What is my Legacy?

      April 7, 2013 will be the one year anniversary of the day I lost one of the most important men in my life. At 11:30 in the morning on the eve of Easter, I got a phone call from my father's boyfriend informing me that I needed to get to the hospital as quickly as I could because my dad was in bad shape. I had spoken to my father only 12 hours before and had to go abruptly because there was someone on the other line. We quickly made plans for him to drive me back up to school the next day because my car was in Syracuse. I never imagined that 3 minutes would be the last time I ever spoke to him.

      I arrived at the hospital at noon because thankfully I had taken my mother to work that day and had her car. I came in and was informed that he was still in the emergency room and that they were going to be admitting him due to a large pulmonary embolism. Thirty minutes later they let me back to his room and as I walked through the door, he started coding. I got pushed back and out towards a window and watched as they started CPR and used the paddles to shock life into him 3 times. As soon as he was stabilized, they whisked him away to the ICU.

      After coding 17 times that day and enduring 2 different surgeries, I was approached as the next of kin. I was informed that there would be a good amount of brain damage and that he probably was not going to come back. They asked for consent to end extraordinary measures. He lasted until around 11:30 PM, just long enough for his mother to see him one last time.

      The hardest thing I have ever had to witness is the heartbreak that my brothers, his brothers, my family had to go through; telling my family that my father was dead was devastating.

      Going through something like that really puts your life in perspective. I have learned so much in the last year as a result of it. People come first. The people in your life are your legacy when you're gone. When you lose someone, you don't look back and remember with reverence the degree they earned. You remember the way that they touched your life. Losing my father made me completely reconsider my life. What would people remember if I died today?

      Well, I can tell you that I didn't like the answer a year ago. A year ago, I would be remembered as the depressed kid who couldn't pull her life together to save it. I was the kid that people honestly expected to see in the ground before graduation. I was scaring my best friends on a continual basis with my depravity and stupid actions. What kind of a legacy is that to leave? Not one that I would be proud of.

      In these last months, I have done my best to improve my legacy. I want to be the friend that you can depend on to always have their life together. I want people to see me, not as someone who is depressed or helpless, but as someone who has confidence in herself. I want my friends and family to know how much I love and appreciate them. I feel like that is something you can't tell people enough, that you love them.

      Almost two years ago, my best friend told me something that I didn't quite understand at the time. He said, 'The world is your oyster.' I feel like I can finally put that into practice. It isn't acceptable to sit idly by and watch the world pass you. For the first time in a very long time, I am in a fantastic place in my life. I have friends whom I love and who love me in return. I have a purpose in life: be the friend that you'd like to have. Leave a legacy that you're proud of.

      It is tragic that what led me to this realization happened. I wish I had realized sooner that I needed to be a better friend. I needed to put the people I love first. Sometimes, it takes losing something in order to realize that nothing in this world is guaranteed and that you need to take advantage while you have the chance. Life is a series of moments that you can never get back and you never know how many you have left. Love is the answer to true happiness and it isn't just the love that you receive. It's the love you give.

Blood Clots: only beneficial outside the body

     Yesterday, something happened that I did not consider ever having to deal with until decades down the road. I got a phone call that my father was in the hospital and that he was in really bad shape. Getting a call like that is a real punch in the gut. There is a moment of disbelief right before the onset of panic happens. You rack your brain for signs that something was wrong or ways in which something like this could happen. Thirty minutes in the car becomes what seems like an interminable amount of time. I had spoken to him less than 24 hours before and we had discussed when we were going to see each other next: less than 24 hours after the time I got the call. It's horrifying to think how my last words to him were, "I'll see you tomorrow, I have someone on the other line, I have to go." There was no 'I love you' said and I was in such a hurry to get on with my day that I had given him little if any consideration during our 2 minute and 37 second conversation.

      I pulled into the parking garage and walked into the ER with no information on his condition. The person I had received the phone call from was his boyfriend and they wouldn't give him any information on his condition because he wasn't family. I was told that doctors were working on my father in the back and that the resident on the case would come out to talk to me in the waiting room once they got him stabilized. Twenty minutes later, it was explained to me that he was experiencing a pulmonary embolism that was caused by a blood clot in his leg dislodging and traveling to his lungs. In other words, he was unable to breathe on his own and this was causing distress to multiple organs.

       When you hear multiple organ distress, that's when you know that there is a serious issue. Staying calm while calling my grandmother and uncles was probably one of the more difficult things I had to do that day. They were all flying in as soon as possible which added to my anxiety. When his brothers decide to make a trip to Ohio, you know that something is very wrong.

      I got to go back into the ER to see him shortly after I had finished the phone calls that I needed to make. He was hooked to dozens of machines, was not conscious, and had a breathing tube inserted. He began convulsing just as the doctor left us. I had no idea what was happening until I heard the telltale monotone from all the hospital dramas I watch. At this point, I was asked to exit the room as they brought in a set of paddles to attempt to revive him. When the current hit him, I expected some sort of movement, but there was nothing. It took three tries for his heart beat to come back.

      My mom and brothers were the first to arrive at the hospital. They got there just as they were beginning to transport him to the Intensive Care Unit. By then, I had been further updated. The clot traversed the entirety of his femoral artery. Little pieces were continuing to break off into his blood stream because the blockage in his heart and now lungs had caused his blood pressure to skyrocket. They were going to perform an emergency surgery to attempt to remove the clot as soon as he was stable enough to transport to an operating room.

      He was taken to the operating room half an hour after his mother arrived at the hospital. We sat in waiting rooms two floors down for hours waiting on any news. The news we didn't want came blaring over the loudspeaker while he was still in the operating room. A code Blue was called and doctors from all over the hospital came flooding towards the doors through which he had been taken just a couple hours before. After thirty minutes, a gurney came out with three people on each side and one person on top of him pumping on his chest. They were headed back to the ICU to get him stable enough to be put on life support.

     I was approached an hour later asking if I wished to stop extraordinary measures. I was not and don't think I was ever going to be ready for this question. I was not prepared to be the legal next of kin as his adult child. I expected this decision to be made by his mother or his brothers, but not by me. I had to make what in a way was both the hardest and easiest decision of my life: the decision to end all extraordinary measures. On my 18th birthday, he and I had had a conversation. He was in the hospital because his kidneys were failing and he was unable to stand without being dizzy. He told me where his will was and to never let him live on life support or in a capacity in which he didn't have all his cognitive functions. By this point, my choice was whether to let him die naturally or to put him on life support knowing that he would likely never wake up again and that parts of the clot had traveled to his brain likely causing severe damage.

      He died minutes short of Easter Sunday. Seeing him after death, he almost looked disfigured from the bloat caused by all the IV fluids they pumped into him. His lifeless 6 foot 5 inch frame hung off the bed because they didn't have one long enough for him. 

      I was the only one who couldn't seem to muster up the energy to cry. Instead, I waited for his brother to arrive from the airport. He'd died when he was in the air, so I figured I should probably break the news seeing as I was the only one maintaining any composure. Besides, I wanted to take a break before having to meet with the organ donation people. 

      So now, I'm running on exactly 25 minutes of sleep trying to figure out the rest of my life sans a father. We'll see how this goes. 

Happy Easter everyone.