The Manx Den

Strawberries!
My garden has finally fruited, and here’s the very first of the ripe strawberries from the patch. Tasty-looking, neh? I assure you, they were!

Well, let’s see.. things haven’t been easy this past week. We buried my father-in law last friday (the 23rd)…

On monday the 19th I went down with Mike to check up on Sigurd and Ingelise, who are Mike’s mother and father. Since the friday before Sigurd had been bed-ridden – he had several nights without the long-acting painkiller that gave him a peaceful sleep.

After a home visit from the local doctor, he was put to his bed in the living room loaded up with morphine. His breathing was very raspy and full of coughing when we visited – it was a sad affair, and when Mike and his mother went for a while out into the garden for fresh air, he told me to listen to his father’s breathing. If Sigurd stopped breathing for more than three minutes, I was to go get Mike.

Well, it certainly wasn’t a comforting thought, but Sigurd (while he did have 30-50 second pauses in his rythm) did not stop breathing that night. When Mike and I went home that evening we called overseas to my dad and stepmom. My stepmother is named Cheryl, and she is an educated nurse who’s fravorite workplace is the emergency room. She’s also worked in a nursing home, and she was able to fill us in on what was going on in Sigurd’s body and how long she expected him to live.

See, Sigurd had lung cancer (caused by exposure to asbestos), and we found out only last march. By then it had spread throughout his body, and it was too late even by radical standards to save his life with chemotherapy. They did give him a little for his brain, which probably extended his life a bit. Now in the last week of his life his body was trying to fight off the cancer with a fever, and he slept fitfully.

Over saturday and sunday he woke a few times when the painkillers wore off, enough to recognize our faces and names, but he was not aware that he was in the living room of his home, and he wanted very much to get up out of the hospital bed (which they had delivered to his home as he wished to be at home when he died). Mike’s sister, Lejla, also a nurse, stayed with Mike’s mom to help over the weekend. She was crucial while there, because Ingelise certainly would not have been able to force her husband (in a fever and too weak to stand) to stay in the bed or stand up to his protests.

On sunday they upped his medications so that he could sleep more peacefully and would not fight to get up so much – we were all a bit morally struggling, because we did not want to drug him down for our convenience – but it would be much, much worse if he got out of bed and fell.

On monday evening Mike and I went to visit again and see how things were going…