A bit late? Maybe. But I think not everyone is quite aware of what's going on in my life right now, so I just decided to wrap it all up into one memoral post for Dad.

A week before February 19th, my dad hadn't been feeling good, at all, so he actually went into the dogs. They diagnosed him with bronchitis and and something else that I can't say, and much less spell :x However, on the Friday after the doctor's appointment, he was still feeling bad, and asked Mom if she could drive him to the local hospital in the morning for another checkup. They never got to that point, as the next morning, my dad was vomiting, falling down, etc., so they called 911.

At the time I was in an FFA contest, so I didn't know about anything. But, once they got the the hospital, the doctors in the ER said that Dad had had a heart attack, up to a week ago (when he'd started feeling bad). I didn't find out about his heart attack until people told me after my contest. I was driven to the hospital, and we stayed there for a while. They ended up having to fly Dad to Minneapolis (we live 8 hours away by car). We drove there immediately.

When Dad got to Minneapolis, he was dead on arrival. The doctor's did NOT tell us that, we had to ask. But, they resuscitated him and got him stable enough. As the week went on, though, there were some complications (about 4 days after he got there). His kidneys weren't functioning well, his right leg kept going cold, and he was having irregular heartbeats. For his kidneys, they put him on dialysis and they shocked him out of his irregular heartbeats.... once while I was in the room with him. Then, on Thursday morning (February 24th) his right leg wasn't getting good circulation, so they were going to do surgery. Best outcome? Everything would go alright. Pretty good outcome? His leg would be amputated. Bad outcome? He dies.

So, they're running tests to make sure they can go through with the surgery, when they find a huge problem. Dad had had a major stroke sometime in the early morning/late night. It wiped out nearly all of his brain function, so it would have been pointless to do the surgery. During this whole week, he had been under sedation (he was in very critical care) except for a few times. We were told to call my older brother (who is 35, there's 20 years between him and I) and tell him that it's time. Once he got there and said his goodbyes, they would take him off the machines (which were the only things keeping him alive). We did, and he was there 3 hours later.

I don't know what the worst part was.... telling the nurses we were ready or the 40 minutes holding his hand and waiting for the nurse to tell us his heart stopped.

My last good time with Dad was in that hospital. They took him off of his sedation while I was in the room.... he looked at me and squeezed my hand :) He did the same thing an hour before him passed. During his stay in Abbott, I was the only one he recognized.

It's really hard being 15 and not having my dad around anymore. I regret every time I doubted him and I wish I'd have spent a lot more time with him. I also really, really wish I would've just gone on those stupid Menard's trips with him.

Dad wasn't really a very social guy, so I really do love all the times I had with him. He had a routine: come home at 5:30PM, watch TV/sleep, make an appearance at supper, watch TV/sleep, come downstairs at 10:00PM and play Solitaire until 2:00AM. But, he was always there. Internet wasn't working? He was down in 10 minutes to fix it. Water pipes frozen? He got out the hairdryer. It was that routine and those little things that I loved him for... and now it's hard to believe that every part of that is gone.

Last night, I had a dream about him. It was a good dream! He had miraculously recovered and I was able to talk to him, put my head on his chest, go to him for advice. The bad part was waking up and realized that in real life, he's not there anymore.

I've been told I'm strong, and I guess I am. But it's going to be hard to make it through this.

RIP Dad.
10/27/56-2/24/11.