We were finally able to get my Dad comfortable and resting and he got a better nights sleep (so did I). He only got up twice. This morning he woke up and wanted to sit up on the edge of the bed. He ate a little yogurt for breakfast and was much more lucid. We talked for a bit and I sat next to him on the bed and put my arm around him. He is an amazingly strong...

Most of the day Saturday Daddy seemed to be doing a lot better than I would have expected. He got up and ate a poached egg and toast in the morning. Two friends came by and visted for an hour or so – Byrl and Kurt. They were just torn up when they left but really glad they had come to see him and visit for a while. Father Chuck came by before leaving town to...

Late yesterday afternoon the Hospice nurse came to take my Dad’s blood. She called back with the results and the doctor wanted him to go to the hospital in an ambulance to get a transfusion as his hemoglobin was only 6 and his platelets were only 3. My brother had just left to go back to the airport and my Dad had promised to try to stay alive until he could...

Yesterday I took my Dad in for a tranfusion – 2 units of red blood cells and a 12 pack of plasma. Both hemoglobin and platelets were low. It took most of the day so I had to go back to Frankfort and get several things done on a house we sold that afternoon. When I got back he was short of breath and had been for a while. They did a chest xray, ekg and some more...

This past week we confirmed that my Dad’s disease has changed in to Acute Leukemia. There are treatments for this, however, they only provide quantity of life not quality of life. My Dad has always been an active person and really isn’t interested in prolonging his life if it just means laying in bed in pain for feeling sick from the treatments. I...

Yesterday we left the house at 8am to go to the doctor for a blood test to see if my Dad needed blood. After getting the blood work we sat in the doctor’s office for about 2 hours waiting for the results. He did need blood and platelets so we head to the hospital next door arriving there around 11:30. Since his platelets have to be HLA typed now so that he...

Just about two years ago my mother died. In her last two weeks it was very hard. One day when I was talking to my daughter I told her that my mother was dying. She said, no she’s not, “she’s living, everyday that she is here she is living, she’s not dying.” It didn’t strike me until later how wise she was. Even when there is just a...

Over the past several months I have been driving my Dad back and forth from Kentucky to the Cleveland Clinic through the states of Kentucky and Ohio. During those drives I have had the wonderful experience of hearing about my Dad growing up on a farm and many of the jobs he did on the farm – milking cows, delivering milk, plucking chickens, planting tobacco...

It has been a while since I have written. That’s because I got punched in the face in the figurative sense last month. My father has been feeling bad for quite some time. His doctor ran some additional blood work and thought that he had Leukemia so she ordered a bone marrow biopsy. I flew out for that and it was extremely painful for him – it took them...