This is a difficult post. Difficult for me, that is, because I've a great many emotions churning and I'm not sure that I can make much sense out of them with words.
but here goes....
Last month, my father suffered a heart attack. It was pretty bad and he ended up getting a triple by-pass. He is still in intensive care but appears to be heading for a good recovery. He was lucky; he received excellent medical care and my father is also pretty tough for a man his age.
Still...wow....seeing him laying in a hospital bed...I believe it was the first time in my life that I've ever seen him vulnerable. He had tubes going into every orifice in his body and they even made a few new ones to accommodate more. Heavily sedated with only brief flashes of confused consciousness mixed with pain. Nothing to do but watch and wait. The thought banging against my rapidly dwindling sense of denial....he could die.
Of course, everybody dies. I know that. It's a given expectation that I would outlive my parents just as I assume that my children will long outlive me. Yet, I didn't expect my father to come so near to death. Not yet. I talked with him just a few days prior. He would always be there. Though he is in his seventies...surely his body would keep on plugging away for many more years.
And that is when I had another thought as I sit here several hundreds of miles away waiting daily for news of any progress.
I am my father's son.
This may be a preview of me if I don't change some aspects of my lifestyle. Certainly my body will age and parts will break down. Eventually there will come a time when nothing more is able to be fixed and I will die. The scary thing to think about is - do I want it to happen in twenty or thirty years, or next year?
I may yet have a choice.
My Dad....he still teaches me stuff.
2 comments:
My father had a triple bypass fifteen years ago. He looked like a slab of beef on a butcher's table.
He lost 20 kilograms over the next couple of months and began walking at least five kilometres a day.
His entire life changed for the better. Everything about him changed; he changed his diet completely. His personality changed - for the better. He sold his house in a swamp and moved to the top of the highest hill in the city. He stopped wearing dark greys and browns and starting wearing light colours and lightening up in general.
A NEAR death experience can be very good for you - if you react in the right way.
And he still teaches me stuff.
Start walking today - he says that's what REALLY saved him.
http://hermetic.blog.com
I feel your pain. Last summer Dad was in the hospital for a stroke. This summer Mom is battling cancer. They even assigned them to the same hospital room. I'm beginning to loathe room 330.
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