What more could happen - Part 3 - My Dad

Due to the sensitive and sacred nature of this time, I hesitated to publish this post (it's taken me three weeks to get to it), but I really want to remember this, and I want my children, siblings and cousins especially to have this record, so I am going ahead with it.

Sunday night, June 7th, Josh got on the computer and saw a message from my brother Craig saying that I needed to call my sister. When she picked up her cell phone, she and my Mom had just gotten done talking to two doctors in the ER who had shown them the CAT scan and MRI they had taken of my Dad's brain. It showed evidence of a hemorrhagic stroke on the left lower side of his brain. There was a dark spot all over that side of his brain, showing bleeding. The doctors said that it was irreversible, that it was fatal, and that all the children should come because they weren't sure he would last the night.

If you recall, in January, my Dad had a TIA in Panama. He had recovered well, although he remained frail, and my Mom never once felt like he was back to his old self. So when I heard this news, it didn't come as a total shock. Bruce was out at the Farm, so I took the children into the living room and I told them about Grandpa. All took it well except for Libby. She started sobbing. I could see this made everyone else feel a little more tender toward her, and the situation. Jesse said, "I'm sad, but I know that Grandpa will be in the Celestial Kingdom, and it won't be very long before we see him." We had a family council and decided that the four older kids would stay because of activities - Joseph in Driver's Ed, Jesse and Mary going to Girl's Camp, and Josh needing to stay and drive everyone around - and the rest of us would drive to where my parents live across the state.

As we were preparing to leave, Libby paused in the laundry room and said to me, "I know they said it won't be very long before we see Grandpa... but to me, it seems long." I dropped to my knees and hugged her and said, "I know Libby. To you, it is a long time." And we cried together. I find it remarkable that she could articulate those feelings so well.

Josh drove out with me to the Farm to make sure that Dad could go; otherwise he would have come with me instead. I appreciated Josh during this hour. He listened to me and talked with me. These are times when one appreciates having an older son.

Bruce, Peter, Libby and I drove through the night to the hospital. I drove most of the time, with Bruce taking an hour during the night. I listened to the Mad Boys CD the whole way, over and over! Especially Come Thou Fount - Josh singing that song kept me through the night. Oh, and cell phone conversations with my brother Chris who was traveling through Arizona to get to an airport. We kept each other awake.

We arrived at the hospital at four in the morning. It was a quiet ICU room with Angie and Mom in there. I took hold of my Dad's hand and talked to him. He started kind of a gag reflex and squeezed his eyes as if he was in pain. That was a scary moment for me. I didn't want to see him in pain. The nurse later explained to me that the touch on his hand brought him out of the sedation enough to sense that the ventilator was in his throat, and that was uncomfortable. I spent some sweet moments talking to Mom while Angie finally got some sleep.My brother Clark arrived around 8:00 am from Utah. I didn't recognize him. He has lost so much weight since I saw him last, that when he came walking down the hall, I wondered who was talking to my sister. Ha ha! At this point we started to have a steady stream of visitors from Mom & Dad's ward, and their friends where they live. What a wonderful support system they have there! Bruce said, "It's the good Idaho Saints!"

At 11:00 am, my brother-in-law Rodney picked up my siblings - Julianne, Chris and Craig from the airport. When they walked in and we told my Dad they were here, I saw more reaction from him than I had seen up to that point. He raised his head slightly off the bed and looked at them out of his left eye. I have no doubt he knew who they were. It was after this, when there was a quiet moment, that I stood by Dad's bedside, held his hand, and cried. It was seeing a glimpse of his old, warm self seep through for a moment that caused the memories to flood back of how wonderful a father he was, and what a remarkable man. Throughout this whole experience, I felt the Spirit very near, and was comforted tremendously. I felt sadness, but it was nestled in a cocoon of love and joy. I am deeply grateful for the Gift of the Holy Ghost.

I didn't leave the room until late in the evening. We spent some memorable time together. At one point Clark, Julie, Craig and I were in the room with Dad just talking, reminiscing and laughing softly.

My brothers Cedric and Curtis came in the afternoon, and we spent some time in reading poems like The Highwayman, Abu Ben-Adam, A Friend by the Side of the Road, etc., to Dad. We also sang Hymn after Hymn, and I have to say, we finally got Home Beloved right! My sister Jeana arrived late in the evening, as did two nieces and their husbands. We had a big sleepover at my Mom's house with sponges, mattresses and sleeping bags spread all over the house.

The next morning, Conal arrived, the last of the siblings to get there. He walked down the hall, and when we saw him, there were oohs and ahhs all around because he was carrying Macy, his 11 mo. old daughter! He didn't tell us he was bringing her, so when he walked into the room and held her up like Rafiki showing Simba, saying "It's like the Circle of Life", you can imagine how the energy in the room just shot up and we all felt a burst of sunshine come in. (And we were glad to see you too, Conal! )Jeana holding Macy

Julie holding a sleeping MacyIt was fun for Macy and Carson to get a look at each other! Caleb and Carson, Angie and Rodney's two younger sons, were there briefly. Later they went over to Rodney's parents' home.

After Conal got there, we all gathered in the ICU room. Dad, of course, Mom, Jeana, Clark, Curtis, Josh & Clarissa, Julie, Stetson & Whitney, Bruce & I, Peter, Libby, Cedric, Rodney & Angie, Ethan, Alyssa, Conal, Macy, Chris, and Craig.

One thing we did was have Clark read Dad's favorite poem, The Touch of the Master's Hand.How he got through it, I'll never know. To say there was not a dry eye in the room is an understatement; more like there was no one who was not weeping. OK, maybe Ethan and Peter - ha ha.

I wondered later why that particular moment struck us all so hard - at no other time was that much emotion displayed. I believe it was because that poem is about the Savior - His power to redeem and his love for even the lowliest of us, and Mom and Dad raised us to love the Savior. And we all knew they loved him. And plus, my Dad loved that poem, and never read it with a dry eye. It was a sweet and tender moment that I want to remember the rest of my life.

I asked Cedric to share his thoughts, and he spoke of how Dad had fulfilled his role of sharing the gospel with the Lamanites, and carried them on his shoulders. This he certainly did!After we had all had a bit of time to spend with Dad, we all knelt down and Mom asked Craig to give a prayer. He gave a beautiful prayer. The nurses them proceeded to come in and remove the ventilator and other medications that were keeping him stable. It was so nice to see his face without the ventilator on it. He looked so much more himself! We continued to talk to Dad and hold his hand.His oxygen saturation started to go down, so for the sake of comfort, they put some oxygen under his nose. Peter was right there watching, and turned to me and said, "Mom, it's not in far enough." Curtis overheard him, and was thinking just the same thing. Curtis turned and smiled at me and enjoyed that moment with Peter - two engineering minds thinking alike! The nurse soon fixed it. During this time, Curtis also entertained Libby. He was holding her on his lap, and they were giggling about something. He really made a friend in Libby.


We sang God Be With You Till We Meet Again, including a verse in Spanish.Not knowing what would happen, we expected that Dad might slip away at this point. But this was not meant to be! His oxygen saturation and blood pressure stabilized, and he rested peacefully. After an hour or so, we started to think about food and what would happen the rest of the day.

To be continued...

Who says soccer is not a contact sport?

Well, while we were still eating watermelon at Peter's baptism last Saturday, Josh raced off to play in his Varsity soccer game. I went and watched for awhile, and then got worried about doing some things for his Eagle Court of Honor that night, so I left the game halfway through.

About five minutes after I got home, I got a call from my friend DaraDee, who I had been sitting by at the game. She said, "Josh is down on the field and it looks pretty serious. They have stopped the game." I hung up from that call and got another call from Braden, a captain on the team and Josh's good friend. He said, "They think Josh has broken his leg, and I thought it might be nice to have his Mom here on the field." That was a thoughtful phone call Braden!

I announced to Grandma and Aunt Angie what I had heard. They held down the fort for the rest of the evening - thank you so much! I found Joseph in the garage, so I took him along with me. Bruce called me next as I was on my way over there. When I got to the field, they were on the far side with ambulances all around. I was pretty calm, but still telling myself to breathe deeply. I waved Joseph off, telling him to go talk to his friends, and he gladly complied!

Josh was laying on the ground with Bruce and the paramedics around him. I knelt down and talked to him about pain management. (Birthing at home taught me a lot about that.) He had what looked like a baseball under his skin off to the side of his shin. But he was handling it really well. He only started to slightly cry once. I wouldn't have cared if he had been bawling his eyes out, but he wasn't.

What happened was that he went sliding for a ball with his right foot, and the keeper went down too, after he did. Somehow the ball got kicked away, and the two of them ended up going heel to heel. The impact did this to Josh's tibia:
OK now, just take a deep breath! Ha ha I've already talked about this so much that it doesn't affect me that much, but writing it like this, well I can see that a few of you are going to have to "get some counseling after this", as my friend Shari put it! :)

Josh said that as soon as it happened he felt the pain of course, but his first thought was to stand up, because Middleton guys stand up; they don't lay on the field like pansies when they're not hurt that badly. So he tried to stand up, tried being the operative word. He crumpled instead. As soon as he did that, Bruce ran out on the field. (He was on the coaches bench, so he could do that). At first he felt all around his knee, and was vastly relieved to see it was not a knee injury. He took off his shoe, sock and shin guard, took one look at the baseball-sized hematoma and turned to the Athletic Director and said, "We'd better call 911", which they did. By the way, the keeper on the other team had a swollen knee, but he was up walking within a few minutes.

They got Josh into the ambulance and gave him morphine in an IV on the way to the hospital. I'm pretty impressed the paramedic could put an IV while driving in an ambulance. We met them at the hospital. It took two more doses of morphine before Josh could relly relax.

Wayne Ellis, one of the guys that helps with the Middleton Soccer team, was the first to come and check on Josh. He came all the way to the Emergency Room, and comforted Josh by telling him that it was a really brave thing to do, playing that way on the field. I think at this point Josh was thinking it was pretty dumb!

They x-rayed the leg, and after a time, the orthopod, as the nurse called him, (orthopedic surgeon) came and looked at the x-rays and decided to take Josh into surgery that night. They made an incision right below his knee, drilled a hole down the length of his tibia, and inserted a titanium rod with two screws at the top and two at the bottom. They will leave the rod in there, unless there is some outstanding reason to take it out, because they want to prevent another surgery. Just before the surgery, while we were talking with the surgeon, we figured out that he knew our next door neighbors, and that his daughter had come out to our street dance the weekend before! That was a pretty cool connection. Josh and I figured she was Blonde 1 or Blond 2 or Blonde3 that we listed in the guest list! Also while we were talking, I glanced up at the clock, which read 7:15 pm, and asked the doctor if there was any way Josh would be ready to attend his Eagle Court of Honor that started at 7:30 pm. He said, "Ah...no." :)

Bruce and I both stayed at the hospital that night with Josh. I wasn't any help at all, because the night before I had stayed up feeding out of town guests (and my own family - it wasn't just them), and sewing on merit badges until four in the morning. (Dumb - I know!) Bruce was up and down all night long with Josh while slept. Thank you Bruce.

The next morning before Church, Uncle Gary & Kaleb, Uncle Rodney, Aunt Angie and their chidlren, and all our family came to see Josh in the hospital before they went to Church.
It was so neat to see everyone in the room crowded around to see Josh.

Little Alyssa reached out and touched Joshua's cast, and then touched his toes. He commented on it afterward.

During Church, Bruce brought the Young Men over to the hospital. There were three investigators visiting that day, and the Elders came with them also. The YM gave Joshua the Sacrament, and then the Elders and Bruce and Hno. Iglesias gave him a blessing. It was wonderful to feel the Spirit in the room, and to see the Priesthood in action that way.

After Church, Hna. Iglesias came with her son, and the de la Rosa children to the hospital. I was so glad Hna. Iglesias had gone to pick them up. The three of them haven't come together in a long time, and we usually pick them up every Sunday, but we couldn't that day.

Josh stayed another night in the hospital because he was still feeling a lot of pain on the pills they were trying to wean him on to, so they gave him some more morphine periodically.
Bruce brought him home Monday around noon. I was substitute teaching (my first time! - a story for another day) so Bruce took the day off and took care of Josh.

This morning (Tuesday) he is feeling less pain, but it is still a struggle to even go to the bathroom. He is in good spirits, though.

After school yesterday, Coach Weber and Coach Wells came to see him, as well as seven of his teammates, including all the captains. His friends have been so generous and nice to him. And half of it has happened on his phone, via texting. It seemed like his phone was going of constantly! I think it's cool how they can communicate that way (although I see the need for balance, etc. - another post for another day). Raigen did call him when he was in the ER - it was so nice to hear from her.

"All these things shall give thee experience" keeps running through my head! The hardest thing is that he will miss the rest of his junior year of soccer season. At least it's not his senior year. And Show Choir will be hard to keep up on, but I think he can do it. Loosing his means of income from refereeing will also be tough, but I'm sure he will be blessed in other ways.

My dear friend DaraDee brought us dinner last night. Thank you DaraDee - it was delicious!! And so many friends have called and emailed - thank you to all.