Losing Pa

So strange, but I feel like I was just writing this same post last week about Ma, but it was almost a year ago that we lost her and now we are going through the loss of another loved grandparent. So since the last time I wrote Pa was at Tupelo and not doing well and things just went downhill from there. At Tupelo hospital Pa tried to get up to a chair and his blood pressure dropped significantly and completely fainted and became confused and wasn't the same after. He was diagnosed with having another stroke on the left where all of his previous ones were on the right. Wednesday night when my aunt jill went to stay with him in the new room in the "intensive" care stroke unit she reported that he slept through the night with absolutely no movement. While they had his INR back under control, they failed to even check his other lab values which come to find out later was detremental. The Dr.s and RN's there refused to basically treat him in anyway. Because it was determined that he was "terminal" and unable to be alert enough to swallow they stopped giving him his meds and all he had was IV fluids. The doctors were so cold and callous and noone wanted to put any sort of tubes in him for the bleeding risk (no feeding tube, no catheter, no respiratory suctioning) So mom and Jill got his Dr. in Southaven at Baptist to agree to accept him and we had him transferred to the step down unit at DeSoto on Friday. Upon admission it was found that his hematocrit was 16, and hemoglobin was 6. A normal Hct is in the 40's for men and Hbg is in the teens. Both of these numbers indicated bleeding and massive blood loss. Tupelo had failed to even draw these labs after admission on Sunday! He was bleeding for four days and no one even checked on it! I went to the hospital all day on Saturday where mom, Jill and two of Pa's sisters Reba and Marie stayed vigilantly at his bedside cleaning him and talking to him, holding his hand. We were not sure what all he could hear or even comprehend and didn't move much on his own at all that day. He received a total of 4 units of blood and 3 units of plasma as well as some tube feedings and that gave him enough energy to open his eyes slightly and squeeze our hands really hard and followed some simple commands on Sunday. I went to visit him on my way to work Sun night and he squeezed my hand when I asked him to and then took his fingers and interlaced them across his stomach as if to say, "I'm at peace, let me go" (at least that is the way that I interpreted it). So everyone went home and Uncle Danny stayed and in the middle of the night around 2:30 the Respiratory therapist came to try and suction him out b/c he wasn't coughing on his own to clear his secretions and was unable to pass the catheter. She tried 7-8 times and then before Danny knew what was going on everyone had rushed in and they began to code him because he had lost his pulse. The entire family had agreed and it was Pa's wishes not to be resucitated in such an event so after discussions with Mom and Jill they asked the Dr's to stop and let Pa go. It was the worst phone call I've ever gotten this morning when Mom called and I knew what she was going to say. I had actually left work early Sunday night because I had a stomach virus and had gotten sick at work so I was actually leaving around the time all of this happened. Somehow I think my subconcious knew that we had lost Pa. We are going to have a visitation Wednesday night at Memphis Funeral Home on Poplar at 6pm-8pm and then the service on Thursday at 11am (I think don't know 100% yet). Pa was a Korean War veteran, a private jet pilot, air traffic controller and supervisor, a 32nd degree Mason, a trainer for bird dogs and a judge for the national field dog trials, and a beloved husband, brother, father, grandfather, and most recently great grandfather to Walker and Camden and will be sorely missed. Check back as I will be posting some more pictures that we are going to display at the funeral after I scan them tomorrow. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers as we weather this storm of loss we know that God is near and will comfort us in our time of sorrow. He is so good and just. I ran across this verse while reading the Bible tonight while praying that this will teach me or someone else involved something and also remember that we should celebrate death if we are believers in Christ knowing that Pa is in heaven with his Heavenly Father and is healed of all his earthly ailments and now reunited with those who went before him : "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." Romans 8:18