January 2, 2025
The first dose of morphine and Ativan was given, and after an hour, it was clear it had not had much effect. JP arrived and another dose was given. We watched him closely for another hour while the grunting and discomfort and pain continued. JP took a long look at me like she needed to say something, so I told her just to tell me. She said he was declining rapidly because he was in active transition now, he would probably go in the next 24 hours. She said this was going to be a hard day for me. She had a few options to present to the doctor and she stepped outside to make the call. I held David’s hand and just sat and watched him. He just was not settled. Not at peace. I sat and thought how quickly this was all happening. When JP returned, she said the doctor decided based on what we were seeing and how quickly it seemed to be progressing that I would need to start dosing every hour to give him as much comfort and relief as we could. JP asked several times if I would have help with the dosing. This would be hard to do emotionally. I told her I could do it. She quickly put in an order to get a hospital bed stat but when she tried to reposition him in the chair it clearly caused him tremendous pain, so we decided we would not be able to move him. JP and our friend got him better seated in chair and placed a pillow behind his head that seemed to help. Now it was time for our friend and for JP to leave. JP hugged me so tight and it reminded me of how David would hold on when he hugged me and never be the first one to let go. I told her she gave the best hugs. I found myself in the room with him. Just him and me. Like it always has been. I started talking to him and he opened his eyes. By now, his eyes were pretty fixed and his stare was a sort of vacant stare but when I asked him to look at me, he made every effort to turn his head. I knew he heard and understood what I was telling him about how I was going to have to start the morphine. This was another part about hospice I was clearly naive about. When you chose home hospice, there are no round the clock nurses at your service. It is you and you alone. Not that I was deceived in any way. They were very clear from the start what home hospice would be. It was just my over fantasized idea in my own head about what this meant. I started the dosing and each time I kissed him and told him I loved him and what I was doing. Every time he opened his mouth for me to put it in the back of his cheek. I am certain he was saying let’s do this. I sat vigil with him for the next nine hours dosing and listening and watching and second guessing and feeling utterly lonely. His mom and SL & Adam were there but inevitably it ended up being me that administered every single dose. I have questioned that ever since, but I know he was in pain and I know this is what he wanted and I know this is what I agreed to do. He was confident I was strong enough to do it and that is why he wanted to come home. I was determined to hold his hand until he got to the other side. About halfway through the afternoon, his breathing changed and the grunting and noises stopped. He began to look like he was starting to rest as he had done in previous days. I was listening for apnea type breathing to start to know when the time was closer. Instead, he just slept there but still seemed to hear me when I spoke to him and opened his mouth each time I was ready with the morphine and Ativan. I am sure he was ready. I had been telling him all along it was ok to go even though I didn’t feel that at all. I had even told him as we were getting ready to leave Emory on Saturday to know he could go now and I would be right there beside him until I couldn’t be any longer. I don’t think he liked hearing that particularly, but I felt it was important to say while he could still see and hear me.
So, I sat watching him and began to think how I just didn’t know at the time when that last conversation was going to be. I didn’t know when I was hearing him speak for the last time or the last kiss or touch or hug. I didn’t know the groceries I got for him to eat when we got home would be the last or that the last time he ate his favorite food was the last time or the last time he stretched out on the couch on Sunday afternoon to watch the Falcons play was the last. You don’t know which moments those are.
I sat with my stomach in my throat. Realizing I no longer cared about anything. Already nothing mattered to me anymore. I started thinking about his obituary and how soon all of those things would need to be done. Much, much sooner than I had initially thought when the oncologists told us he had weeks. I now know that surely was just an over guesstimation or else it was difficult to really determine. At any rate, I had told him months ago that I did not plan to have a service. That I would not be able to bear it. He said it was up to me but I felt maybe he would know just how much he meant if I was able to pull myself together and put my own pain aside long enough to make it work to honor him. So, watching him sleep, I started to put together some details in my mind. Always having to be the too prepared one. The one not caught off guard. The one that has been prepared for everything except this. The one that doesn’t know how to move forward now.
Around 10:28, roughly 9 hours after the dosing started, he opened his beautiful brown eyes then almost as quickly, they started to close again and I just knew. I told his mother he was going and asked her to get SL. We were all there with him when he took his last breath which was peaceful in the end. I lay my head on his chest as I have done so many times and listened to his heart beat fade slowly away until I could no longer hear anything at all. He just looked like he was sleeping. His mom said some prayers and we spent a little time talking to him and about him until it was time to call JP. She had told me to call her no matter what time it was, so I did and she came and listened to him for a long time before pronouncing. Since it was after midnight by now, his official date of death was January 3. She completed the paperwork, hugged me so tightly I didn’t want her to let go, and then she called the funeral home. When the guys arrived to take him from the house for the last time, I knew it would be another difficult moment. I watched as he went down the steps of the home we bought and lived in and worked in and played in and had paid off so that it was all ours and where we made a nice little family life for ourselves. I watched as the life we shared, our love, a part of my own soul was rolled away.
