…Dying well.

As I’ve been witness to a number of deaths over the past 18 months of my life, I’ve been thinking a lot about death and dying. So much so, that I have marked my calendar to remind me to look into becoming a hospice volunteer, once I have completed my MBA studies, next December.

Dying well is as much a part of life as living well. In fact, I would challenge that one cannot embrace life fully without embracing the idea of death, as it is the natural conclusion of life. So why not plan to die well?

For me, dying well means planning for death when still able to do so. To be as prepared as possible, to wrap up up as many loose ends as possible, to be able to face the end with a full awareness of what is happening, and to be in as much control of the manner of dying as is “allowed”. To die in peace.

Those who die suddenly and/or violently cannot do these things, other than to be prepared with a will, letters to loved ones etc.

But most of us do not die this way. Most of us will end our lives in a slow decline due to incurable illness or “old age”. Plenty of time to carry out a plan to die well.

I am going to be studying more on this subject as time allows in the coming months. I find it to be fascinating. I am not afraid of dying, although I have many things I want to do and see on this earth first. I hope my death is many years away yet, and when it does come, that I will be able to die well.

The WB

Today I was surfing the web looking for sites about hiking the Bruce Trail (ah, spring fever!) and of course Google led me to some blogs. Visited a few, then came across a blogger who had signed up for this “A to Z” challenge. Before I had a chance to overthink this idea (and talk myself out of participating), I had signed myself up for the selfsame challenge!

So here’s the deal. 26 days of blogging. 26 letters of the alphabet. Each day of the challenge to write a post about a topic starting with the letter of the alphabet as specified in the above calendar. Sounds easy, right? And just the thing I need to get me back in the blogging habit!

So excited to start this challenge! Wish me luck…especially for the letters X and Z!

The WB

On October 30, 2013 I was at work when I got the call from my home.

“It’s a beautiful day and I want to walk. Leave work now and meet me at the Post Office. That’s where I’m walking to, and then we can walk down to the river.”

I looked at my colleague Joanne, who nodded and said, “When your husband says leave work to go for a walk with him, you’d better go.”

So I did. It was a very nice fall afternoon but JD was needing constant oxygen, and so frail with his body wracked with cancer that I worried all along the drive home.

He surprised me with his good humour and his ability to walk and we enjoyed ourselves very much. We’d had so many sad and tense days since his diagnosis that this felt almost like the old, pre-cancer JD And me.

He talked about our moving to the Post Office, and how he would sit on the bench on the other side of the Mill Pond, and I could meet him there every afternoon once I got off work. Part of me knew this would never happen, and part of me willingly went along with the fantasy – an escape for the moment. He wanted me to take a picture of him pointing to the spot where he would be waiting for me.

Two weeks later, on November 13, he would lay dying in the ICU. I think often of that last walk. I am so glad I did cut my work day short to be with him on what turned out to be our last walk together.

 

I just finished my Ethical Decision Making class and am now “on hiatus” from my MBA studies until January 2015, when I undertake Business Law.

So, I am really hoping to be able to blog more frequently and with some regularity….and do some much needed work on this website.

Life is ticking on as it should. I am still reeling with emotions some days, still confused as hell as to how I am feeling on others, but mostly I am happy with how my new life is unfolding.

Since my last post and before my just-finished course, I spent a couple of weeks in the Netherlands with my son, staying with family and showing him his Dutch heritage.

As a result of that trip (and becoming used to wonderful coffees every morning from my cousin’s dream machine), I am now the proud owner of a fancy schmancy latte-makin’ machine myself. Behold:

I made it a priority to enjoy this summer, as last summer was just a blur of hospitals and treatments and research and futile prayers for healing. I’ve been to a Michael Bublé concert, BIG Music Fest, and the Mill Race Folk Festival so far.

And this year’s tax refund was dedicated to building a rooftop patio, which is now finished and furnished except for a railing. I am enjoying this space every morning and every evening that the weather allows. Behold:

I have dedicated a lot of my free moments lately to cleaning up 20 years’ worth of messes in my building, with a lot of help from family and friends. This works continues:

So, to ensure that I don’t spend every waking moment on this type of work, I also signed up for a 1/2 marathon race in Montreal on September 28th. This means:

Those are the highlights of what I’ve been up to lately. More (and more regular) posts to come!

 

 

November 13 – 14, 2013

One thing about being in ICU – there is always a nurse only a couple of steps away. After informing her of JD’s decision not to take the life support option, the nurse told me that JD’s blood pressure was being artificially maintained with medication and that this would continue, but no additional measures would take place. When he was ready for it, they would administer a sedative, to put him under. This would calm his breathing down and he would be able to be taken off of the noisy CPAP machine and have a smaller oxygen mask. I didn’t ask what would happen after that. I didn’t have to.

I relayed this to JD and he agreed to wait until his dad and sister came to see him. Time passed. Mom returned to the room. We took turns rubbing his feet, holding his hands, and placing cool cloths on his forehead and chest at his request. He was not allowed to drink anything (for fear of aspiration), but could suck on ice chips. He also wanted to sit up – also not allowed due to the recent angiogram.

After what seemed like an eternity, his dad and sister and her husband entered the ICU. JD’s first words were to tell them he loved them. He half-asked, half-mimed that he wanted his dad to hit a golf ball for him, in his memory. Then he wanted us to join hands together with him and recite the Lord’s Prayer, which we did.

JD’s dad did not seem to want to grasp the reality of the situation. Fight son! Don’t give up, he urged. The pastor was visibly upset. She and my mother went into the hallway. Mom told me later the pastor was ready to take his dad aside and tell him it was unfair to ask JD to keep fighting – JD needed to be allowed to die with peace. We had to let him go. Luckily, his dad calmed down and JD seemed to be paying him no mind.

Kiss me, kiss me! JD gasped. He removed his mask and we kissed each other on the lips, for the first time in months. (We had abstained from this intimacy for fear that I could give him a respiratory infection that could finish him off.)

Then he told us, Mom is here with me now. I am not afraid. I am ready to go. I love you all. Then he did something extraordinary.

He ripped his mask off of his face and threw it off the bed. Then he shouted, I am ready to go. Why am I still here?!

Handsome! I pleaded. It doesn’t work that way. Let me get the nurse. Please put your mask back on!

The nurse appeared with the medication. She injected it into JD’s IV port and he closed his eyes for the last time. His breathing calmed and the smaller oxygen mask was placed over his nose and mouth.

The next 5 hours were spent talking quietly around JD’s ICU bed, holding his hands and rubbing his feet. We all watched the monitors as the numbers decreased slowly, incrementally signalling the waning of his life. More visitors arrived: the rest of the wedding party of our 2010 nuptials, my kids from my first marriage…the nurses brought chairs for everyone.

At times I felt like I was hostessing this weird pre-funeral as I tried to engage everyone in turn, in conversation. JD’s dad was taking it particularly hard. He repeatedly asked me what they were giving JD to fight the cancer. I had to repeatedly tell him that the time for anti-cancer drugs and fighting was over.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about all of this. Shouldn’t I be focusing solely on my husband? In the end though, I think it was what I was meant to do.

At 12:18 am on Thursday, November 14, 2013 JD took his last breath. After everyone left the room, I asked the nurse for some washcloths so I could wash my husband and say goodbye to him privately before they took him away. I carefully wiped down his still warm face, hands, chest and feet, avoiding all of the tubes still left in him and hooked up to various machines and monitors. Then I left him in the loving care of the ICU nurses and went home, to spend my first night as a widow with my mother.

 

November 13 – 14, 2013

Back in the ICU

Dr. Chernish bent close to JD so he could hear him over the noise of the machine assisting his breathing. He basically repeated all that was said to me in the consulting room.

You are out of options. Even if I had some new miracle anti-cancer drug to give to you, I wouldn’t be able to do it. You are too weak. You want life support but you will likely die as we put you on it. You have fought a tremendous fight but now it is over.

JD’s first words to me after Dr. C left were I want to go on life support.

My first words back to him were Handsome, if that is what you want done, then that is what we are going to do.

Next came the following, half-gasped, half-mimed: Will I be able to write notes while on life support? I said I didn’t know but would ask the nurse.

No, said the nurse. When you are on life support you are kept unconscious the whole time, and you don’t regain consciousness, ever. Oh, I said. I didn’t know that.

I relayed this information to my husband. Oh, he said, I didn’t know that. I said me either. We need to talk, he said. I asked my mom and the pastor to leave us for a few moments.

Get a paper and pen, said my husband. Now write this down and leave spaces for notes: Plan A, Plan B, Plan C. I did so. What is Plan A? I asked, pen poised to attack the paper.

Stay as is.

Plan B?

Go on life support.

Plan C?

I don’t know yet.

This was my moment. Don’t ask me where I got the strength or the words, but I put down the pen, grabbed his hand, and this is what I said.

Well Handsome, I have been thinking a bit about Plan C, and I think it has some good points to it. With Plan C you will be able to be with your mom again, and your Auntie Hazel and your grandparents. You will no longer be struggling to breathe. And, for you it won’t seem like very long until we are together again.

Yes. Plan C is the one, came the instant reply.

OK, I said. Let me talk to the nurse and find out what happens next.