what it's like

i’m sitting in icu with my dad. He’s ‘napping’ (as much as one can in the ICU) and I have my laptop with me so the time will pass a bit easier for me today. If I can stop studying his screens, I just might get some work done. That would ease my guilt about work some. My dad looks so much better. It’s really an incredible difference from Saturday when we thought we were going to lose him. He has color, jokes around a bit, and even eats some. His body isn’t expelling CO2 properly and when it builds up, it basically poisons him. He’s on a bipap machine helps take the CO2 out of his system and when he starts to become ‘benout’ (I’ve no clue how to spell that) as he and my mom call it, the bipap seems to really do the trick. My dad is agitated and confused in between being his old joking self. He removes tubes, IV’s, and monitors at will. They had to add a bed alarm because he got up in the middle of the night and started messing with things. I think he hears the beeping and tries to fix whatever he hears. When he’s not doing well, that’s where it gets terrifying. Some of the confusion talk is frightening when I wonder if some sort of permanent damage has been done. What’s scarier is when he desats. He seems to be fine and then suddenly, his blood oxygen levels plummet. His color fades and he starts to shake and it’s just simply unbelievable to me while it’s happening. Yelling his name, waking him, shaking him a bit all seem to correct the problem and then his numbers will shoot right back up to the 90’s. It’s just so frightening and unbelievable and unfair and wrong. And here’s what I really want to get down on paper. I’ve always imagined death as a process. I imagined that my loved one would slowly fade. Perhaps an illness that you never really come back from, a few hospitalizations, all the while slowly transforming into our purest form. I know that some people pass on (a whole other post – what word do you like for dying?) suddenly due to accidents, but still imagined perhaps reduced capabilities, and then reduced consciousness, and then the inevitable goodbye. When my dad was desatting this weekend, he was going from joking and complaining to nonresponsive. He’d be ‘gone-ish’ and then the ventilator gets hooked up and within a couple of hours, he’s right back to being himself asking for the television remote. So instead of this spiritual transformation I’ve imagined, it’s this mechanical battle. When the mechanics aren’t working, does that mean that the soul is ready for transformation? What if it’s not? What if I’m not? Is that all it is?
update: I just had to authorize them to intubate my dad if need be. How can this be happening? I keep telling myself that I’m overreacting and that he’s going to be just fine. Seriously, I’m just overreacting and then he desats and my denial gets tested. No worries. My denial is strong.
My poor little daddy. I just want to cuddle him up.