In Memory of My Daddy

Yes, I called him Daddy - always have and always will. He left this Earth on Wednesday, October 13 at 12:15pm. It was the saddest day I've yet to experience since I will miss him terribly. However, I know that he is in Heaven - pain free, TTP free, and watching over us.



This is probably going to be a really long post, but I want to document all that I can. I know some of you do not know what happened so I'm going to start there. And some of you may not want to read this - I don't blame you. It's emotional and difficult so be prepared.

In December 2009, he was diagnosed with TTP (I put a link here to a better description than mine) which is basically a rare blood disorder that, among other things, destroys your kidneys. The best treatment for this is plasmapheresis where they pretty much draw your blood out, replace the plasma with healthy plasma, and put it back in through a transfusion. With the first bout of TTP he was in the hospital for about a week. They didn't have his platelet count back up to where they wanted it, but his insurance company was screaming about him being in the hospital for so long so they released him. He was technically in remission though. I can't seem to remember exactly when he relapsed, but he did and it took months to get him into remission the second time. After this last round of treatments, he just never felt himself again. The doctor decided to do a kidney biopsy - this was done on September 22 or 23 (my dates are all running together). He felt even worse after this was done, but his TTP remained in remission. In fact, his platelet count was higher than it had been since he was diagnosed.

On the night of October 6, he was experiencing shortness of breath and chest pains. He thought he was having a heart attack and my mom called for an ambulance. After hours in the ER, they determined his heart was fine, that it was fluid buildup due to his decreased kidney function (he was scheduled for a dr appt on the 7th to get the results of his kidney biopsy). So they admitted him to the hospital where his kidney specialist wanted him to stay for 2 weeks. He was going to start dialysis, then put in a port so that he could do dialysis at home. This was the prognosis - dialysis for probably the rest of his life, but he should begin to feel much better and get some of his strength back. They were also talking about putting him on a kidney transplant list.

So on Thursday they did dialysis and he was starting to feel a little better. He felt a lot better on Friday - said he felt like a new man. Then Saturday he began to have a lot of pain. They blamed the dialysis - said that sometimes people experience a lot of pain when they first start it. His blood pressure also spiked that night (another result of TTP and a side effect of some of the medications he had to take for it - he had never had high bp before being diagnosed with TTP). He insisted my mom go home, that it was silly for neither of them to get any sleep (because he was still in so much pain and every pain med they gave him made him sick). He called her right after she got home to say his BP had gone way up. She told him to call the nurse, that he should be due for more BP meds.

In the wee hours of the morning, my mom received a call that the nurse found him in the floor. We don't know if he tried to get out of bed, or why he would try, but whatever happened, he fell. He hit his head, scraped his arm and bit his tongue. The biting of his tongue made everyone believe that he had a seizure - he had had a seizure one other time that he was in the hospital when his BP spiked. This caused him to be very disoriented for a couple of days, but he was ok after that. That's another reason they think he had a seizure - he was really disoriented on Sunday and didn't remember falling. They decided to put him in ICU after this so they could keep a better watch on him. He still was not in critical condition at this time and they figured they would be able to move him back to a regular room the next day (this never happened though).

I went to Dallas that weekend for the AR football game, in fact, so did my dad's doctor. Everything seemed to be fine when he left and he never dreamed any of this would happen that weekend while he was gone. I still regret going to the game although I'm sure that my being there would have not changed anything, but I would liked to have seen my dad again in a state that I could talk to him.

On Sunday afternoon, while driving home from Dallas, my mom called to tell me about Daddy falling and that he was really disoriented and not making a lot of sense. She was upset that she left him (and I know she is still blaming herself even though she shouldn't be). I let her know I'd be there Monday morning. When I dropped Sam off at school that morning and started my drive to Ft. Smith, I never dreamed I wouldn't be coming home again until Thursday and that I'd be helping my mom plan his funeral. On my drive down, my mom called me crying with the news that Daddy wasn't any better and that his TTP had come back (over the weekend). When I got there that morning he was still very disoriented. In fact, he could barely speak and when he did try, not much of it made sense. He could hear and understand us because there were times that he would chime into the conversation and we could somewhat make out what he was saying (his tongue was also very swollen from biting it so even when he could make sense, it was hard to understand him). He even said once "my brain isn't working right". We just kept assuring him he would be ok and that they were doing everything they could. They started dialysis and plasmapheresis treatments -alternating them all day. They couldn't believe his TTP had come back so suddenly and so out of control.

That night they decided to put him on a ventilator and put in a central line to try to better control his BP (by this time it had bottomed out instead of being high). However they never actually put the central line in because they wanted to wait until he was more stable. His blood sugar was also way low and he wasn't regulating his body temperature. They sedated him of course when they put in the ventilator and he never woke up again. On Tuesday he was still heavily sedated that morning, but he was still responding to pain (pulling his hand away when they pressed on his nail bed). By the end of the day, he was no longer responding even as they started pulling back on the pain meds. Late that night a nurse discovered that his belly was distended and really hard. They decided to run a CT scan on his belly and his head. The dr had gone home for the night (this was about 11pm). When the results came back they told us they were inconclusive and that they would just continue what they were doing. However, we knew this wasn't true - we could tell - but the nurses could not give us the results, only the dr could.

At about 8am on Wednesday, the dr came in and pulled us into a family room. He explained that the CT scan showed that Daddy had had an aortic dissection in the lower part of his aorta (which is random and unrelated to his TTP). This caused blood flow to his kidneys, liver, etc to stop (reason for the hard belly). They weren't sure exactly when it happened, but likely on Saturday (perhaps where the pain was coming from) and it is what caused his TTP to come back so rapidly and uncontrollably. There was nothing more they could do for him. He said we could take our time and call in as many people as we wanted to say goodbye and then, when we were ready, they would take him off the ventilator and let him pass.

We called in friends and family and let everyone say their goodbyes and we each got to spend a little time with him alone. Then my sister, my mom, his cousin Ann, and I sat around his bedside holding him and loving him until he took his last breath. Tim was there too, right behind me. There may have been others in the room - I can't remember. It was so hard to let him go, but it was also so painful to see him hooked up to those machines and looking worse by the minute.

The time after this was especially difficult for me. We were packing up to leave the hospital and we weren't taking him with us. I had been camping out there for 3 days, sleeping in the ICU waiting room - it felt weird to be leaving. I was in a bit of shock as my mom started answering questions about funeral homes, grave plots, etc. It just felt so surreal and I couldn't believe it was happening.

That afternoon when the funeral director asked us to be sure to bring something to bury him in, it really hit us. My mom and I hadn't thought about that. He had a suit, but he wasn't a suit kind of guy so we felt funny picking that. We finally settled on burying him in his deputy uniform - that's what he loved. He loved that job and it only seemed fitting that he be buried in the uniform.

The service turned out very nice. Daddy had so many friends. My mom initially wanted to have the service at the funeral home, but we realized that it just wasn't going to be big enough. We were right. We were so overwhelmed by the number of people who came to the visitation and the funeral. He was definitely loved by many. The Sheriff's Department provided an honor guard for the funeral and put Daddy's car in the funeral procession.

Daddy was a wonderful man. I have always been so proud of him. He worked his way through an apprenticeship at Whirlpool to move himself off of the line and into a salaried position, he was dedicated to his study of martial arts and earned a 3rd degree black belt in GoJu before being injured and forced to give it up, he loved to shoot pistols and did this competively for many years (in fact he was a member of the Sebastian County SWAT team as a sniper at the time of his death), he recently began to study Aikido (another form of karate), he went through the police academy at 57 and held his own with the 20 somethings in his class to become a full time Deputy with the Sebastian County Sheriff's department after 12 years as a reserve officer...I could go on forever because he was my hero. I've always admired his determination and stamina.

He was also a very kind man. There were so many times he accepted difficult things that were handed to him and while he may not have been too happy about them initially, he always managed to accept them and show love and kindness when he didn't have to. A dear friend of his said that Daddy was never afraid when he went alone on a call (as a Sheriff's Deputy) because he didn't need to be - he was too damned likeable for someone to do anything other than what he told them to do!

He was also an incredible husband, father and grandfather. My heart breaks for my mom because I know how incredibly lonely she is going to feel at times. They went through a rough patch many years ago, but since then have been pretty much inseparable. They were truly best friends and I know that the pain that I'm in has to pale in comparison to hers. I am also sad for Sam who will not get the chance to enjoy fishing with his Pawpaw and who will not likely have much memory of him since he is so young. My heart aches for my niece and nephew as well - they were both very close to him, especially Kaden. And for my sister who Daddy put up with a lot from and who now feels so guilty for all she put him through at times - although she doesn't need to. Daddy loved her unconditionally and knew how much she loved him too.

I am thankful that I got be there next to his bed as he passed, but it also a vivid memory that I am not sure will ever leave me. It all still feels a little like a bad dream - I can't believe he's gone - but it does get better every day.

I love you Daddy, rest in peace.











Here is a link to his obituary and a slideshow of pictures.