A Sad Day for All of Us
It was an unseasonably warm day in January, 2007. My day began with the blaring of an alarm clock. This day started the same as many days before, except for how warm it was. However for some reason I hit the snooze button and just laid there in the warmth of the sun rays coming through my window. The thoughts of spring, warmth, and the smell of spring had taken over my mind. When the alarm went off the second time it brought me back to reality.
I didn’t want to get up, but I had to because my uncle relied on me for his care. I rolled of my bed and stretched my body from the long night of restless sleep that I had just endured. As I dressed for the day many thoughts and questions ran through my head. I wanted to remember all the things that I was supposed to ask the nurse from the Veterans Association when she arrived later that morning to check on my uncle. The reason for all of the thoughts was because I had been my uncle’s health care proxy for the past five months. His health had deteriorated to the point of total uncertainty. Every day that he made it through was a miracle; he was surviving on sheer will power.
After I was dressed, I forced myself to go and check on my uncle; he was sleeping on the couch in the living-room. On my way to the living-room I stopped at the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, which was a normal part of my daily routine. I then proceeded to go check on my uncle. As I approached him I looked at him to make sure he was still breathing. I was relieved to find that his chest was rising and falling like it should.
As I approached him closer, the thought of how much he had changed and deteriorated in the last five months flooded my mind. Here in front of me laid a man who five months ago was hard working, independent, talkative, and a picture of good health. He was now a man whose body had shriveled to nothing more than a skeleton that you might find in a science lab somewhere except his skin was still attached. When I tried to talk to him he did not respond, he just laid there and continued to daze off into some distant memory that only he could enjoy. I had to reach out and touch his hand before he realized that I was standing in front of him. He refused the meal that I had offered him just like the numerous times before, however he did accept a small cup of coffee so that he could comfortably swallow the large assortment of medicines that the doctor had prescribed for him. I tried to convince him to clean himself before the nurse arrived but he did not have the energy. I then tried to make him as comfortable as I possibly could by lighting an incense of his choice and I put on some soothing music for him to enjoy until his nurse arrived. I left him alone to his thoughts as he drifted off to a light sleep and accomplished some of my own tasks as we waited for the nurse.
When the nurse arrived, we talked about the possibility of Hospice (a program that provides professional in home health care), coming in to help me out with the emotionally and physically exhausting task of taking care of my uncle. We talked about his comfort level and the things that I could do to make him more comfortable as well as which sort of vitamins I should be giving him to help him try to gain some weight. With the help of the nurse I managed to make him smile from some small jokes, one of the last smiles I would see from his withered face.
When the nurse left we had a visit from the mother of my uncle’s companion, Janine. She caused my uncle a lot of stress and wanted him as well as my husband and I to move out of the trailer. She said we were running up all of the bills and not helping, this upset my uncle because he had been paying the bills for Janine for quite some time. After she left I tried to give my uncle a hug to make him feel better but it was like trying to hug a pile of twigs. I gave up the effort for fear that I might hurt him rather than help him. I felt the tears begin to well up inside of me and I quickly left the room so that he could not see me cry.
As I tried to pull myself together I talked to my Aunt over the computer. I was trying to get the family to come and see my uncle so that he could properly say goodbye to them because that is what he wanted. I heard a yell from the living room and went to see what the problem was. When I got there I knew we were near the end; my uncle was struggling for every breath that he was desperately trying to take. I asked my aunt what I should do and she told me to rub his chest and talk to him gently. I also dialed 911.
While on the phone with the emergency services operator, my uncle thanked all of us for taking care of him and told us that he loved us. I never knew how hard it was to watch someone you loved take their last breath. As his eyes rolled into the back of his head, the operator wanted me to try to perform CPR on my uncle but with how thin he was I didn’t dare try it for fear that I might break the bones in his chest, not to mention my uncle had already made it quite clear that when the end finally came he did not wish to be resuscitated.
I called the family to inform them of the tragic news and to get some help handling the situation; I knew I could not endure this on my own. I asked the neighbor for some help and when my aunt arrived I left the house so that I could try to pull myself together.
Even though the rest of the family tried to comfort me by telling me what a great job I had done taking care of him, I could not help but feel that I had let him down. I had worked so hard to keep him alive but all of my efforts had only prolonged his misery. The only thing that has helped me get through this unbearable pain is the knowledge that he is no longer in pain and is not struggling against the oddities of life any longer. Even though he is gone from this world now I will carry some of the pain that he went through for the rest of my life. This had turned out to be a sad day for all of us.