I love your name that was my Dad's name.  Close friends and my mom called him Johnny.  First, he had been sick for decades really so it was not unexpected.  But the decline after his surgery was unexpected. Once he was back in the hospital though we knew he would not be home.  He was 59 by less than a month.  The story of his illness is really long so I will try to keep it within the cliff notes version.  As time goes on I will tell you more stories that happened to him.  There are many.

His illness started with kidney failure.  I don't know if anyone close to you has ever had a terminal illness but it's a circle you start with this and that causes this and the meds you have to take to help with one thing cause another.  He was on dialysis for a few years until he had a kidney transplant.  He got double pneumonia and was actually in ICU for 3 months and then in a regular room a month in 1987.  He actually got that because when you are on Tetracyclene (sp) it breaks down your ammunities and he just didn't realize he was that sick until it was too late.  Anyway, while he was sick he lost alot of weight I would bet he weighed no more than 110 lbs and he was 5'11.  He never gained the weight back so from then on he was weaker than before.  Anyway, his blood didn't clot after he got sick so he was always having to have transfusions.  He got Hep C from a transfusion before they knew what it was or how to prevent it and from that he got Scirosis (sp) of the liver.  The Scirosis causes verisees (sp) which is where the blood vessels in either your stomach or intestines (I'm not sure which) burst and cause internal bleeding and cause you to throw up blood.  He started losing weight he didn't have to lose and they never figured out why.  He really started getting weaker alot faster about 6 months ago.  Looking back I noticed a change in him.  In the end his dr.'s recommended surgery to remove a cist under his left arm and to remove the shunt that they had used for dialysis.  (His vessels were collapsing so they kept having to move the shunt and build up his veins to get him thru the dialysis).  He was so thin and weak at that point the rest of us couldn't figure out why they did the surgery or why we let them.  After the surgery he came home for a week and then was back in the hospital and he was there for about 2 weeks until he passed away.  We knew, in the beginning they said he would probably last 3 months but he was not going to get to come home.  We would have to put him in what they call Life Care because they provide dialysis.  They could never release him because he was so thin I would guess by this point he weighed less than 100 lbs and his heart would race and they would have to shock it back to a normal.   They kept having to take him off the dialysis machines early because he was too weak to finish.  He wasn't (and hadn't been really in a while) eating so they put him on a feeding tube.  The dr.'s at this point started telling us we had months, then something would happen and it would be weeks or days then it would go back to months.  I asked his nurse what she thought and (after some coaxing) she said 4 days and he lasted 3.  It was peaceful.  He just slowly left.  We watched the monitor (actually we had been watching from day 1) just slow down.  Several days before he was not responding to us really.  His eyes were open and sometimes he would respond to movement but to you or your voice.  I was not with him when it happened but my brother was and he said he just exhaled.  I'm glad it was peaceful.  This was still pretty long but it was just the tip of the iceberg.  I can go into more detail later. He went thru some pretty horrible things things that would make anyone else just crawl into a dark hole and not come out.

That brings me to the person he was.  He was without a doubt the strongest most loyal person I've ever known and I'm sure ever will.   If someone came to see him he was more worried about making them ok with his condition than telling you what he was going thru.  When people asked him he would say he was great and would turn the conversation to them.  He was salesman, too, he sold Lear Jets and small planes like Piper and Beechcraft (before they went under).  Also, if I had a friend over he would talk to them and ask them about their lives and make them feel important.  No matter how much time passed from 1 visit to the next he would remember their kids names jobs, etc. because he knew those things were important to them.  He was my biggest fan and supporter.  We live close to each other and they take care of my daughter after school so I saw him everyday and talked to him on the phone at least once a day to check on him.  Everytime I talked to him or saw him he would tell me how much he loved me how proud of me he was.  He would say things like "you look nice" or "I like your hair that way" like specific compliments.  He would always say when you get to where you're going remember the people in the room are lucky when you walk to be graced with your presence.  He did the same for my mom.  We also said "I love you" everytime we spoke or saw each other no matter how many times we had already talked that day.  Some of this was probably because he was so ill and every year had a life threatening incident where we thought he was not coming home.  So we never had the luxury of time so we always said and did what needed to be done.  I am so proud of him.  Other people will still walk up to me to tell me that when they were looking for a salesman and they asked around for an honest one in every instance the one name that kept coming up was my Dad's.  There are so many examples I could give you.  I will tell 1 more story.  My parent's and some of their friends were talking about another man that was not there.  My dad said that this man truly honored his family.  The other husband then said no the only man that I have ever met that truly honors and repects his family in front of them and away from them is Johnny.  He said my dad even in a group of men he has never even given the impression that he does not adore his family in all the years he'd known him.  I love that story so I had to tell you.  To be honest this is just the tip of the iceberg on how good a person he was.

I'm sorry this is so long I will keep my future posts shorter.  Thank you for emailing me and asking about him.  I love to talk about him and need to talk about him.  What my friends don't understand is that his death is as much a part of my day as his life was and I don't know how to deal with that yet really.  Make sense?

Have you lost a parent or a loved one? 

Thanks for responding,

Lisa

J Hum <jhum07@...> wrote:

Hi Lisa,

It's good to hear from you. Sorry for your loss. For some August to Feb. might seem like a long time, but it's not really that long of a time of grieving for such a significant loss. In fact, it's not that long of a time for someone that wasn't that close to their parent, and you described your relationship as "very close," so the ongoing hurt is to be expected in many ways.

 

If it would be helpful for you, maybe you could share with us about your dad. What was he like, what was your relationship like, and how did he die (was it "expected")?

 

Thanks for writing.

John

Lisa <lisahicks13@...> wrote:

Hello, I joined this group because I lost my father August 21.  We
were very close.  I had no idea how hard this would be and how hard
it would be to comprehend what "forever" really means.  I still
haven't.  Hopefully someone who has been thru this will have some
words of wisdom.

Lisa
Saragypsy

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