flash back to my head laying on your chest after you were disconnected from life support, waiting for your heart to cease its beating, holding your hand, crying over your chest. What laughter we knew--and what pain I felt as my heart shattered when you died.
I love you and miss you so much, Daddy.
Happy Father's Day.
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta mama llama's papa. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta mama llama's papa. Mostrar todas las entradas
viernes, 13 de junio de 2008
martes, 10 de junio de 2008
viernes, 18 de abril de 2008
Halftime in the sickie ward
This is what my father always said of the noise made on those sick nights...you know those nights, when there are great bouts of coughing accompanied by sneezes and whimpering made by all those who did not feel well.
"Sounds like it's halftime in the Sickie Ward."
Last night was one of Those kinds of nights.
It lingers. The Young Prince continues to cough, although the chest rattle and wheezing seems to be gone. A slight, low-grade temperature has returned but nothing to worry about--just no school today! Mama Llama has a fun headache (yeah, what else is new, really?) and the chest rattle and cough, but the fever seems to stay away--which is just fine by me.
I have a T-ball game to assistant coach tomorrow morning! Wild Ponies vs. Unicorns. (Don't you just love the names?) Muy importante... so must be in form, voice and all!
The good news is that we have been warmer this week, allowing for 1. lots of outside time; 2. lots of Vitamin D to be absorbed; 3. not having to wear multi-layers of clothing; and 4. delving into my Spring clothing supply which, by nature, allows my new piko-pierce to not be constricted at all and heal right. My garden is in full bloom--as soon as I can get the pics developed, I'll post a few!
Oh, I LOVE Spring!
"Sounds like it's halftime in the Sickie Ward."
Last night was one of Those kinds of nights.
It lingers. The Young Prince continues to cough, although the chest rattle and wheezing seems to be gone. A slight, low-grade temperature has returned but nothing to worry about--just no school today! Mama Llama has a fun headache (yeah, what else is new, really?) and the chest rattle and cough, but the fever seems to stay away--which is just fine by me.
I have a T-ball game to assistant coach tomorrow morning! Wild Ponies vs. Unicorns. (Don't you just love the names?) Muy importante... so must be in form, voice and all!
The good news is that we have been warmer this week, allowing for 1. lots of outside time; 2. lots of Vitamin D to be absorbed; 3. not having to wear multi-layers of clothing; and 4. delving into my Spring clothing supply which, by nature, allows my new piko-pierce to not be constricted at all and heal right. My garden is in full bloom--as soon as I can get the pics developed, I'll post a few!
Oh, I LOVE Spring!
miércoles, 5 de marzo de 2008
Life
My father-in-law is doing better, sounding clearer, and will be checking out of the rehab hospital for home this week.
My mother-in-law cannot remember what she has eaten during the day due to agressive frontal lobe degeneration (aka Alzheimer's) and will doubtfully even remember her own name, let alone her children, in a few months.
It is so difficult to see those we hold in such high esteem for all of our lives become weak and decline with age. Perhaps because it is a constant reminder to us, in our "prime", of what we are to become with age...and such a thought is just not very promising.
My father almost died of a pancreatic tumor that doctors at OHSU had never seen before back in 1980, when he was 40. That recurred in his liver in 1995, finally killing him in 1999. Instead of looking forward to my future, I find myself dreading the aging process that I face over the next few years. Logically, it is highly doubtful that I will suffer the same issues that my father battled; our lives are so different--many external variables were in play in my father's life that have not ever been applicable in my life. However unreasonable, the fear and the dread exist.
My mother was diagnosed with Graves' Disease after my father's death, so I have been watching closely my thyroid as well. However, with her that is the extent of any "malady" of age that she has experienced thus far. I consider myself, in a way, lucky to have not had to deal with the problems, yet, that many face when their parents become older. That may sound extremely self-centered, and interpret that as you may...but I do not for a moment wish that my father were dead instead of being here to complete my mother's life and to be known by his grandchildren.
La Princesita, the highly sensitive soul she is, can tell that something is up so we talked about it this evening. The situation is completely beyond her comprehension, but I vowed when I was about to become a mother that I would not allow anything to inhibit my communication with my children, so when they come to me with a question, I do all I can to answer it at their level (Today's magic question was, by the way: Mommy, what is a "hippie boy?"...duuuuuuude...).
Bringing Real Life to their level also makes me think a lot about growing older, and how much easier it would be to just end Life so as not to put our loved ones through the pain of watching their parents decline, forget who they are, forget their children, have their insides eaten up or rot away by some disease...whatever. But that is no solution, either, and is selfish to boot--not to mention morally unacceptable by the standards of institutionalized religion and social standards.
So what do we do? How do we grow old with grace and beauty? Do we live each day as if it were our last? To what extent is such living possible? The accident of two years ago brought this to the forefront of my mind, as all who came to our rescue in our overturned, afire car were prepared for a carful of fatalities. Had it been a car made to a lesser quality standard, we probably would all be four little crosses on the side of the road just east of Nashville.
But we weren't.
Why?
How do we live each day as if it were our last? I honestly am not sure how, when we get so caught up in the to-do lists, work, the children and their schedules, trying to salvage even a moment for a little me-time--then start feeling guilty when I think that I should be taking every moment with my children and making it as if it were my last.
I never thought this way before the accident.
Now I find myself thinking it more and more.
My mother-in-law cannot remember what she has eaten during the day due to agressive frontal lobe degeneration (aka Alzheimer's) and will doubtfully even remember her own name, let alone her children, in a few months.
It is so difficult to see those we hold in such high esteem for all of our lives become weak and decline with age. Perhaps because it is a constant reminder to us, in our "prime", of what we are to become with age...and such a thought is just not very promising.
My father almost died of a pancreatic tumor that doctors at OHSU had never seen before back in 1980, when he was 40. That recurred in his liver in 1995, finally killing him in 1999. Instead of looking forward to my future, I find myself dreading the aging process that I face over the next few years. Logically, it is highly doubtful that I will suffer the same issues that my father battled; our lives are so different--many external variables were in play in my father's life that have not ever been applicable in my life. However unreasonable, the fear and the dread exist.
My mother was diagnosed with Graves' Disease after my father's death, so I have been watching closely my thyroid as well. However, with her that is the extent of any "malady" of age that she has experienced thus far. I consider myself, in a way, lucky to have not had to deal with the problems, yet, that many face when their parents become older. That may sound extremely self-centered, and interpret that as you may...but I do not for a moment wish that my father were dead instead of being here to complete my mother's life and to be known by his grandchildren.
La Princesita, the highly sensitive soul she is, can tell that something is up so we talked about it this evening. The situation is completely beyond her comprehension, but I vowed when I was about to become a mother that I would not allow anything to inhibit my communication with my children, so when they come to me with a question, I do all I can to answer it at their level (Today's magic question was, by the way: Mommy, what is a "hippie boy?"...duuuuuuude...).
Bringing Real Life to their level also makes me think a lot about growing older, and how much easier it would be to just end Life so as not to put our loved ones through the pain of watching their parents decline, forget who they are, forget their children, have their insides eaten up or rot away by some disease...whatever. But that is no solution, either, and is selfish to boot--not to mention morally unacceptable by the standards of institutionalized religion and social standards.
So what do we do? How do we grow old with grace and beauty? Do we live each day as if it were our last? To what extent is such living possible? The accident of two years ago brought this to the forefront of my mind, as all who came to our rescue in our overturned, afire car were prepared for a carful of fatalities. Had it been a car made to a lesser quality standard, we probably would all be four little crosses on the side of the road just east of Nashville.
But we weren't.
Why?
How do we live each day as if it were our last? I honestly am not sure how, when we get so caught up in the to-do lists, work, the children and their schedules, trying to salvage even a moment for a little me-time--then start feeling guilty when I think that I should be taking every moment with my children and making it as if it were my last.
I never thought this way before the accident.
Now I find myself thinking it more and more.
jueves, 7 de febrero de 2008
a boxful of memories
My mother has been cleaning house.
Today I received a box in the mail. Its contents included:
Why cry? Do I mourn? Do I wish? Is it the handwriting? Is it that I want for simpler times? Is it that I know I will never give my children the family life that I grew up with just because there is no way that I can be happy here? Should I sacrifice my happiness and my completeness in life for after they are grown and out of the house, only so that they might have at the least a façade of a stable, happy home (in which, of course, the parents don't even sleep together, let alone hardly speak)? Is it that I just miss my father so terribly? Is it that my last interaction with my grandmother was that of an emotional, hormonally over-reactive teenager who ran off from her parents and acted like a spoiled brat and worried them all terribly...then she died of a massive coronary two weeks later in the middle of the night, without my ever making it right again? Then felt like I was being more punished when my other grandmother, my only other living grandparent, died not six months later? Is it that I miss my mother? Is it that I miss feeling like a part of a family? Is it that I'm tired of for so long trying to force a family out of what is not strong enough to make that happen?
She says that she has made lots of trips to the Goodwill for donations and has just gotten rid of so much stuff.
I hope she finally let Dad's shirts go. They have been hanging in the closet upstairs for eight years now.
And it makes me so terribly sad to see them still there every time I return to the home of my youth...not so much for her and her need to hold on, but for my missing him so...
But, of the three of us left, I'm the strong one who can't let that be known.
So please don't tell her that.
Today I received a box in the mail. Its contents included:
- a coin from a show we saw together as a family in Beijing in March 1997
- a framed crosstitch that my grandmother had done, that my mother had always hung in the laundry room
- a clay picture I had created as an art project in elementary school, which she had hung, also, in the house
- an envelope filled with photos--everything from me at one week old to the Oak Alley plantation tour we took the week I was to be married, and postcards representing so many of the different countries I visited throughout my 20s
- two sweaters, hand-knit, that my mother had made my sister and I when we were La Princesita's age...she, in fact, wants to wear one of them tomorrow to kindergarten
- a family portrait of the four of us of when I was in the third grade. After my father had his first tumor removed, in the spring of 1981. He was 40. And so thin.
- all the Mother's Day cards I had made or given her, and all the Father's Day cards I had made or given Dad
- a couple of cards from my grandmother, who had died back in 1985 when I was 13
Why cry? Do I mourn? Do I wish? Is it the handwriting? Is it that I want for simpler times? Is it that I know I will never give my children the family life that I grew up with just because there is no way that I can be happy here? Should I sacrifice my happiness and my completeness in life for after they are grown and out of the house, only so that they might have at the least a façade of a stable, happy home (in which, of course, the parents don't even sleep together, let alone hardly speak)? Is it that I just miss my father so terribly? Is it that my last interaction with my grandmother was that of an emotional, hormonally over-reactive teenager who ran off from her parents and acted like a spoiled brat and worried them all terribly...then she died of a massive coronary two weeks later in the middle of the night, without my ever making it right again? Then felt like I was being more punished when my other grandmother, my only other living grandparent, died not six months later? Is it that I miss my mother? Is it that I miss feeling like a part of a family? Is it that I'm tired of for so long trying to force a family out of what is not strong enough to make that happen?
She says that she has made lots of trips to the Goodwill for donations and has just gotten rid of so much stuff.
I hope she finally let Dad's shirts go. They have been hanging in the closet upstairs for eight years now.
And it makes me so terribly sad to see them still there every time I return to the home of my youth...not so much for her and her need to hold on, but for my missing him so...
But, of the three of us left, I'm the strong one who can't let that be known.
So please don't tell her that.
domingo, 3 de febrero de 2008
super boooooooowl
Will I be watching? Yeah, mainly the ads. But there is something intrinsically exciting about the blatant exertion of testosterone-driven aggression between two packs of males...
(oooooga oooooga)
It does help when you understand a bit about the game, too...I learned just a trite from my Daddy.
Unfortunately, here in these Eastern Lands the televised game is on so late that I would only have hopes of making it to halftime. However, in Japan...HA! It was televised after the game had ended. You had to either 1. not understand any Japanese whatsoever, or 2. simply turn off all forms of media communication if you did NOT want to hear who had won before the game had actually ended; yes, half-time Japanese commentary always talked about why the game ended up the way it did, JUST so we could watch it "in retrospect" in the second half...
slighly defeats the purpose, ¿no?
And my pick?
The Patriots, of course!
Why?
One simple reason:
Tom Brady is HOT.
(what, isn't that enough???)
(oooooga oooooga)
It does help when you understand a bit about the game, too...I learned just a trite from my Daddy.
Unfortunately, here in these Eastern Lands the televised game is on so late that I would only have hopes of making it to halftime. However, in Japan...HA! It was televised after the game had ended. You had to either 1. not understand any Japanese whatsoever, or 2. simply turn off all forms of media communication if you did NOT want to hear who had won before the game had actually ended; yes, half-time Japanese commentary always talked about why the game ended up the way it did, JUST so we could watch it "in retrospect" in the second half...
slighly defeats the purpose, ¿no?
And my pick?
The Patriots, of course!
Why?
One simple reason:
Tom Brady is HOT.
(what, isn't that enough???)
lunes, 21 de enero de 2008
my sensitive one
La Princesita (Second to The Throne) is an incredibly sensitive soul.
The moment she was born, my midwife said, "Those are eyes of an old soul." I have had so many people since, even complete strangers, say the same thing.
She is a lovely girl, physically. She has the external beauty I always wished I had, with an inner beauty and ability to feel, emote and empathize that a six year-old perhaps should not yet have. She can reach out to those who need help, and it is a blessing in the correct context (for example, in the schoolyard when someone is left out or has fallen and is crying, she is the one to come to the rescue). However, being such a deeply feeling person, as I can attest, comes with many drawbacks--among them feeling the need to carry the weight and the burdens of the world on her shoulders.
La Princesita is highly capable of emoting appropriately, and is very good with putting her feelings into words. That will help her.
Tonight as we were cuddling up in our bedtime routine, she wanted me to, instead of reading a traditional bedtime story, take out her baby book and look at it with me. So I did, she asked questions, I told stories, and it was lovely. I also made a "Grandparents" page in their baby books but, as my father was no longer alive by the time I had either of my children all I could do was put a photo of my father and I dancing at my wedding; the last time we were together when he was not being hospitalized. She asked who that was, and then asked me to tell her about him.
He was a beautiful man. He was a great teacher. He told jokes. He always kept his students interested by telling bad jokes. He was famous for his bad jokes. He coached basketball and football and even wrestling for a while. He was a good man.
This I told her.
She settled against me and asked me how he died.
I told her that he had had cancer of the liver, but that even though the doctors got all the cancer out there were complications, difficulties, problems that they could not solve, one doctor would prescribe medications that would cause side effects that another doctor would give him a different medication to offset and, because the doctors didn't communicate, this made him very sick until his body couldn't take the abuse anymore.
Then I told her that he had died before I got to him, that I had to fly back on the airplane, then the priest came from the church and we said the Our Father over him and I put my head on his chest as they unplugged the machine that was still making him breathe and his heart beat and cried as I listened to his heart stop.
And mi princesita started to sob.
"I feel so bad for Grandpa M---" she cried.
I just held her. Then I asked her if I told her too much. She looked into my eyes and shook her head "no". But she continued to sob. I told her that Grandpa M--- was not well. That even though his mind said that he wanted to live, his body could no longer fight, he was too sick. And the moment he died, he was no longer sick, no longer in pain, no longer suffering. And that his spirit is still with us, even right here as we speak, and that it gives me a lot of comfort and makes me feel good and secure.
She nodded.
But she cried herself to sleep as I kissed her tears away.
The moment she was born, my midwife said, "Those are eyes of an old soul." I have had so many people since, even complete strangers, say the same thing.
She is a lovely girl, physically. She has the external beauty I always wished I had, with an inner beauty and ability to feel, emote and empathize that a six year-old perhaps should not yet have. She can reach out to those who need help, and it is a blessing in the correct context (for example, in the schoolyard when someone is left out or has fallen and is crying, she is the one to come to the rescue). However, being such a deeply feeling person, as I can attest, comes with many drawbacks--among them feeling the need to carry the weight and the burdens of the world on her shoulders.
La Princesita is highly capable of emoting appropriately, and is very good with putting her feelings into words. That will help her.
Tonight as we were cuddling up in our bedtime routine, she wanted me to, instead of reading a traditional bedtime story, take out her baby book and look at it with me. So I did, she asked questions, I told stories, and it was lovely. I also made a "Grandparents" page in their baby books but, as my father was no longer alive by the time I had either of my children all I could do was put a photo of my father and I dancing at my wedding; the last time we were together when he was not being hospitalized. She asked who that was, and then asked me to tell her about him.
He was a beautiful man. He was a great teacher. He told jokes. He always kept his students interested by telling bad jokes. He was famous for his bad jokes. He coached basketball and football and even wrestling for a while. He was a good man.
This I told her.
She settled against me and asked me how he died.
I told her that he had had cancer of the liver, but that even though the doctors got all the cancer out there were complications, difficulties, problems that they could not solve, one doctor would prescribe medications that would cause side effects that another doctor would give him a different medication to offset and, because the doctors didn't communicate, this made him very sick until his body couldn't take the abuse anymore.
Then I told her that he had died before I got to him, that I had to fly back on the airplane, then the priest came from the church and we said the Our Father over him and I put my head on his chest as they unplugged the machine that was still making him breathe and his heart beat and cried as I listened to his heart stop.
And mi princesita started to sob.
"I feel so bad for Grandpa M---" she cried.
I just held her. Then I asked her if I told her too much. She looked into my eyes and shook her head "no". But she continued to sob. I told her that Grandpa M--- was not well. That even though his mind said that he wanted to live, his body could no longer fight, he was too sick. And the moment he died, he was no longer sick, no longer in pain, no longer suffering. And that his spirit is still with us, even right here as we speak, and that it gives me a lot of comfort and makes me feel good and secure.
She nodded.
But she cried herself to sleep as I kissed her tears away.
lunes, 17 de diciembre de 2007
Remembrances
I have thought a lot about my dear father today.
He was a really good teacher. At his funeral were students from his very first class, in 1967, to his last class in 1998. Our State Senator had my father for math, and attended the funeral. The church was packed full, I was really taken by how many lives he had touched but at the same time was not at all surprised. Many of my friends who had also had my father were in attendance; it had almost turned into a type of class reunion.
His best friend did not come to the funeral. We had asked him to be a pallbearer and he turned that down. I cannot blame him; his pain must have been so great, yet also his relief must have contradicted that pain, as I am sure he hated to see my father go downhill as rapidly as he did.
My uncle and I sat together, and I held his hand as he cried. My father was the last of his immediate family, and I knew he was so broken inside to lose his big brother. I have always been close to my uncle, closer than my sister or my mother. I got to see him this past summer 2007 while back in Oregon and introduced him to my children. It was the first time we had seen each other since the funeral.
My father did not want a lot of people going to the gravesite for the burial, but a large number still followed us 30 miles up the freeway to pay their final respects. It was such a cold December day, but the sun did shine, and an eagle flew overhead as he was laid into the ground.
That morning, while preparing for the preceding wake, I was looking out the window in the backyard when I saw the most brilliant sight. The morning frost was thick on the evergreens in my mother's backyard and, with the rays of the morning sun shining through the branches, a dazzling, sparkling frost powder was falling from the branches. The effect was amazing; it was as if raining diamonds. I called my sister, my mother's brother and my cousins, who had come down from up north for the funeral, to the back window and pointed, without words, at what I saw. We all stood there in silence, beholding this beauty, for a long time. I know we were all thinking the same thing; Dad wanted us to know he was there, too, and in a better place, and that he would be with us all this difficult day.
As my great-aunt watched the eagle soar over the cold cemetery where we were all standing, I heard her inhale and utter, "Oh, Mike, there you are." One of his favorite songs was "On Eagle's Wings" which was sung at his funeral Mass.
The Mass had ended, we decided, with "Angels We Have Heard on High." It was appropriate, considering it was only two days before Christmas.
What a shame that you could never know your grandchildren; your sense of humor is so vivid in their young personalities. I pray they never lose that.
I miss you, Dad.
He was a really good teacher. At his funeral were students from his very first class, in 1967, to his last class in 1998. Our State Senator had my father for math, and attended the funeral. The church was packed full, I was really taken by how many lives he had touched but at the same time was not at all surprised. Many of my friends who had also had my father were in attendance; it had almost turned into a type of class reunion.
His best friend did not come to the funeral. We had asked him to be a pallbearer and he turned that down. I cannot blame him; his pain must have been so great, yet also his relief must have contradicted that pain, as I am sure he hated to see my father go downhill as rapidly as he did.
My uncle and I sat together, and I held his hand as he cried. My father was the last of his immediate family, and I knew he was so broken inside to lose his big brother. I have always been close to my uncle, closer than my sister or my mother. I got to see him this past summer 2007 while back in Oregon and introduced him to my children. It was the first time we had seen each other since the funeral.
My father did not want a lot of people going to the gravesite for the burial, but a large number still followed us 30 miles up the freeway to pay their final respects. It was such a cold December day, but the sun did shine, and an eagle flew overhead as he was laid into the ground.
That morning, while preparing for the preceding wake, I was looking out the window in the backyard when I saw the most brilliant sight. The morning frost was thick on the evergreens in my mother's backyard and, with the rays of the morning sun shining through the branches, a dazzling, sparkling frost powder was falling from the branches. The effect was amazing; it was as if raining diamonds. I called my sister, my mother's brother and my cousins, who had come down from up north for the funeral, to the back window and pointed, without words, at what I saw. We all stood there in silence, beholding this beauty, for a long time. I know we were all thinking the same thing; Dad wanted us to know he was there, too, and in a better place, and that he would be with us all this difficult day.
As my great-aunt watched the eagle soar over the cold cemetery where we were all standing, I heard her inhale and utter, "Oh, Mike, there you are." One of his favorite songs was "On Eagle's Wings" which was sung at his funeral Mass.
The Mass had ended, we decided, with "Angels We Have Heard on High." It was appropriate, considering it was only two days before Christmas.
What a shame that you could never know your grandchildren; your sense of humor is so vivid in their young personalities. I pray they never lose that.
I miss you, Dad.
lunes, 10 de diciembre de 2007
my daddy
In 1980, when I was in the 3rd grade, my father almost died.
Doctors didn't know what was wrong with him. He hurt. He ached. He couldn't sleep. He couldn't eat. He was 40 years old and he spent his nights pacing the entire house and his days laying down, wondering if he was dying.
The CT scan was first used in the mid-1970s but it wasn't until right around 1980 that certain medical centers and research institutions had them. After having been diagnosed with what doctors believed to be some sort of vasculitis or blood vessel cancer, he had a CT scan taken and a grapefruit-sized tumor was discovered growing in his abdomen. He was rushed to Oregon Health Sciences University where his surgery was the first of its kind. The doctors went in believing the tumor was on his spleen but, upon removal of the spleen, they discovered that was not correct. They then had to re-evaluate, re-enter and remove half of his pancreas where the ice-blue tumor was found.
This returned my father to pretty much perfect health.
I was eight years old at the time, and remember vividly the emotions and the struggle to try to understand all that was happening, trying to be grown up and strong for my mother and my little sister who doesn't really remember anything of this time.
All was well for years.
I received The Phone Call while in Japan, in fall of 1995. Dad had a recurrance of the tumor, but this time in the liver. Things weren't looking good, but there was hope in a relatively new surgical procedure called cryosurgery. (Only) About 200 surgeries had been performed using this technique. The tumor would be frozen and killed, the body would flush out the toxins and the liver, being an organ that can regenerate itself, would do so in time.
Insurance would not cover this as it was deemed "too experimental", so my parents took the insurance company to court and won. After their trip to Japan and our family trip to China in 1997, they sent word that the surgery was scheduled for the end of May.
My father had type B blood. Positive or negative, I don't know. But it was B. He had to have a transfusion of blood platelets after the long surgery, which his body rejected. He went code blue three times.
During this day I was in Japan not able to sit still. I had a horrible headache, I didn't know what was happening, I hadn't heard from anyone. I even tried phoning my uncle in Sacramento for news, but to no avail. I knew something was wrong.
Doctors told my mother to pray, because my father was bleeding to death inside and there were no platelets in his blood to clot him. There was nothing they could do as his body was rejecting all their efforts.
So she did.
The next morning the bleeding had stopped and my father had regained partial consciousness. One doctor pulled my mother aside and said, "This is when I really do believe in the hand of God. We had nothing to do with this."
My father was baptised and confirmed into the Catholic Church the next Easter. I don't know what had happened to him, if he had visions, anything. I just know that he felt God had spoken to him and that he felt that he needed to make this step immediately.
At Thanksgiving of 1998, just engaged and having spent Thanksgiving with my soon-to-be sister-in-law's family in Colorado, I returned home to word that my father's tumor had returned, and that surgery was scheduled for right after Christmas. I arranged all plans to be able to be there for the duration, and my mother, my uncle and I stayed in that hospital all fourteen hours of that surgery...a surgery we were told would only take "max 4-6 hours."
He made it.
When I saw him after the surgery in ICU, yellowed with jaundice, the room around me began to spin, my chest felt heavily compressed, and I could not breathe; I about passed out. I had never expected such a strong reaction. My mother and my uncle couldn't even come into the room. I had to sit with my head between my legs, I held Dad's hand and just talked to him to let him know I was there as he came to excrutiatingly slowly. He gently squeezed my hand, which gave me the strength I needed to go on and to encourage my mother and my uncle to enter and talk to him, too.
I helped him walk up and down the corridors, as he knew to be up and walking immediately. He couldn't believe he was actually alive.
He walked me down the aisle in May of that year.
In June, immediately following my honeymoon, my parents informed us of a minor complication, something that could be taken care of in a simple outpatient procedure in their own hometown hospital. The scar tissue was blocking his bile duct and they had to go back in and unblock the duct.
However, the scar tissue had grown in like cement and the doctors couldn't get through. So he was sent back up to Portland, to the same doctor as before.
And had to undergo another fourteen-hour surgery, this time a bile duct bypass.
Upon learning of this I flew home immediately for a couple of weeks to help them get home and get my father back on his feet. He had a hole in his side where the bile would drain into a bag, that he had to empty. He had to duct tape this contraption onto his skin, and he said that the nurses refused to do it at his doctor's office. Probably because it was so gross. So that was my job after he showered, to help him re-attach his bag over his tube.
The day I left I accompanied him to his oncologist appointment. He had a temperature. I inquired to the doctor, doesn't that mean that there is infection? He just ignored me. Looked right through me as if I didn't exist and went on with his business.
I didn't want to leave, and I didn't feel right leaving.
That was the last time I would see my father alive.
There were various episodes following my departure during which my mother had to call family friends and 911 in the middle of the night. True nightmares to have to face alone...why is it the nights are always the worst?
He did have an infection. He had staph. But nobody treated him for staph. He was treated by one doctor for symptoms of medications that another doctor had prescribed him. It was as if the insurance company had said, "No more."
He developed blood clots and started to have strokes. He was then under the same doctor's care that his mother was under when she died...while having strokes in the hospital.
Difference was, she was a life-long smoker and had 15 years on him when she died.
Our last telephone conversation was one of great pain. I asked him why he wouldn't question what the doctors were saying or doing, because he always had said he would never allow himself to get caught in the whirlpool of medications that will drag you to your death, as it had his mother. He, rather angrily but in slurred stroke-affected speech, told me that they were all that were keeping him alive.
Christmas was coming, and we were planning to spend it together in New Orleans before flying up for the New Year to Oregon to be with my family. We had our first tree up, the lights twinkled, it was beautiful. Then, the night before I was to administer my final exam to my students, I had handed in all my master's work and officially completed my degree, my mother called. My dad had slipped into a coma. She was strangely calm. He had been lucid when they got in the elevator. When she realized she forgot her purse in his room, she left to get it and said they would meet up in x-ray or wherever it was they were taking him. She said she will never know what happened in that elevator because when she got upstairs, he was unconscious and nobody would answer her questions.
The doctor was calling her at home to pressure her to take him off the life support.
Neither my sister nor I were home yet. They hadn't even done a brain scan on him until an hour before I had flown in and arrived at the Christmasy-clad hospital the next day.
My mother, my sister and I were told by cold doctors, "Someone else could use those machines more now. They could be going to better use."
My sister verbally attacked him. I could have punched him.
We called our priest. We all stood around him and had a final Mass over him.
I still can't say the Our Father without crying.
We disconnected life support.
I held my daddy's hand and laid my head on his chest and cried and cried and cried and told my daddy how much I loved him. My mother and my sister held onto each other, they stood together at the foot of the bed. My daddy was my protector, he was my ally, he was my daddy.
I laid with my head on his chest and cried and listened to his heart beat slowly, slowly, slowly until it beat no more. Father had to pull me from his chest.
He was 59 years old.
December 17, 1999...but it sometimes still feels like yesterday.
Doctors didn't know what was wrong with him. He hurt. He ached. He couldn't sleep. He couldn't eat. He was 40 years old and he spent his nights pacing the entire house and his days laying down, wondering if he was dying.
The CT scan was first used in the mid-1970s but it wasn't until right around 1980 that certain medical centers and research institutions had them. After having been diagnosed with what doctors believed to be some sort of vasculitis or blood vessel cancer, he had a CT scan taken and a grapefruit-sized tumor was discovered growing in his abdomen. He was rushed to Oregon Health Sciences University where his surgery was the first of its kind. The doctors went in believing the tumor was on his spleen but, upon removal of the spleen, they discovered that was not correct. They then had to re-evaluate, re-enter and remove half of his pancreas where the ice-blue tumor was found.
This returned my father to pretty much perfect health.
I was eight years old at the time, and remember vividly the emotions and the struggle to try to understand all that was happening, trying to be grown up and strong for my mother and my little sister who doesn't really remember anything of this time.
All was well for years.
I received The Phone Call while in Japan, in fall of 1995. Dad had a recurrance of the tumor, but this time in the liver. Things weren't looking good, but there was hope in a relatively new surgical procedure called cryosurgery. (Only) About 200 surgeries had been performed using this technique. The tumor would be frozen and killed, the body would flush out the toxins and the liver, being an organ that can regenerate itself, would do so in time.
Insurance would not cover this as it was deemed "too experimental", so my parents took the insurance company to court and won. After their trip to Japan and our family trip to China in 1997, they sent word that the surgery was scheduled for the end of May.
My father had type B blood. Positive or negative, I don't know. But it was B. He had to have a transfusion of blood platelets after the long surgery, which his body rejected. He went code blue three times.
During this day I was in Japan not able to sit still. I had a horrible headache, I didn't know what was happening, I hadn't heard from anyone. I even tried phoning my uncle in Sacramento for news, but to no avail. I knew something was wrong.
Doctors told my mother to pray, because my father was bleeding to death inside and there were no platelets in his blood to clot him. There was nothing they could do as his body was rejecting all their efforts.
So she did.
The next morning the bleeding had stopped and my father had regained partial consciousness. One doctor pulled my mother aside and said, "This is when I really do believe in the hand of God. We had nothing to do with this."
My father was baptised and confirmed into the Catholic Church the next Easter. I don't know what had happened to him, if he had visions, anything. I just know that he felt God had spoken to him and that he felt that he needed to make this step immediately.
At Thanksgiving of 1998, just engaged and having spent Thanksgiving with my soon-to-be sister-in-law's family in Colorado, I returned home to word that my father's tumor had returned, and that surgery was scheduled for right after Christmas. I arranged all plans to be able to be there for the duration, and my mother, my uncle and I stayed in that hospital all fourteen hours of that surgery...a surgery we were told would only take "max 4-6 hours."
He made it.
When I saw him after the surgery in ICU, yellowed with jaundice, the room around me began to spin, my chest felt heavily compressed, and I could not breathe; I about passed out. I had never expected such a strong reaction. My mother and my uncle couldn't even come into the room. I had to sit with my head between my legs, I held Dad's hand and just talked to him to let him know I was there as he came to excrutiatingly slowly. He gently squeezed my hand, which gave me the strength I needed to go on and to encourage my mother and my uncle to enter and talk to him, too.
I helped him walk up and down the corridors, as he knew to be up and walking immediately. He couldn't believe he was actually alive.
He walked me down the aisle in May of that year.
In June, immediately following my honeymoon, my parents informed us of a minor complication, something that could be taken care of in a simple outpatient procedure in their own hometown hospital. The scar tissue was blocking his bile duct and they had to go back in and unblock the duct.
However, the scar tissue had grown in like cement and the doctors couldn't get through. So he was sent back up to Portland, to the same doctor as before.
And had to undergo another fourteen-hour surgery, this time a bile duct bypass.
Upon learning of this I flew home immediately for a couple of weeks to help them get home and get my father back on his feet. He had a hole in his side where the bile would drain into a bag, that he had to empty. He had to duct tape this contraption onto his skin, and he said that the nurses refused to do it at his doctor's office. Probably because it was so gross. So that was my job after he showered, to help him re-attach his bag over his tube.
The day I left I accompanied him to his oncologist appointment. He had a temperature. I inquired to the doctor, doesn't that mean that there is infection? He just ignored me. Looked right through me as if I didn't exist and went on with his business.
I didn't want to leave, and I didn't feel right leaving.
That was the last time I would see my father alive.
There were various episodes following my departure during which my mother had to call family friends and 911 in the middle of the night. True nightmares to have to face alone...why is it the nights are always the worst?
He did have an infection. He had staph. But nobody treated him for staph. He was treated by one doctor for symptoms of medications that another doctor had prescribed him. It was as if the insurance company had said, "No more."
He developed blood clots and started to have strokes. He was then under the same doctor's care that his mother was under when she died...while having strokes in the hospital.
Difference was, she was a life-long smoker and had 15 years on him when she died.
Our last telephone conversation was one of great pain. I asked him why he wouldn't question what the doctors were saying or doing, because he always had said he would never allow himself to get caught in the whirlpool of medications that will drag you to your death, as it had his mother. He, rather angrily but in slurred stroke-affected speech, told me that they were all that were keeping him alive.
Christmas was coming, and we were planning to spend it together in New Orleans before flying up for the New Year to Oregon to be with my family. We had our first tree up, the lights twinkled, it was beautiful. Then, the night before I was to administer my final exam to my students, I had handed in all my master's work and officially completed my degree, my mother called. My dad had slipped into a coma. She was strangely calm. He had been lucid when they got in the elevator. When she realized she forgot her purse in his room, she left to get it and said they would meet up in x-ray or wherever it was they were taking him. She said she will never know what happened in that elevator because when she got upstairs, he was unconscious and nobody would answer her questions.
The doctor was calling her at home to pressure her to take him off the life support.
Neither my sister nor I were home yet. They hadn't even done a brain scan on him until an hour before I had flown in and arrived at the Christmasy-clad hospital the next day.
My mother, my sister and I were told by cold doctors, "Someone else could use those machines more now. They could be going to better use."
My sister verbally attacked him. I could have punched him.
We called our priest. We all stood around him and had a final Mass over him.
I still can't say the Our Father without crying.
We disconnected life support.
I held my daddy's hand and laid my head on his chest and cried and cried and cried and told my daddy how much I loved him. My mother and my sister held onto each other, they stood together at the foot of the bed. My daddy was my protector, he was my ally, he was my daddy.
I laid with my head on his chest and cried and listened to his heart beat slowly, slowly, slowly until it beat no more. Father had to pull me from his chest.
He was 59 years old.
December 17, 1999...but it sometimes still feels like yesterday.
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