Calling Hospice

Dad was resting in his chair. I went in looking for speakers and found him passed out. “Daddy, daddy.” I said shaking him. Black death like smelling discharge started flowing out of his mouth. I thought he was dead.  I screamed at the top of my lungs. My little sister Tava came in and I ordered her to go get help. She ran out of our apartment screaming louder than I have ever heard anyone scream. 

Dad woke up about 30 seconds after the black tar incident. He managed to walk from his chair to the couch in the den but from there couldn’t move and started screaming in pain. Although he never admitted to dying, the pain was so bad he was screaming and asking that we make it all end. 

I called his Dr. to request morphine. We were fortunate and had a Dr. that would make house calls 24/7. She came with emergency morphine and convinced Dad to start hospice. Not a conversation we were able to have with our father who wouldn't admit to dying. 

I followed up and we would meet our hospice nurse and psychologist the next day. 

Hospice works differently in every state. In Florida they don’t provide 24 hour home care but rather make weekly visits and teach caregivers (in this case, Tava, my two aunts and I) how to administer drugs. 

They came in and prescribed morphine, medical marijuana and some other anti-anxiety medications. 

The meds were way too much to track in one's head. I made a large chart of the different drugs, how often they needed to be or could be administered and which drugs helped with pain, anxiety and diet. There it was, instructions on how to help our dad pass without pain displayed on the living room wall. 

I hadn’t been sleeping well, but I stopped sleeping during the night that day. For the next week, I would spend the evenings on the couch outside my father's bedroom jumping up at any sign of movement. I wasn’t ready for my dad to go and I wasn't going to let him die in pain under my watch. 

The  Robert Munsch book; Love You Forever, that my parents used to read to my sister and I suddenly took new meaning. 

The life cycle had gone full circle and my little sister and I were helping our beloved father die with as little pain as possible, something, that in this day and age is a fortunate thing to be able to do. 

After a week we bought a baby monitor and dad promised to call for help if he was in pain.

“Softly she sings to him:

"I'll love you forever

I'll like you for always
As long as I'm living

My baby you'll be." - Love you Forever: Robert Munsch