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Thursday, September 11, 2014

Standing Victorious. Boxing His Way to Heaven and Stepping Into Heaven and Away From Parkinson's Disease

My Dad was once a champion golden gloves boxer. They think that is why he developed Parkinson's disease later on in life. Parkinson's disease often causes serious issues with properly eating and swallowing. As a result many people with Parkinson's disease get a form of pneumonia that is caused from food or liquids getting choked on and into their lungs. After awhile it stays in there with flim collecting on it cause issues. So whenever he got that form of pneumonia he would have to wear oxygen.  He did not like wearing that contraption in his nose and kept taking it off. We can be rather stubborn in my family.

Due to the pneumonia and him always taking the oxygen off my Dad's blood oxygen levels unknowingly became so low that he became confused, disoriented and combative at the nursing home one day about 2 weeks ago. Very combative. Violence is not my Dad, he isnt that way so the nursing home staff knew something had to have been wrong with him since he boxed the day lights out of them so they called for an EMS to take my Dad to the hospital, but he boxed the daylights out of them too. So the called the local firemen to come handle him. They probably walked in and saw my Dad and thought they could take on that old man easily. They were wrong. He successfully boxed all 7 of them too.


Dad no doubt stood victorious having just pulverized them all, it was like he was back in his young boxing career days. There was no stopping him cause he wasn't about to let anyone touch him.
But an 84 year old man can only take so much and he began wearing down, that is when the 7 firemen got him wrestled down so he could be sedated to be put in the EMS to go to the hospital for an evaluation.




They got him to the hospital where there they further sedated him so that he would calm down enough to keep his oxygen on. Once his blood oxygen got up he went back to normal. I dont even know if he remembered his blaze of glory as a 84 year old man that still had enough skills and strength from his boxing days to take on 7 men and beat the daylights out of them. He wasn't about to go down easy! Thankfully that issue was resolved quickly. I can't help but to laugh at it cause I can just picture it now. You go Dad! Keep on boxing! Ha ha.


This past Sunday he once again fell because he was stubborn and wanted to do whatever it is he had sit his mind to doing. But this time his fall was lethal but no one would know it until later. When he feel that Sunday morning he hit his head on something. He seemed alright afterwards. Then not too terribly long after he fell he suddenly slipped into a comatose type state so an EMS came and rushed him to the hospital except this time my Dad wasn't fighting them, now he was completely helpless and at their mercy. He stopped breathing while in the EMS and they put the tube down his throat to breath for him because they didn't know about the do-not-resusitate
order on my Dad. That means that if one dies with that order the medical staff dont have to do cpr or anything to bring him back. When he got to the hospital they was breathing for him via the machine. I stood behind his head at the head of his bed while other family members stood elsewhere. The doctor asked for permission to pull the breathing tube since the death glaze had taken over his eyes and he was in a type of coma state unable to respond. We said yes. They pulled the tube out and he began breathing on his own. 27 family members all stood by as we watched his breathing to see what would happen. The doctor made it sound like Dad could not hear us but that wasn't true. When we said "squeeze my hand if you hear me" he would squeeze. His eyes had the death glaze and stayed partly shut.



We held the phone up to his ear so he could hear 3 of his children's voices and his sister. He responded when he heard their voices by moving his lips trying to talk and would twitch and so on. That is all he could do. His eyes were half opened with that lifeless death glaze but even then he tried responding to them.To look at him you'd think his mind was gone because he looked like a brain dead person in an coma. But he was hearing us and trying to respond.



He kept on breathing so they moved him to a regular hospital room to wait out his days

I had spent 38 hours awake at the hospital with my Dad from Sunday to late Monday night. My dad's incredibly strong heart and body kept him alive.


He would breath and then stop for long periods of time. One time he stopped breathing and his heartbeat was not there. I put my hand on his chest feeling for breath and heart and also praying and he suddenly began breathing again. I could tell he was uncomfortable so I had the nursing staff roll him over into a different position and once they did that he instantly stopped the twitching and grimacing. I had them give him morphine as much as allowed because his head no doubt had to hurt since there was a suspected brain bleed in there from the fall. He was too old to get surgery to stop the bleed and may of died on the surgery table anyways so we choose to let him go peacefully.


He did not pee or poop the 3 days he was there because his body was shutting down to just keep the life saving organs alive like the brain, lungs and heart. I knew that urine may be gathering in his bladder and that too would be uncomfortable. So he ended up getting lots of morphine which normally slows a sick dying persons breathing down so much that it often peacefully causes them to stop breathing sooner then they would have. But I wasn't about to have him be in pain so morphine it was! It did not slow his breathing down. He kept hanging on.


I had whispered into his hears several times that I love him but I don't want for him to suffer anymore and that he needs to let go and go to Jesus. He kept on breathing with his eyes shut but his mind still hearing and comprehending.


Finally a thought came to my mind that my Mom needed to tell him it was ok to go. She said something like "Bob, I love you, you have been a good Dad and husband. You need to let go and go to Heaven. I will see you there some day, I will miss you though but don't worry because we will see each other again. Ill be ok." As she was saying that his eyes popped opened and looked right at her, the death glaze was off of his eyes. He then began taking his last 3 breaths, we could tell they were his last breathes by the way they had suddenly become so deep and far between. I put my hand on his chest and said out loud something along the lines of: "Dad, its time for you to go to Heaven now. What you are now seeing is Jesus, you made it to heaven Dad! Keep on going you are about to step into heaven! I will see you again." And he took his last breath as his spirit stepped out of his body and stepped right into Heaven.


The boxing fighter had made his body hold on long enough to wait and hear that it was ok with my Mom that he goes. Once he heard that he went. The nurse was surprised that he could hold on so long with so much morphine and the anxiety medication called Ativan being given to him via IV. Dad was strong, nothing was gonna kill him until he was ready. His wife had freed him to go to Heaven to be healthy and strong once again. I kind of envy him. There in Heaven it is so great, but down here we suffer sickness, heartbreaks and all sorts of struggles.


Well, some of my Dad's fighting spirit was conceived in me too. I can be rather stubborn and hold out for long periods of time too. People often ask me how I'm holding up so well this year with there having been so much stressful things going on in my life like a divorce, domestic violence, living in two different shelters,  my kids being abused by their dad as he brainwashes them causing them to get parental alienation syndrome which is mental and verbal abuse, my mom being sick and in the hospital for 3 weeks and then put in a nursing home and then they put me in the hospital the week before my Dad was, in fact his room was only a few doors down from where my room was the week before, his one nurse had been mine too and she remembered me. And then my Dad's situation occurred.


That is a lot to take on!!!!
There are some people who are so vile that they don't respect or care about a persons grieving period, they just keep on causing trouble. But I'm calm. I know things will work out after a while. My Dad is the lucky one. I WILL see you there in Heaven some day Dad! Meet me at the ice cream buffet Im gonna have in Heaven!  :)
(thankfully one of my adult nieces and I were able to get him to eat a large chocolate sundae from DQ only 4 days before he died. My dear Dad was an ice cream addict and so am I. Like father like daughter!)