lazarus

 Dad was in hospital and the plan was to get him into a dementia unit. One day last week I went to visit him and the ward had been locked to stop him leaving. Another time he was wearing his pyjama pants as a scarf and telling me about the blizzard which would kill me.

On Saturday he needed a shower and I asked if it was possible and was told they needed clean clothes for him. There were clean singlets, shirts and underwear available but not trousers and I felt that I was being shamed so I went to the closest discount store and bought three pairs of trousers. It was quite late and I couldn't see any nurses so I dropped the trousers and hoped they would put them on him.

For me, those trousers have become a symbol of the week we have had.

Sunday lunch time I took Mum to visit and the ward was unlocked, there was a nurse stationed at the door to Dads room and I thought that must be a bad sign so I asked how he was. 

We were shocked to find out that Dad had been found unresponsive in his bed with a heart rate too slow to sustain life. Doctors wanted permission to implant a pace maker but we declined. Mum and I agreed that the dementia was causing such mental distress that extending life was not what we wanted to do.

And so, dad was medicated to keep his heart going long enough for goodbyes and we expected that when the drugs were stopped he would slip into a sleep and then a coma and death.

As it happened, the drugs were stopped on Monday and Dad inexplicably maintained consciousness. He was sleepy and weak but had a great day on Tuesday: reading the paper, calling friends and chatting. We thought we were seeing "the rally" and Wednesday might be the last of his days but he has gradually got stronger, is again getting out of bed and unfortunately the delusions seem to be returning. He is too well to be in hospital and we are back at the point where we need to arrange for him to go into aged care.

Dad became a palliative patient when we decided against a pace maker and so there is no monitoring and we don't know what his heart rhythmn is doing but arrythmias like his don't fix themselves so we assume it is still not working properly and he will decline. It might be a slow decline or a cardiac arrest but having maintained a death bed vigil since Sunday we have all realised that life must go on.

It's been a very strange week and who knows what will be next.