As hard as the first step was, it was inevitable that I had to take a second step.
Let me be the first to tell you, that second step sure was a doozie. It to date, has been the most painful, heartbreaking, and helpless experience that I've ever had, yet rewarding still. I was having a good day and went to work and came home and was playing on the computer when I got the call from my mom that my dad had coded in the nursing home. He was up laughing and talking one minute and then the next time they went by his room, he was blue and unresponsive. In a matter of minutes, my life changed forever. My sister (who is also my best friend and a huge part of my support system) met the nursing home staff and ambulance at the hospital with him and she went against his wishes (he had a do not resuscitate order) and had him intubated so we could get there to say goodbye. The hospital was a small outfit and said he was "too sick" to stay there. They didn't have the staff or technology to care for him and that he needed to be transferred to a bigger facility. So we had to send him by ambulance (because he was too big to fly) and risked him having a heart attack on the way to the hospital where I work. When he got there, it took them four hours to stabilize him and it was six to eight hours of us just waiting before we were even able to go back and see him. They put him directly in ICU and kept him on life support so all of the family could have a chance to see him before he left us and for his brother to fly in from Houston. He passed on May 1st -- exactly 11 months ago today. It was all so unexpected. Gone - at the tender age of 52.
For a long time, my sister felt guilty for going against his wishes and prolonging his life but I will forever be grateful to her. Because of her decision, my mother, sister, husband and I got to spend the last days of his life with him. When he finally died, he was surrounded by the people that loved him the most and to me, thats the greatest gift she's ever given me. As painful as it was, I didn't realize it at the time, but it was a second step in the same journey. I feel like now, looking back at it, that the second step is what catapulted me towards the third step.
My father was a large man. He was 6'4'' (when he stood up straight) and got up to 600 lbs. 2 weeks before he passed, he was down to 420. He died from Congestive Heart Failure and septic pneumonia. His lungs were completely fluid-filled and his blood pressure was unstable. A lot of his problems were co-morbidities - complications of being a heavy person. Losing my dad and knowing how much he suffered his entire life from being big and realizing how much I am like him really made me take a hard look at my life, myself, and my future. I realized that I have his body frame (yet on a smaller female build), some of his medical problems, and his sensitivity and if something doesn't change, that I'm on the same path and headed in the same direction.
I know everyone has their time and it was just his time to go but it was still the hardest step for me in this journey and in my journey of life in general. I know loss is something everyone faces but it seems like our choices in life creates our path to our future and I have made the decision to start holding myself accountable for my own choices. I want to make better choices for myself so I can be a better person, a healthier person, and get the chance to follow my dreams.
