On December 10, 2023, my father died. It had been a long and tedious sickness, consisting of a cancerous kidney removal, partial bladder removal and chronic bowel obstructions. The doctors said after his surgery, he would be like a brand-new man. They lied. He was never brand new, rather a very broken and sick man. This was the beginning of the end.
It started in February 2023. My father Wayne had his kidney and part of his bladder removed because he had cancer. Prior to this, he had COPD, Bladder cancer and emphysema. By all accounts he was not a healthy man, but we all had hope. Fast forward 9 months later, my dad was suffering from chronic bowel obstructions and in and out of hospitals. We saw him getting weaker and weaker, his 6-foot frame weighed 107 pounds and he would not eat or drink. After multiple trips to the ER, they finally admitted him for observation and would schedule another surgery to help dissect his bowel obstruction. That evening, we received a frantic call from the hospital, my dad was crashing. His obstruction had become septic and burst into his stomach. As he was wheeled away, we all kissed him and told him he would be good, even better after the surgery. In the wee hours of the morning, we learned that he had suffered a heart attack, died on his way to the operation table, and the doctors brought him back just before surgery. During surgery they cut out most of his bowel, leaving very little left to reattach if he was to heal. He was in ICU, sedated and hooked up to over 8 machines. I counted them. The noise the machines make are unsettling with high pitched alarms, rapid pings, and deafening beeps. The sound of the ventilation machine is a hushing sound, much like one would do to sooth a baby. In the background are nurses and doctors talking, laughing, asking about what each other did on the weekend. I get it, I really do. Nurses and doctors see the worst of the worst, horrifying images that must haunt them at night. They need to decompress to not take it home with them or live rent free in their minds.
Over a month of being in and out of consciousness, my dad went through 4 surgeries to try and connect the bowel so he would have a better chance of surviving. Before every surgery, we all said our goodbyes. They couldn’t connect his bowel. He was being kept alive by the machine that pumped his lungs, medication for his blood pressure, pain medication and so much more. By this time, he woke up, his eyes were big with fear and uncertainty. A man so beautifully strong and stunningly brave, was weak and scared. This was just one piece of my heart ache. My daddy was scared. I was scared. We were all scared. As the days slowly crept by, we visited him every day for hours and hours. Family and friends would come from all over the province to see him and to say goodbye.
I knew it. It was a thick feeling knowing that he would not ever leave his hospital room. On the final meeting with the surgeon and doctors, we learned that the infection that had ravaged his body had persisted, his blood pressure was becoming uncontrollable, and his lungs were failing. He would not make it and we had to decide when we were going to terminate all life saving measures.
We spend the next two days loving him. Again, friends and family came to say their goodbyes, to touch him one more time and kiss his forehead. This imperfect person was so loved, it physically hurt to say goodbye. One the morning of December 10, 2023, my family sat around his bedside while the nurses discontinued his ventilation and gave him medication to relax him and pain medication to keep him comfortable. My mother lifted my father into her little arms and myself and my three siblings touched and held my father as he died. It was the most heartbreaking and beautiful thing I have ever witnessed or done in my entire life.
“Time does not exist when you are loving someone through their death.”
The weeks and months after my dad’s death feels like nothing I have ever been through. I see my father in myself, my nose is his, my big toe is his. The way my brother sits quietly contemplating answers before he speaks. That is him. He lives on in me and my siblings, he lives on in my mother’s unconditional love and he lives within his grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Being a death doula candidate had help prepared me for some of the most beautiful and heartbreaking realities of death. I found myself having long discussions with his nurses, supporting my family and friends through difficult transitions and ultimately just being in the moment. I would have loved to have had a death doula at my father’s side. I see such value in a death doula’s role and how some of the aftercare for families can be incredibly beneficial. I look at the time I spend by my father’s side as some of the closest, most intimate times we’ve ever had. The process of death has taught me how to live a more fulfilled and passionate life and I plan on doing just that.
We live on so those who have passed can live through us.
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