No Dreams

My father died. The last night was madness. Clinical, fluorescent-light-illuminated hell. On Tuesday night, I left the hospital at 930. Before I left he looked at me, as if he wanted to devour me. I have never been looked at like that. He just looked and looked, and I tried to look back, but the gaze was too much for me, too overwhelming. It was a look that came from beyond ordinary time. Then the nurse came in to perform oral care, and the moment was broken. He just wanted to know me, and to take me in, because I'm his child, and he really, really loved me. He often looked at me like that, this year, but this was more luminous. Heading out, I ran into one of my surgeons in the lobby, who was having a meltdown, but that's another story. I'd been working during this whole thing--going to his bedside during breaks and after work. I planned to head over there after my half-day clinic the next day. At about 11 am, I felt one of the worst physical feelings I've ever known--I can't explain it--like everything good had been drained from my body, like I was about die, like the world was going to end. I thought "Shit. This is it. It's really going to hell now." So, being a good little nurse, I finished my charting--as I was doing so, the pager went off. I proofed and signed my note, then answered the page. One part of me stood aside with her arms folded, shaking her head and saying, "You are one cold bitch, Haley Patton." Dr. Tso picked up. He's one of the fellows in the MICU. Asian, bespectacled, gay, deeply kind. "Haley, I think you'd better come over. His heart rate is at 40 and he's satting 64. We were going to code him, but your mom...reconsidered." Silence after this. Up until this point, my mom had insisted on keeping him a full code--despite being 96 pounds, despite having an ejection fraction of 15%, despite the fact that he can't swallow, ambulate, or control his bowels. "You just want him to die." She told me, when I tried to get palliative care involved. On Tuesday, in addition to gazing at my dad, working a full clinic, and talking my surgeon down from the ledge, I also forced my mom to sit quietly as I described, in the most unemotional way I knew, what an actual code would involve. I said, "I'm not going to argue with you, but I want you to give your full attention to me while I outline this step by step." Then I did it. I didn't embellish. Then I left. So, I guess she listened. He was spared one thing. One final brutality, at least. Christ. That's my half-hour.