Not Dying Today, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise

January 22, 2011 Martha Thomases 20 Comments

No one prepared me for sitting in the hospital with my dying father.  No one told me how to study for it.  No one told me these things, and I wish they had.

•  The human body can produce truly massive quantities of mucus.  And not just from the nose.

•  The person you are when you’re in the hospital at 87 is not the person you are.  My father is not the frail man with garbled speech.  My father is a funny, vibrant, opinionated man who hurls himself into life and, in his attempts to accomplish everything, does more than most.

• Death might be the end for us all, but everybody dies differently.  No one can tell you what one particular death might be like, no matter how many times you ask.  This is no help at all when you are trying to make airline reservations.

• Trauma nurses are the coolest, funniest, most competent and most unflappable people in the universe.

• I think the food at the hospital is so horrendous because they want you to leave, resolving to better appreciate your meals on the outside.

• My father has a living will, and he’s always been quite emphatic in saying that he doesn’t want any heroic measures taken.  He doesn’t want to live if the quality of his life is diminished.  I came down to Florida prepared to respect his wishes.  The part that nobody told me is that, in some cases (in this case), the decision wasn’t so sharply defined.  Some doctors thought he could get better.  Most didn’t.  This is not a democracy.  It doesn’t come down to a vote. My father gets the last word.  After three days of changing his mind, he sided with the majority.

• One of the first things my father did, after deciding to go to hospice, was call his tax attorney and ask him a zillion questions.  He doesn’t want to go until everyone he loves is taken care of.

• Then, he told me this story:  When I was a baby, just born, I had a fissure in my ass, and it was all red and inflalmed,  so he had to put Desitin ointment on me.  That morning, his ass was all red and inflamed, and the nurses had to put Desitin on him.  “That reminded me of you,” he said.

• As I write this, my father is still alive.  I sit at his bedside with a book, or my knitting, listening to his labored breathing.  It is the most wonderful sound in the world.

Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, sends hugs to you all.