The beauty of death

I have been learning about death lately.  I honestly never really thought there was much to it.  I figured it was just "lights out" or that it was a terrible thing to see and that a dead body is creepy.  That's about it. Tonight my family met with a Fairview Hospice Nurse named Jamie.  He spent hours with us talking about my dad and explaining to us the dying process and the grief process.  He listened.  He heard our questions.  He even fielded some anger from us.  And graciously, he was able to identify for us where he believes my dad to be in this process.  His guess..days to weeks.
And so now I have to take a long hard look at death and though I do not like the process, I am almost intrigued to learn that it IS a process.  And as I learn I realize the hand of my Creator even in how He orchestrates the end of life.  In a natural dying process, there is a beautiful rhythm and flow.  There is order and mercy.  Sadly, our heroic interventions can sometimes interrupt this order and make the process terrible for those we love.   It pains me to be a spectator.  I feel so helpless, always questioning if we are doing the right thing.  I hurt for me, for my mom, for my kids, for my whole family.  And yet, dad seems to be the one hurting the least.  When my niece went to go back home tonight, dad hugged her and said,  "It is only going to get better.  I promise."  Enough said for today.

Doing the right? thing

Well, my dad has been home for exactly one week as of Thursday.  It is now Friday and I can't sleep just yet.  Today was awful.  Dad went from having a pretty normal day to not so normal to terrible.  He has had continued issues with eating and some vomiting all along, but now today he vomited up his Ensure which was alarming.  Then after a bout outside, he became so chilled and weak he was shaking uncontrollably.  They did manage to get him to bed where he spiked a fever and we had to pile blankets on top of him while he lay there trembling and scared.  The fever kept climbing and he became a bit disoriented.  My first instinct is to get him to the hospital.  What the heck is going on?  Is it the tumor, an infection what?  But he is on hospice so their advice is to give him a Tylenol and see if it will help but it might not because the cancer is likely putting his temperature control out of whack which is something that happens as a person progresses toward death.  Okay, as I have said before, I am pretty well grounded in reality.  I get that hospice's job is not to prolong the dying process and to just make the patient comfortable.  But here is what is messing with my head.  I am not sure that him even being home and on hospice is the right decision.  Did he really come home to just die or did he come home with the hope of getting even a little better so he could enjoy his last days/weeks /months.  It has been one freaking week and we are being prepared for his death?  Inside everything is screaming that we need an opinion from the hospital end of the spectrum to see if we are doing the right thing!  I want to see what is going on with the cancer.  I want to know that he may just need a boost at the hospital to set things on course again.  But yet I know I may not get these answers, and I also know I may just have to take the road of inaction and watch my dad just die.  But to feel like the ones making the ultimate decisions to let another person dehydrate and starve seems so incredibly wrong even though I know that is often the cause of death with this type of cancer.  The cancer dehydrates and sucks all of the nutrition from his body not to mention the energy and life!  This just sucks!  I am stuck between not knowing if we are making the right decision by having him home and not wanting to prolong the inevitable and make it potentially worse for Dad.  I am just sad and confused and angry.  This death and dying stuff is so easy to deal with when it doesn't hit your camp, but boy once it comes close or worse, invades, it messes with you, it changes you.  I am just not able to see the positive stuff of it right now. :*(