On the longest night we search for the light

I hope everyone reading this has had a truly wonderful holiday season. I'm sorry I didn't send cards or anything of that matter... it was so chaotic and sad. But Mom and I are doing fairly well. We spent Christmas Eve and morning at Amanda's house, and then the rest of Christmas Day and yesterday at Debbie's. It was something we genuinely needed, and it was truly enjoyable.

The snow is finally melting. 18 inches of it and it's down to about 5. It was nice having a white Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, we stopped at the post office and I received a mysterious gift. It was shipped to me directly from Etsy. It's a silver necklace with a silver compass whose arrow is pointing north. My breath caught in my throat when I brought it up out of its little gold and white flat box envelope. I've been wearing it ever since and I'll probably join it with the ruby heart Trevor sent me for my birthday. I might even buy a little dog tag to go with it and have it engraved with: "Go in the direction of your dreams".

It's almost time to go home. I feel it tingling in my blood, singing. The drive to go north is back. I've felt it for over a decade, and the only time I didn't feel it was when I was in Canada. It's almost like everything inside me is raring to go, whispering "it's almost time" to me.

On discussing family issues and the like, just yesterday...

I felt like I was punched in the stomach when Susan told me that under no uncertain terms that I am not their sister, that they have each other and don't need anyone else. I don't know if I was actually expecting to build sibling relationships with them, but I thought the five of us had that silent understanding that we were all of the same mother--and two of us of the same father as well--and that it would cement our relationship with each other and we could go from there. I didn't expect we would actually go anywhere from there, but I couldn't help but feel deeply hurt.

It's so stupid, but I'll always remember her words. "It doesn't matter. You're not our sister."

You're right, Susan. It doesn't matter. It never did and it never will, and it no longer will to me.

I will no longer think about them being my siblings. Not ever. It's simply time to move on and keep going and never again look back.

At least my own children will have each other, and that thought comforts me. They may hate each other sometimes and fight, but at least they will have each other. None of them will be ever excluded from their sibling circle.

When I watched Amanda's kids get all excited on Christmas morning and plow into their gifts and be happy all day, I imagined the future... Oh shut up, ovaries. *whacks them into obedience*

Hurry up and get here, 2010. You're going to be my year.

The outpouring of support from all of you and even more in the wake of my dad's death has been absolutely wonderful, and in lieu of thanking you one by one, I'm going to thank all of you at once for your love.

I'm deeply grateful and so is my mom. Thank you, my friends and loves. <3

"It's a Wonderful Life". I always have to watch it.

I don't know if I really can't stand any of them, though.

I thought it was hard to reprint one of my application pages to add the date of Dad's death. That was nothing in comparision to seeing his ashes coming home. It's hit me harder than I thought it would.

Today's highlights...

Bill took Debbie and Susan Christmas shopping today in his 4 wheel drive. On the way back up their steep driveway, the truck began slipping toward the abyss of the mountain ravine, a fall down which would be instant death. The truck ended up partially hanging off the edge, but everyone got out safely and transported the goods the rest of the way up to the house. DDDD:

Becky is snowed in at Jessie's house. They lost power early yesterday and had to go to the neighbour's house to huddle around the woodstove. Power isn't expected to be on for another few days, and nobody knows how or when Becky can be retrieved.

Susan's bleeding again and is doubled over in agony. She'll probably have to go to the hospital tonight, which will consist of them calling an ambulance and Adam carrying her down the driveway to the road.

January 1st can't get here fast enough. ._.

Borrowed from the lovely elfinecstasy for this long night.


Winter Solstice Song - Lisa Thiel

Chorus:
Enter the night and you’ll find the light,
That will carry you to your dreams.
Enter the night, let your spirit take flight,
In the field of infinite possibilities

On the longest night we search for the light,
And we find it deep within.
Open your eyes to embrace what is wise,
And see the light of your own soul shining.

(Chorus)
Wrap up in the cloak of starry darkness my child, And you’ll find the center of all things.
For from this space of the deepest dark place,
Life Eternal does spring.

(Chorus)
So when you find that spark
When you dream in the dark,
Hold it close to your heart and know.
All that you see is all that can be
When you give birth to the dreams of your soul.

(Chorus)

He was so loved that when he died, all nurses on the vascular ICU and PCU received a text message telling them he was gone. How often does that happen?

We're going to have a celebration of life after the new year, hopefully in the hospital auditorium if Dr. Franko can pull some strings. Debbie's going to rent a helium tank and make balloons, having the little ones in the family write messages for Dad on cards to attach to the balloons, which will then be released into the sky.

Trevor requested the day off yesterday to be as close to me as possible. He didn't have to do that, but I'm so grateful he did.

We don't want to be here on Christmas Eve or Day, so we're spending Christmas Eve at Amanda's house and Christmas Day at Debbie's. Mom and I are still going to go out and finish shopping as soon as this winter storm eases off (we were supposed to get 16-20 inches, but it looks like Montvale got more along the lines of 11-12). It's incredibly painful, like tossing lemon juice onto a raw wound, to even think of Christmas being 6 days away, but Dad definitely would have wanted us to. He loved Christmas and he loved seeing us happy, and I know for a fact he would be pissed off if we didn't go through with it. Not that it's going to make it any easier on us, but the peace we feel is profound.

After he died from the shock of severe blood loss which they stopped too late, we got to go up there and see him. They had removed the crash cart, the life support, the IVs, the central line, the oxygen, leaving him unmarred by all those tubes and wires. He looked like he was sleeping peacefully. His skin was already ice cold, but there was a small smile on his face and his eyebrows were lifted as though in joyful surprise. They refused to call a priest in, so Mom has now renounced Catholicism.

Staring at him, I could have sworn I saw him breathing. In several awful minutes of desperate panic ripping at my insides, I thought he was alive, and I wanted them to hook him back up to all the machines and help him. Irrational panic. I couldn't even look at him anymore. There was still colour in his face. I began to hyperventilate, but quickly got a hold of myself before anyone else noticed.

That morning at around 10:30, Debbie took us to Oakey's in downtown Roanoke to talk to the funeral director about creamation. Debbie and Bill paid for it, thank God. We got to see him, laid out on a table under a folded-back white sheet, in a tranquil room with lit candleabras on the walls. His face and flesh had changed with death, and he certainly didn't look simply asleep like he had hours before. He was distended and horrifically swollen all over from the emergency meds he'd been pumped with, but he still looked at peace. When I laid my hand over his enfolded ones, the awful ice cold emanating from his body radiated into my flesh, and I still can't shake that horrible feeling.

Oakey's was right across from the building I got my fingerprints done in. When I got them done, Amanda and I were really cheerful and I was looking forward to going home. Who knew that I'd be across the street the very next day, staring at my father whose body had finally given up after all this time?

When he went into shock and they got him stable again, they were concerned because all his arteries were "clamping down" and delivering only marginal blood supply to his vital organs. For several hours he was staring at nothing, blinking reflexively, not responding to us or anyone else. Then he slipped into what we think was a coma, completely unresponsive. They surmised he had suffered devastating brain damage. They tried hard to keep him alive, but not even the life support or three different blood pressure medications could sustain him, and his body simply shut down. There was truly nothing more that they could do.

I'm just glad we had him for twelve more years after the stroke. And I'm so thankful I was here for all of this. I would have been a trainwreck if I had gone home by now and hadn't been able to be with him in his final days.

His final days. It's still so surreal talking about him like this.

Time to go distract myself again. I baked oatmeal cookies... his favourite. Now I'm going to go take pictures of the beautiful snowy expanse outside.

We lost him at 1:45 this morning.

Death is imminent.

After Amanda picked me up to take me downtown and get my fingerprints for the FBI and brought me back, Dad went into shock and crashed. They were just able to keep him alive and get him on maximum life support and medicine to keep his blood pressure stable. He was still internally bleeding at an alarming rate.

They took him upstairs for a procedure, which fixed part of the problem, but then they did a scan and discovered that the real source of the bleeding was from his upper small intestine... which Dr. Lee-from-HELL said was impossible and he swore there had been NOTHING there when he did both endocscopy procedures. Well, obviously there was, and it was VERY obvious. This other doctor, called in by H'Doubler and his team, forced it to scar over, then he clamped it. So the internal bleeding was stopped.

But it looks like it's too late.

He's still in shock, which had initially caused all arteries to clamp down and send only minimal blood supply to his vital organs. His kidneys were all but destroyed this time, and his entire digestive tract might be damaged beyond repair, and there might be severe brain damage. We don't know if there was any brain damage at all since he seems to be in a coma now.

But when I had a look at him just before we left, his opened his right eye when I called to him, and the way that eye looked stunned me. Flat, dull, dark, no highlights, absolutely lifeless, like someone who was already dead. It was like his soul had already left him, leaving a ruined husk of a body behind to languish. Debbie saw this in his eye too. She saw it in the eyes of her grandfather before he died.

They're giving him about 24 hours or less. They don't expect him to survive longer than that. They've already done all they possible can for him and have exhausted all resources.

Mom and I seem to have fallen into a state of acceptance. Not that it's not still incredibly painful and horrible, but we're not desperately clinging anymore. I have a feeling of having let go. It was hard coming home and seeing his recliner and his power chair empty, and knowing he will probably never come home and make use of them again. Mom looks terrible... so haggard and bone-weary and empty. The only time she ever got really upset today was when they had to cut Dad's wedding band off because his hand was so swollen. She had to leave the room and go outside with Debbie, leaving me in the waiting room to have the ring (which, luckily, they didn't have to cut off after all) dropped into my hand. Mom is now wearing it with her own wedding ring.

I know I've got Mom and we've got the support of the family, but I've never felt so incredibly alone in my life. I wish Trev was here.

Going to bed now. I don't know if we'll receive a phonecall in the middle of the night telling us that he's died. Mom's sleeping on the couch, near the phone. I feel like I'm going to pass out. I just can't deal with this day any longer.

Wow, I love my current icon. That's totally me.

Physical issues: Bleeding internally again, this time more severely. The blood was thin and diluted, but it was bright crimson, which meant it was coming from somewhere in his lower GI tract. They had to give him two units of blood last night to compensate for the loss. His liver, lungs, and pancreas are improving little by little, but his kidney function is slowly beginning to fail again. His whole abdomen was tender and painful. Amptuation site is looking excellent, but the incision where H'Doubler went in and removed the haematoma is starting to look infected. They were switching antibiotics to one that wouldn't harm his kidneys. Bicarbonate level in blood dropped alarmingly in the course of a few hours.

Mental issues: Excellently awake and alert. Responsive and comprehending as usual, though the pain he was in, general physical weakness, and the feeding tube in his throat prevented him from talking very clearly. He was strangely clingy to us today, especially to me, but I'm not sure if it was because he was confused or fearful.

Stuff: My homeboy H'Doubler (lawl, Mandi... xD) called in to check the haematoma site and also to judge if Dad's got very bad circulation or not. We didn't get to talk to him. Dad taken in for endoscopy and colonoscopy. Ulcers are 25% healed and so is pancreas. No sign of perforations, additional ulcers, polyps, or cancer. Dr. Lee (the idiot who initially canceled this procedure and wrote down that it was Mom who did it) said that he found two strange spots up in the colon that he clamped to prevent problems with, but he said there was NO way that was the cause of the bleeding and that there was no way the bleeding was caused by Dad's waste tube system thing.

However, Dad's nurse, Lynne, was in the endoscopy room for the whole procedure. Frowning, she told Mom and I that that's not what was going on. She said these weird spots Lee clamped were about two inches inside and were most likely caused by the waste tube thing, which had been removed and not put back in, and that they were *probably* the cause of the severe bleeding, though we can't be 100% sure of that at this point. At least Dad has ceased bleeding for now, but he's had to have two more units of blood and a unit of plasma to top him off again.

He was carefully intubated for the procedure, in case his lungs started to fail, which they did not. Hopefully they will remove it tomorrow. I really hate seeing him hooked up to a ventilator again, dammit. But he was able to mouth "I love you" around the tube.

Before the procedure, which was dangerous for him in his general poor health, he was holding my hand and said he loved me. I knew then that if we lost him on the table that at least my last memory with him was a good one. But thankfully it wasn't my last one. I hope my last one won't be for a long time.

Didn't get to go to the Federal building and get my fingerprints for immigration done today, since it was running too close to the time of Dad's procedure. Amanda's picking me up from the hospital at 10:00 in the morning, and hopefully I can then seal it and the cover letter up in the envelope and have her mail it out for me.

This is almost like going to work. I get my stuff done in the evenings, pack my lunch for the next day, lay out my clothes. At 6:30am I jump up when Debbie calls to wake us up, make coffee, get dressed, throw on mascara and brow pencil and sometimes yellow-hued concealer to hide my very black undereye circles. On the way to the hospital, we run through the drive-thru and get breakfast. The morning is spent consulting doctors and nurses, visiting with Dad, and finding out general info for the day. Then Mom needs to smoke, so we go outside for a bit, then go back up to the room and eat the lunch we brought. There's usually one to two more trips outside, and a trip to the south pavilion of the lobby to get vanilla coffee at the Java Hut. Then Debbie comes and we head home, and repeat the whole process.

Going to throw laundry in the dryer, make my valerian tea, and go to bed. Hopefully tomorrow will pass without dangerous incident. Mom and I are going Christmas shopping in the evening, wheeee.

Dad's not doing well at all. He's extremely weak and seems to have lost most of his sense of comprehension. His speech is very slurred and soft, barely audible, his breathing strained.

And we dealt with a doctor from hell and a nurse from hell. I won't even get into it, it upsets me too much. Let's just say the doc left in a huff, muttering "Well he's not going to survive anyway" and the nurse loudly trashing us to the other nurses and shouting at Mom to stay away from Dad and sit the hell down.

And Susan does not have a ruptured fallopian tube, and it's highly doubtful that she has a tubal pregnancy. It looks like she has a nasty ovarian cyst and a miscarriage that never exited her body (but there's a 15% chance she's having a living pregnancy).

Need to go to bed. Emotionally drained.

YAAAY MANDI IS ACTIVE ON LIVEJOURNAL AGAIN. *throws confetti*

Going back outside to watch the Geminids meteor shower. The peak is in 10 minutes and I already saw several streak down at once as of a couple hours ago. I've seen some nice fireballs, too! They seem to fall in the direction of home... pointing the way.

After that, going to pack my lunch for tomorrow and then heading to bed. It's going to be a looonngggg day, then Mom and I are coming home and going right back out to have dinner and do Christmas shopping.

ALL MY PR STUFF IS OFFICIALLY PRINTED. I DON'T KNOW WHY, BUT I *JUST* REALIZED THAT. AND IT MAKES ME VERY PLEASED, INDEED.

...Now if I could just get Trevor to get his printed. Hurr hurr.

Stupid salt & vinegar chips. I'll never fit in those size 12's at this rate! xD

Dad was taken off the ventilator today, and so far, so good, though the machine is still on standby just in case. He's coughing a lot of really deep, wet coughs (apparently these are VERY good for him, according to the nurses), and his throat is in a lot of pain, but otherwise he's beginning the road to recovery. The anesthesia and initial sedation are starting to work their way out of him more quickly, so he was a lot more alert today.

He doesn't seem to be upset that his leg is gone. He knows that was the cause of all his problems and of his brush with death, especially since he was under sedation 95% of the time.

We came home an hour or so early because we're getting a bit of an ice storm tonight. Not a bad one, but bad enough to not be driving in it. We stopped at Dollar General and I found a mini gift set with a mug and sugar bowl with an apple pattern on them, so I had to have them xD

Susan was released from the hospital today. They couldn't operate because there were no extra doctors. So she's home now, bleeding with a ruptured fallopian tube and a dead fetus growing on the outside, and they don't want her going back until Monday, and that's only for bloodwork. This one doctor had come through and didn't even look at the ultrasounds that showed the rupture and the object, just said that it was a simple ovarian cyst, nothing to worry about. WTF? Her belly is swollen with fluid and/or blood, she's in so much pain, her pregnancy hormone is still riding high, and she's very pale and can't eat. Ugh, ugh, ugh. I'm so worried :/

Watching It's a Wonderful Life and realizing how totally true that is.

Thank you all for your prayers, good vibes, and support. Dad's surgery went sucessfully, and while it's hard to see him with only one leg now, he has a wonderful chance of recovery (however long that may be) and the whole source of the problem, including that massive hematoma in his groin, is gone. His vitals are stable thus far and he seems to be doing well. The doctors, who all said he would die, are now optimistic and are talking about the future. One of them seemed quite surprised by how well we did, and he told us how good it was that our hope was so powerful.

But 2009 is insistant upon creating hell.

Susan's in emergency surgery right now. She had a tubal pregnancy and her fallopian tube has ruptured. She began bleeding last Sunday and hadn't stopped, and she was in utter agony and bleeding continuously, but at the time, the ER was ignoring her and wouldn't treat her, saying she wasn't an emergency case. Well, she finally got seen today.

I've never had two family members in the OR on the same day. Tomorrow I'll be visiting Dad and Susan intermittedly.

Stupid 2009.

Got my request for state criminal clearance mailed off today, and used Mom's credit card instead of a money order. Yay. Fingerprints mailed off to the FBI on Monday afternoon.

I don't feel like writing eloquent sentences.

Dialysis removed today. Kidney output and lab numbers looked good for several hours, then started relapsing again into renal failure.

Pain meds and sedation stopped. Because he didn't wake up and be 100% coherent immediately, they're marking it off as severe brain damage. Fuck all of you. He listens, he understands what we're saying to him, he tries to convey words which is impossible because of the intubation. But that damn nurse said matter-of-factly that it's brain damage because he's not *correctly* responding to verbal stimuli. HE HASN'T IN 12 YEARS, YOU STUPID BITCH, HE HAD A MASSIVE STROKE!!!

Surgery tomorrow to amputate his deadened right leg and possibly close the failed graft in his groin. They have to do it now because now is Dad's only chance. He can't improve any more than this until that leg, the source of all his problems, is gone. The surgery may very well kill him. As the vascular surgeon warned, Dad doesn't have much reserve or strength left, and he may slip away on the table. If he survives surgery and they can get the remaining stump to heal up, he has an excellent fighting chance for long-term survival.

So... more prayers and positive vibes, please. That's about all I can do, and tell him I love him before he goes in for the surgery, since it may be the final time I can do so. I don't want to believe that it is. I'm having a huge problem. I think I have gastritis again from throwing up so much. I'm so afraid.

What the hell happened to H'Doubler planning to amputate that leg back in August? None of this would be happening right now. But I'm just angry and looking for someone to blame, which isn't fair.

Every single doctor today has said that there's no way Dad will survive.

"Him being on machines will not go on forever. We will need to think about what's best for him, and that's letting him go. His prognosis is very grave." - Dr. Lee, the gastroentrinologist (sp?)

"His stats are good and his lab work is good only because of the life support. He will never live without it. You need to prepare yourselves to face the truth you're denying right now." - Dr. Franko

"This happens to everyone. You need to remember that none of us get out alive." - Dad's nurse

One of the doctors had Dad's ventilator and sedation turned off today to see how he did. When he did poorly and the nurse hooked him back up, everyone's all OMG IT'S BEEN OVER 48 HOURS, HE'S NOT GOING TO LIVEEEEEEE BECAUSE HE DIDN'T FARE WELL WITHOUT LIFE SUPPORT!!

When Dad halfway wakened to nod when I told him hi and nod when I told him I loved him, I had all the hope in the world. But then all these doctors came in and told us there's no way he will surive. They were all talking about renal failure, organ failure, etc. and that he's not going to last long at all.

I rode high for a while, but now I've been brought crashing down. I guess it was when the neatly-dressed woman from administration came in and informed us that Medicaid is refusing to pay for any of this. I guess it was when I saw Dad's face contort and get red as he tried to cough in his sleep, couldn't get it past his raw throat and tubes, and set off the ventilator and dialysis. I guess it was when his nurse, Lynne, rammed a suction tube into his mouth and into the top of his throat to suck out the stuff he was trying to cough up, and the high pitched strangled gargle he made was horrible.

Mom lost all optimism today. On our way down the quiet corridor to the main elevators to go to the lobby, she said very quietly, "Did I do the right thing in keeping him alive? Do you think he's suffering that badly?"

Amanda and I don't think so. He's at rest (except when he coughs), life support has taken the strain from his organs that were damaged from lack of blood and shock, and he needs time to begin the healing process. It's not going to be overnight. These damn doctors are rushing it big-time.

Apparently his death is imminent. We're still taking one day at a time, sometimes one hour at a time. Maybe if I let out my grief now, I can begin to accept it, because I sure as hell can't right now. Part of me still doesn't believe the doctors. But part of me does, and that's the problem. We just don't know what's going to happen.

I just lost a really long flippin' entry. I'm way too exhausted to type it all over again, so I'll keep it short. Dad's improving, he's responsive even through light sedation, and they put in a feeding tube to start giving him actual nutrition tomorrow. No more internal bleeding. Kidney output is slightly improving. Vitals are essentially perfect. They're looking to take him off the ventilator and sedation in another 2-3 days. It was troubling, however, to have a doom and gloom doctor come in and say Dad's still not going to survive this, and I was feeling really down when I happened to look up at the latest unit of blood being given: it said...

B Positive

And so, I am.

We almost lost Dad today.

It began as an ambulance trip at midnight. Five hours later he was moved up into an ICU floor, and it just started going downhill from there. He was weak, delerious, hallucinating, talking in a strange babble like a little child, crying, and was in great pain and couldn't breathe. In one of his last coherent moments, I told him I loved him, and he tried to slur the words out to me, and he gave me that old wink. Then he dissolved back into laboured breathing, panicking, and crying.

His surgeon, his doctor, the nurses, everyone there told Mom and I that Dad was dying, that there was virtually no chance of him pulling out of this. His doctor, Dr. Franko, sat us dow in the hallway in chairs and quietly explained his condition and that we must be prepared to lose him before nightfall. Dad's organs were quickly beginning to shut down and his blood pressure was dropping. The lab results on his bloodwork were astoundingly horrific, from levels in his liver to his kidneys to his white blood cell count. There had been internal bleeding from his angry stomach ulcer, so he was receiving quite a few units of blood. They started giving us the talk about deciding if we wanted to let him suffer with an order to recussitate, and one of Dr. Franko's colleagues argued quite angrily with Mom about how selfish Mom was for not enforcing a DNR. Mom just didn't want to sit there and believe that Dad was going to die because they weren't going to do anything about it.

They put an oxygen mask on his face as the doctor motioned to him, then looked back at Mom. "Is this the kind of life you want for him? Just let him go in peace."

While they argued and Mom got more and more upset, Dad's heart rate suddenly bottomed out.

"You'd better tell me now. Do you want me to intubate him??" the nurse asked Mom, completely ignoring the doctor. Mom said yes, as nurses and doctors flooded the room and began to work on him. I went and called Debbie at work and could barely choke out the words "he's dying" to her. I figured he would be dead before I could get back to his room. But I got back there and sat next to Mom as we watched them all work on him, and he was still hanging on by a thread. He was very still and deathly white, his entire face covered with the tubing.

And then, slowly, surely, he grasped life again. I could only sit there, completely numb, watching my father die before my eyes and my mother staring in silent agony beside me, and then I saw some fight return. The deathly pallor to his skin pinkened. His heart rate returned to normal and stabilized, as did his blood pressure. New lab results on his blood showed the numbers on his kidneys and other organs slightly improved by the time Debbie and Amanda arrived, who had been prepared to say their goodbyes to him.

Suddenly, everyone was like "YAY HE'S GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT!" when just a half hour earlier they were like "GET WITH IT ALREADY, HE'S GOING TO DIE!" The nurse had quietly discussed how deathly ill he was before, but then she perked up and said she thought he was going to make it through, possibly even bouncing right back.

He's heavily sedated to let his exhausted, drained body and organs rest and relax, and his vital signs are stable. They're going to keep him in sleep mode like this for at least 48 hours, because he's not out of the woods yet. However, the nurse said the main thing they're concerned about right now are his kidneys. These next 48 hours are going to be very crucial, though everyone's relaxed a little and they don't think anything drastic will happen now. But it looks like he's in hospital for the long haul, because he's not exactly 20 years old anymore, and his kidneys aren't just going to bounce back even if he himself does. They were hooking him up to dialysis to help his kidneys fuction better as they slowly started volumizing him internally with liquids, blood, and plasma. They're pretty sure his kidneys will start working better once they're hydrated again.

There's the strong probability that he has a severe case of H1N1 because of his symptoms. They were going to do a swab test tonight, so I guess Mom and I will find the results out later when we call to check on Dad. The nurse and two doctors were very concerned that I was going to get it, since there have been many H1N1 deaths occuring in young, healthy people in their teens and early to mid 20's. The nurse said I would have to immediately find somewhere that had the H1N1 vaccine, or go somewhere to get prescribed Tamiflu to ward it off.

Do. Not. Want. Pig Plague.

I just can't get over the surreal scene of watching him touch fingertips with death itself and then come back. I thought for sure he was gone. I'm so afraid he might take another turn for the worst overnight, but they don't think that will be the case at all. As long as his body is at rest and he's getting pumped full of stuff and is intubated, they think he'll remain stable as he begins the recovery process.

Mom's asleep right now. She hasn't slept in four nights, ever since Dad started getting really ill, and she's absolutely exhausted. She needs to build her strength back up, whatever happens. We're going back to the hospital in the morning, then coming home in the early evening. I pray he's going to pull through.