Saying goodbye to my own parent…

There is nothing more fearful to the ones who are living far away from their aging parents with oceans apart than to get an emergency call in the middle of the night. To me, having a shallow night’s sleep in a regular bed of nails has just felt like normal for all those years.  The vaguely devastating time came into being as a harsh reality on the night of January 6^th. Mom’s voice from the other side of the phone sounded like a candle in the wind. “Jean, it’s about time we all needed to get together for dad….” I flew right the next day with my husband and our son Hans.

What was waiting for us was my struggling dad connected to multitudinous needles and tubes in the ICU. When we arrived there, six hopeless eyes – of mom, older sister, and brother-in-law – welled up with tears were staring at dad lying almost lifeless in his narrow hospital bed. Since dad was a COPD patient, his doctors have warned all along that there will come the moment of acute exacerbation due to hypercapnia someday, and we can’t expect anything like convalescence in this disease. It was not the doctors’ froideur but cold reality we needed to face. The moment I saw and read his lips through the tube stuck in his respiratory tract, all I could think of was just that we’d need to rid him of all this pain as soon as possible. Dad’s lips are telling us to “REMOVE! REMOVE the tube! REMOVE!”. In this circumstance full of pain, nothing could be viewed inhumane or inconsiderate to help him free of pain, even if it means all the life-saving devices or services are pulled off.  Sigh….

That night, his doctor and all our family had a serious discussion on whether there should be tracheotomy for the purpose of prolonging his life or just we should let him go peacefully when his lungs and heart have done their jobs without further treatments or surgery until their final moment. Hard. Sad. Devastated. Yet one thing that we all agreed upon was that there should be NO MORE PAIN added to my ailing father. We didn’t even have time to cry or get emotional about this whole situation. Mom signed the DNR order presented by the doctor that night. She looked absent-minded, and we all felt totally numb in the dreary hospital hallway.

In the throes of fast deteriorations in every corner of his body, Dad was conscious and responding to each and every one of our comments and prayers for him. He could eat half of the small tub of yogurt and thin rice grits spoon-fed by me. As the sun was about to set on the 6^th day of our arrival, dad started to get delirious and spat out meaningless talk, such as “five plus one…..totals six…..  Yes! No!........one plus five…..”. I instantly caught the end of his sentence and started to chime in saying “Yes, daddy! You’re right! Five plus one totals six! Amazing! Good job!” Our ping pong of meaningless talk lasted about a few minutes…..and then, he was gradually falling asleep. As the night deepened, he was becoming farther, distant, …..and out of reach from us all. Even the death rattle was gone. The delirious talk between me and my dad was our one last conversation in this world, which was my dad’s last gift to me.

To the lady, whom we call our loving mother and who has spent 52 golden years with her husband, the world must feel totally different now. Empty. Lonely. Frustrated. In search of somebody to fulminate against…… but peaceful at the same time with the thought that her husband is finally not in the breathless pain. A new day, a new night, and a new life have begun in front of mom. We all know that dad must be up there in Heaven, watching over us all with a smile. Hopefully and desperately, he is not smoking elsewhere…..   Goodbye, my doting daddy…but goodbye doesn’t mean we will forget you. We will love you more each day forever and ever more.

Expressions

bed of nails: (idiomatic expression) difficult and unpleasant situation

to come into being: (verb) to begin existence

multitudinous: (noun) very numerous; existing in great numbers/ consisting of many parts

ICU: (noun) Intensive Care Unit (at a hospital)

COPD: (noun) Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, which is an umbrella term used to describe progressive lung diseases. This disease is characterized by increasing breathlessness and develops for years without noticeable shortness of breath. The signs and symptoms of COPD include increased breathlessness, frequent coughing (with and without sputum), wheezing, and tightness in the chest.

exacerbation: (noun) an increase in the severity of a disease or its signs and symptoms.

hypercapnia: (noun) excessive carbon dioxide in the bloodstream, typically caused by inadequate respiration

convalescence: (noun) recovery or recuperation from an illness

froideur: (noun) originated from French, meaning “cold attitude’ or “superiority”

tracheotomy: (noun)  an incision in the windpipe made to relieve an obstruction to breathing

DNR order: (noun) DNR stands for “Do Not Resuscitate”, which is a medical order written by a doctor. It instructs health care providers not to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) if a patient's breathing stops or if the patient's heart stops beating.

death rattle: (idiomatic expression) As the end of a patient is coming near, his or her breath becomes labored and ‘gurgling’, which can sound alarming. However, this is quite normal and caused by secretions pooling in the back of the throat.

to fulminate: (verb) to criticize severely/ to express vehement protest