My childrens father is dying

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I found out yesterday my ex-husband is in the hospital again and this time it is really bad. It was under a year ago that his alcoholism sent his body over the edge. He had kidney failure and is liver was barely hanging on. He almost died.

He was there over two weeks before we even knew. I am not sure why his sister did not call sooner but by the time she contacted us he was pretty much out of the woods. She said she could not find my number. He spent one more day after we visited him and then he went to a rehab center for two days and then home.

Other than one small bought with a bleeding ulcer a month or so later he has been okay or so we thought. As far as we knew he had stopped drinking. We had a falling out in April about child support and I had not spoken with him since then.

This time it does not look good. He has bleeding in his intestines. They have given him over ten pints of blood and he has went into shock. They now have him on a ventilator and he is sedated. His liver is bad. They said if his liver shows now sign of regeneration in the next 48 to 72 hours then there is nothing else they can do. He does have a living will but only the clause about not being kept alive on life support.

His sister said he started drinking again. She was not sure when but she thinks about a month ago. I am not sure how she came up with that time frame.

I feel so bad for our children. I have no love left for the man but I love my children more than life it self so of course I will be there for them.

It is hard though. I have so much anger and resentment towards him. It is hard for me to admit that it has been nice having him out of my life for the last 6 months. I feel bad now for feeling that way. When our daughter turned 18 on October 21st I was relieved that I would never have to deal with him again and now this happens.

I am angry that he was never a very good father and even a worse parent. He is leaving his kids with a house on the verge of foreclosure and no life insurance policy. They are only 18 and 20. They should not have to deal with this at such a young age and I am angry at him for it.

Of course I will help all I can and his one sister seems to be dealing with most of it. We are going to go and see him today. It was to late to go last night. I fear for what my children will walk into seeing him like that in ICU.

I know in my mind that alcoholism is a tough disease but my heart wants to just say he is a selfish person for hurting his children this way. I want to ask him why he could not pay child support but he must have found enough money to drink himself to death. Then I feel bad for even thinking that way.

I am still in shock over this whole thing. He just turned 49 last month.

2

I know this is probably just the anger and the resentment (been there, got the complimentary t-shirt), but you are focussing on the lack of financial support your ex will give on his demise.

I understand your feelings, but believe me, at the end of the day, it’s not all that important that he leaves no money behind. What’s important to your kids now is to be with their dad. He IS their dad (regardless of your feelings towards him) and it is crucial that they spend time with him (if that is their choice) before he dies. It makes things a helluva lot easier when kids experience the death thing than if it is removed from them by ‘concerned’ relatives, especially estranged wives IMHO.

3

Take as needed in the months ahead: {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

They’re covered by any medical insurance you have, being low-cost, and you can get the Rx filled in anywhere.

I think it’s great that you have this outlet to help you be as civil about the whole mess as possible when you’re with your children.

4

I don’t understand your post. I made no mention of financial support other than he has no life insurance to even pay for a funeral. His children will be responsible for that debt.

If his house goes into foreclosure then that is what happens. I am not angry that he is not leaving them tons of money. I am not sure why you got the impression. I am angry that he cared more about drinking than keeping up with his own personal finances. Again I know in my mind that alcoholism is a disease and he could not control it.

I am not an estranged wife. I am the mother of his two children. We got along and were on regular speaking terms until April of this year. We have been divorced over 16 years but we saw each other on a regular basis for all of those years and had an “okay” relationship up until April. There were a lot of things that happened over those 16 years that has made me bitter but I tried to keep things civil for this kids.

He was paying very little support for our daughter, way less than he was ordered, but at least he was paying. When he found out they were taking his 2008 tax refund to apply towards his arrears he decided not to pay me any more. He even told his daughter that he could not wait until she turned 18 so he would not have to pay for her anymore but all that is pretty much mute now anyway. But it was that that lead up to me not speaking with him any more.

I know they want to see their dad. They still spoke with him and saw him every couple months. I was not really involved with that anymore as our son is 20 and our daughter almost 18 so they contacted him and saw him on their own.

I am going to be there for them which is why I am taking them to see him today. Even though my daughter has a car and drives it is a good half hour away and she has only been to that hosptial one time so I am going to drive them.

Was this post supposed to be here? I mentioned nothing about medical insurance for my kids or anything about a prescription.

5

Nava’s string of symbols were what’s commonly used on the Internet for hugs. She was prescribing you hugs to be taken as needed for comfort.

6

I understood what you meant, (I have that tshirt too). You have been taking care of the kids by yourself for many years, right? The fact that you could take on most/all of the responsibility, and the support he was mandated to give, he couldn’t even handle that little part. It’s not the money, it’s the lack of responsibility.

Your kids are adults, and they already know how they feel about him. When they become parents themselves they’ll realize even more about him, mostly along the lines of “I just don’t understand…” and “How could he?”

7

i’m sorry your kids have to go through this. i know you are doing all you can for them and supporting them.

it sounds like his sister has been the most involved in his care. i would think that she would also take care of any final arr. as well, perhaps with input from your son and daughter.

i hope your visit today goes as well as it possibly can.

hold onto each other.

8

I’m so sorry for your family. I’m sure your children have been through enough with him as it is, and now to lose their father so young in life to something so avoidable has to be gut wrenching. I’m glad they have you to lean on and that you sound like a strong person.

9

I am in a similar situation. My alcoholic ex is in and out of the hospital. My son is miserable and anxious that he will die and we won’t be notified. (My son sees him only through a supervised visitation service). Supposedly friends will alert us if the situation suddenly becomes serious, and then I guess the funeral arrangements will be up to me.

I feel nothing for my ex but occasional pity. And even then, I say to myself, “These are the dues he is paying for living his life without any responsibility or maturity or consideration for others.” He never tried to make good choices. I will not feel guilty.

I’ll have my son spend as much time with him as he can, and I’ll get him through it.

Hopefully, when more time has passed, you won’t feel so angry. It seems like everything is fresh and raw right now.
I don’t know if it will help, but if you want to vent, you can PM me. I don’t mind if you need to spew some vitriol.

10

Remember that as badly as he treated you and your kids, he treated himself much worse.

11

I went through this. I was there for my son and tried to remember that I loved his dad once. It was a very sad time. I wish you the best through a very crappy situation.

12

I want to thank you all for your support. It helps to know I am not alone with this type of situation.

We got back from seeing him. It was very rough. I mean you see it on TV with a person hooked to a ventilator and multiple machines beeping and more IVs than you can count but it is very hard to see it for real.

There really is no prognosis. The nurse did come in and talk to us for a while but I think she held off being more honest because of the kids.

She did say his kidneys are shut down. His liver enzymes are worse today then yesterday. He is still bleeding in his stomach and they have a tube in to drain the blood. They can not get his blood to coagulate. They are giving him medication for that as well as “flash frozen plazma”? I am not sure on that, I think that is what she said. He is also very bloated. He also had a heart attack on top of it all so all his major organs are very bad.

I just wanted to say “Joe, what have you done to yourself?” Or “Boy you sure did it this time”. I of course did not. I held his hand and told him that his kids were there to see him. My son did nothing but stand against the wall. It was all he could do not to cry. He said later it was very hard to see him that way. His daughter held his and hand. She asked for some time alone with him which we gave her.

We were going to go back in but by then my daughter came out and said they were going to give him a test. She thinks they said an EEG. So we could not go back in.

It is so heart wrenching to see him that way. Our kids are adults but they are so very young. It is just so hard knowing that he did this to himself.

I have no idea what happens from here. How long they keep trying? Do they just leave him that way until something worse happens? When do they stop or does he just die?

I am going to call his sister later tonight to let her know we saw him. She has been involved since his last visit to the hospital. She has been trying to get him treatment and counciling but he has to want it which is apparent he did not. Maybe if she goes tonight she can let us know what the EEG test results were if it even was an EEG.

Things are kinda blurry now. I am sitting here crying not for the man he is today nor the man he was over the last twenty years but the man he was when we fell in love. That was a lifetime ago. I can’t believe it is going to end for him like this.

13

I cried my eyes out at the funeral. Just sobbed and sobbed. The whole situation was just beyond sad.

14

I really have no words that can make what you are going through any better, but I wanted to offer my sympathy to both you and your children.

Although I am older than your children (I’m 32), I have been dealing with an alcoholic father for most of my life, and am at the stage of being grateful for whatever time I have. For the last 4 years things have been so up and down that I have become dizzy, and I sometimes struggle not to think about the what-ifs and could-have-beens. It took me many years to come to terms with the fact that what he was doing, he was doing to himself, and not his children (me and my brother).

It pains me that he may very well be in the same state as your childrens’ father at some point in the near future.

Hopefully your children can also come to terms with this, as I know when I was their age, I could not understand how a father could do this to his own children. They are still so young, and do not have the perspective that you will have. Hopefully they will.

Tell your children that it is totally okay to be angry at their father (the alcoholic) and still love their father (the person). I hope that makes sense, but that is what I hold on to. My father is two different people. One I love, the other I abhore. And that’s okay.

Give your children a hug and take care of yourselves.

Neeps

15

I don’t have any hard answers for you, and of course I can’t directly compare the two situations because we don’t have medical records to look at for them, but my brother-in-law was in a similar-sounding place and is alive and pretty much well today. (IANAD/Nurse!)

He was 39 at the time, and was a closet alcoholic. He’d drink a lot of hard alcohol when no one else was around. Everyone drank at get-togethers with the inlaws, and he wouldn’t get scarily drunk or anything, so we didn’t notice there was a problem. He had rosacea so that explained the reddened, puffy nose. He and our SIL thought he had IBS, explaining some digestive issues. And who’s going to start casting some stones about his gut?

The first we knew was his admission to the ER for coughing/throwing up blood, followed soon after by a diagnosis of alcoholic hepatitis. He’d have been ineligible for an organ transplant due to the ongoing alcoholism, and the doctors said to get the family members there, even his estranged parents, because they didn’t know how long he had. He hung on for a week, longer. I was there with his mother when he woke up for a short while, and looked at us, and squeezed our hands to let us know that he recognized his mother, and me. (We went through a list of names, asking if we were that person, and he squeezed at the right ones.) His kidneys shut down. He had a minor stroke. A case of pneumonia, and he had a trach and tube put in. He was in there for weeks. But his kidneys started up again, and then his liver started regaining more normal function. He went to a rehabilitation hospital for the loss of mobility due to all of the time he’d spent in bed.

I’m not sure about bleeding in the stomach, but my BIL was pretty bloated due to the other liver/kidney issues. And no heart attack, at least.

His voice is still a little raspy today, due to the trach. He’s not physically where he was before; he’s considered disabled, but can walk well enough. His brain is still sharp. Also, he never did any alcohol-related rehab/AA/etc. - he told us that scared him straight, and his diet and other habits are probably healthier than mine (barring a rare cigarette as his only vice).

I don’t know what will happen with your ex, though. The doctors were certainly willing to write off my BIL; my husband says the chief resident was especially dismissive of him and his chances. I can’t say I completely blame her; to her he was just another alcoholic killing himself slowly then admitted to Cook County Hospital, and I hate to think how many others she may have seen there. The nurses, though, seemed to have some hope. How much of it was their decades more of experience or their desire to cheer up a devoted family, I can’t say. My SIL got a doctor she knew to see her husband (the doc happened to have privileges at the hospital) and apparently he had a much better prognosis for my BIL than some of the other docs there. But even he couldn’t be sure; it was up to my BIL’s body and if it would heal.

16

I don’t think you should feel much guilt, SomeUserName. If your ex had acted differently, you would have reacted differently; he made the bed he’s lying in. On the other hand, feeling anger towards him isn’t doing you much good. Done is done.

One thing you can do for your kids is to reassure them that whatever they’re feeling is normal (even if they don’t feel much at all, or if they feel a lot of anger at him). My dad drank himself to death a few years ago now, but I was much older than your kids and had completely cut him out of my life by that point. It affected me, but not deeply, the way a parent’s death is supposed to affect a child. Your children may feel some of that; “Is there something wrong with me that I don’t care more if he dies?” They also may feel hurt and cheated out of having a decent father. It’s all normal (for an abnormal situation).

17

I’m sorry. My sister nearly killed herself with booze.

You know that your kids are not responsible for his debts - or his funeral. That is an obligation they can choose to take on, but they are not required to. They can walk away. They may not choose to walk away, but they have no legal obligation.

18

Booze is a horrible way to die. Just awful.

19

What’s covered is the hugs, it’s called a joke.

20

I, too, have a alcoholic ex-husband, and even though our kids are 24 and 26 now and almost totally estranged from him, I worry about how his death with affect them. Right now he seems to be fine, but as far as I know he’s really close to homeless and unemployed, and probably back to drinking if the middle of the night phone calls that I don’t take are any indication. I really don’t know if his mom or sister have a relationship with him, or if they’d even call us…

Hope you all get through this with as little drama as possible.