Day 2 of the Beginning of the End

On Day two of my Dad being in hospital I woke up energised and ready to tackle the day.  I got out of bed, went downstairs to have a coffee and coughed.  And realised 'shit, my throat hurts'.  I never once thought "can't go see Dad today" because I knew that they had masks for me to use.  It would suck to talk to him from behind a mask but what the hell.  At least I would be able to visit.  I called the hospital to see how he was feeling (he had sent us a text message with his room info and to ask me to bring him some money from his account) and then headed up.  

Me, with the fancy hospital mask.

When I got there, the first thing was that he was in an old looking ward and a non private room.  He had a bed by the window so I did not see him at first.  When I did see him, he was hooked up to a nebulizer.  He was not comfortable at all and was starting to have panic attacks from the breathing treatments.  I told him (sternly yet kindly) that with his emphysema and pneumonia, he needed the breathing treatments.  I could tell it was hard for him to breath - he was sitting up at the end of the bed and was pretty grey looking and weak.  When he finished the treatments we watched a little bit of the news - mostly Hurricane Sandy and how the crane in NYC was dangling.  He mentioned Obama was being a stand up guy about the whole thing (He was not an Obama supporter) and I looked at him and laughed and said wow, you MUST be sick to say that.  He smiled thinly.  He kept repeating how he should have come in earlier and he was sorry that he waited.  I would get up every once in a while (I am always in mom mode it seems) and get a damp cloth for his sweaty brow.  I made sure he was comfortable and just sat with him, wearing the stupid mask.  He complained at one point about how heavy the machine around his neck was (it was his heart and O2 monitor) and asked me to hold it for a second.  I replied that yes it was heavy and re-adjusted it for him.  In truth it was no heavier than a cell phone.  But that showed me just how sick he really was.  At this point we still believed that he was in for pneumonia.  I talked to his nurses and said that he was not wanting to do his breathing treatments due to anxiety and that I wanted them to give him something.  Also his profuse sweating was concerning me.

Little did I know what was to come.