As we come into the holiday homestretch and I struggle with early deadlines and various demands of various kinds, my mind was on the drama taking place in a hospital in Eau Claire, Wis., where my father-in-law had major heart surgery on Monday.
The skinny is that we are going to a funeral in the next few days.
I could retype everything I wrote to S earlier today. But I'll just use copy and paste. It's faster.
This first e-mail was sent at 10:45 this morning ...
[I]My father-in-law had his operation on Monday. It seemed at first (again, this is all second- and third-hand info) that things went well--he seemed to handle the operation OK.
But he had a great deal of discomfort during the night, and before dawn on Tuesday, the doctors took him to the operating room again to put in a balloon pump. The phone call from a daughter who was urging everyone to come see him while they can--he was heavily sedated, so he wouldn't be aware of our presence; rather for our sake. My wife had talked to him on Sunday morning, just before they took him down to Eau Claire; anyway, we are six hours or so from Eau Claire, and we both had busy days ahead of us. We both are at peace with everything and with him.
I went down to Iron Mountain to do some last minute shopping and to visit my mom Tuesday. Then I covered a wrestling meet once I got back to town. While I was gone, my wife talked to her sister again. He seems to have stabilized during the day, after two separate operations on Tuesday morning (the second was to drain fluid around his heart). Her sister told her that they gave him 32 units of blood. Really? I looked it up, and the adult human body only has 12 units of blood in it--a unit is a little less than a pint. So take that with a few grains of salt. They did give him blood, though, but I doubt it was 32 units. That doesn't sound right.
So the latest is that he is doing better. As for what happens next, we'll let the Divine take care of that. We are trying to keep our plans for the holidays as flexible as possible, in case we have to throw it out the window. For what it's worth, there were no phone calls or e-mails on Wednesday morning, so things seem to be more stable. Or maybe it's that no news is good news. [/I]
Just after a few minutes after I sent that off, my wife called--it was time for me to drive her to work. This was sent around noon ...
[I]
Updating from what I just sent an hour or so ago.
While driving my wife to work a little while ago, she told me she talked to a sister this morning. The news is that they have a DNR order on him now, and she thinks it's very possible he will die today. They briefly discussed when they should hold the funeral. Is Saturday OK? Is Monday OK?
Tough time of year for this, of course. She also asked me to call my son in Detroit (which I just did), telling him what the situation is and giving him the option to stay down there if the main activity of his Christmas visit would be driving back and forth to a funeral.
So I've got my cell phone on again (usually I have it off), in case someone calls in. My wife, by the way, said not to call her at work; she knows what the situation is, and she can talk to her sisters this evening--we'll both be home.[/I]
And that's it. I sent that off and then walked to the pasty place next door--it's Wednesday, and they only sell pizza pasties on Wednesday. As I returned and was taking off my coat, the phone in my pocket rang. It was one of my sisters-in-law, telling me that he died about 11:20--about the time my wife and I were talking in the car.
Since then, I have phoned both the sons and told them the news. I did not call my wife, per her request. It wouldn't matter, anyway. If she wants to call me during her break, that's up to her.
Those calls were fairly easy. I've got one phone call still to make, and that one is going to be really hard: my mom. I told her what his situation was when I visited her yesterday--how he had to have the second operation that morning--and she started to cry.
No, I'm not looking forward to that one at all.
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