Yesterday my uncle was taken off of life support at 10:30ish am. A lot of the family left when they took him off the ventilator but I wanted to stay (I wanted someone by his side). When they took the tube out of his throat his face wretched in pain and his body struggled for breath. He looked to be in so much pain and everyone just wished it would be over soon.
They put my uncle on a morphine drip and an anti-seizure medicine (i forget which) and basically that is all. Over the next 11 hours or so my family sat around and told stories. We told stories to remember the good times and to try to ignore that we were watching a family member slowly die.
It horrifies me that for such an advanced country we still can’t practice euthanasia. Instead we have to put people families through hell as they watch their loved ones suffer and slowly die instead of making it a quick five minute process.
Anyway I took a nap around at around 7:30ish as I was tired because i did not a good sleep the night before (go figure). It was time, my uncle’s heart beat was in the 40’s (compared to the 90-110 it was in before) and his blood pressure was some really low number.
I held my uncle’s arm and told him that it was okay to go. Everyone told them that they loved him and we all were silent. Just as my grandmother said Scott had taken a last breath he took another breath just to prove her wrong (he was always oner y like that). His body went lifeless and i didn’t know what to think.
Scott Dean was pronounced dead at 10:05 pm 10/27/2006 and his organs were donated as per his wishes.
I’ve never seen someone die and I still don’t know what to think maybe i just need some time, we’ll see.
Over a week ago my uncle had a massive heart attack. They tried an angioplasty but two of his three arteries are clogged and they couldn’t unclog them. Anyway the doctors did three EEGs and three cat scans, the results they saw weren’t really good. On Tuesday they took my father and grandma into a room to tell them that my uncle was basically brain dead (his heart had stopped for too long).
Today I flew into Dallas to be here for my family. When i walked into the hospital I asked my Dad and Grandma to go get coffee to give me time with my uncle alone. Seeing my uncle there on a ventilator totally vulnerable just broke me down. My uncle has always been a very strong man and I have some really great memories from him (going to six flags a lot, jet skiing , etc.)
Anyway tomorrow they take my uncle off of life support (thank god) because we as a family decided we can’t let him be a vegetable. I just wish that I had gotten to tell him I loved him more. I told him today but I don’t know if he can hear me anymore but I don’t think that matters because he knows his family would always be there for him.
I had an awesome weekend with some really great people. I was pretty weary about going at first because i wouldn’t really know too many people and I didn’t think people can relate to me very well as we are in total different situations (they are still in college where I’m working a 9-5 professional job).
We got there kind of late at night but that first night I had already started meeting people from across the state. I met so many people that I had trouble remembering all the names even after seeing them quite a few times :)
On Saturday we had a pretty cool day and we went spelunking, well sorta we got to a deep drop off and didn’t feel like going down it so we turned around. I finally got some reading done in my book Notes from the Underground although I’m having a hard time following it. I guess he is trying to desrcibe how we feed off of our own feelings of shame/revenge/etc.
The guest speaker this weekend was pretty awesome and he had a pretty good message. I still don’t think I’ll ever fit anyone’s perfect definition of a Christian. I felt recharged from this weekend and I want to get out there again and start helping people (feed the poor).
I hope your weekend was as cool as mine and you learned a lot as well.
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