My father passed away today.
Two weeks ago he had been cleared for a heart valve replacement surgery, scheduled for this morning. Then, over last weekend, he began having pain in his groin, which his cardiologist gave him some Percocet. Yesterday, he complained of lightheadedness, so my sister took him to the ER of the hospital where the surgery was scheduled. While there, he collapsed, and his BP crashed.
He recovered some when they administered vasopressors, so they decided to just admit him early so he could be rested for the 7:30 a.m. procedure. During the night, when the nursing staff began to turn him to a more comfortable position, his BP crashed again, and his abdomen began distending.
When my sister arrived at 0530, they had been administering vasopressors for some time; they also gave him two units of blood. This was of only marginal utility; he was NOT going to stabilize enough for the heart surgery, so they cancelled that. At about 7:30, they told her that she should have us all come ASAP. I reached the hospital a little after 9, and a doctor was explaining to my sister and brothers that they could do an MRI to try to diagnose the cause of the blood loss, but he wouldn’t likely stabilize enough to do anything about it, even if they discovered anything.
We called my sister in Michigan (who has his DPOA), and she agreed with the recommended course, which was to put one last bag of vasopressors into his PIC line, to give another brother, sister, and a couple of his grandkids time to get there for goodbyes, then discontinue the attempts to raise his BP, and start some morphine to keep him comfortable.
That took place at 10:35. At 11:15, the nurse at the telemetry station came in to notify us that his vitals had stopped and at 11:45 the charge nurse came in to perform the final physical examination and call the time of death.
Dad had been married to Mom from 1951 to 2009, when she passed. We had been worried at the time that he wouldn’t do well without her and might fail rapidly, but, he rallied remarkably. He joined a bereavement group, and began volunteering at the Hospice that had supported Mom during her final days, becoming an indispensable part of the office team (I picked him up to take him to lunch last week, and I saw some dated charts showing vast improvement in their KPIs during the past few months). He also became the virtual leader of the bereavement group.
Services will be scheduled early next week, when his kids and grandkids are all able to gather from as far away as Ukraine.
Thanks for letting me ramble.
