Today we had a visit from the hospice nurse. His name is Steve. Everyone from hospice has come in wearing a mask, but when he was outside our door, he removed his mask so we could see the face behind the voice!

Steve asked Dad a bunch of questions about how he’s feeling and took his vital statistics which all came out in the normal range. Then he talked with all of us about various things. For instance, we were talking about the 2 falls Dad had before he entered the hospital a week and a half ago. Dad had a huge purple goose egg on his left leg when I first saw him. It has gone down some since then. I told Steve that Dad is so covered with bruises all over his body that I liken it to him going for a round with Muhammed Ali. Steve said that’s because Dad’s platelets are low. Those are the things that block any leaks in our veins, so Dad is likely to bruise at the drop of a hat.

But as a result of Dad’s falls, and Dad admitting to Steve that there have been times when he has felt like his knees were going to buckle (which he hadn’t told Elaine or me), Steve said that any time Dad wants to leave the house, he needs to take his wheelchair. We need to keep Dad from having another fall as much as we can. I was relieved that Steve talked Dad into using his wheelchair because Dad had told me last night that he wants to go to church this Sunday and he was talking about taking his walker and walking from the car to the church – a distance even if we pull up at the curb in front of the door – stand in the lobby while people are milling around, and then go to the front of the church and stand during the singing. If Dad got winded walking from the restaurant to the car which was parked right next to the door yesterday, I was sure that what he was talking about doing at church would be impossible.

I told Steve about how winded Dad got coming out of the restaurant yesterday, and Elaine confirmed that he had been panting almost all the way home, so Steve said we need to take his traveling oxygen tank in the car wherever we go with him.

Elaine was concerned about the neck brace that he has been wearing for a couple of months since he fell on his face and broke some bone off a couple of his vertebrae. Dad was supposed to have had an appointment with the neurologist on March 5th to find out if the neck brace could come off. Dad had had some CAT scans done while he was in the hospital a week and a half ago and she was hoping to find out if that showed any improvement. Steve suggested she call the neurology office and see if they had even heard that Dad has been put on hospice. She did later, and the appointment was changed to a phone appointment.

Then Steve told us what to watch for. If Dad’s appetite decreases, if his liquid intake decreases, if he becomes weaker, or he starts to sleep more, these are signs that the end is coming. He said that the diagnosis of Acute Myeloid Leukemia means that this is a fast-acting form of cancer. He guessed that Dad might have a month or so, but he said that patients have surprised him before.

Earlier in the day, Dad had been talking about a paper he’d written about the New Earth. He said he views God as being like a circle with no beginning and no end. A few minutes later, he told me that he’s a little afraid of jumping into that circle. I suggested to him that that would be a good thing to talk with the hospice chaplain about when we meet with him.

For the last couple of days, Dad has been talking with me about various miracles God has performed in his life. Tonight, he was telling me about a time in his life when everything in his life was going so bad that he was considering suicide. As he was heading in that direction, he ran into a man he knew from church who asked how he was doing and Dad answered truthfully. The man took him out to lunch, kept him with him all afternoon, and then invited him to dinner with a group of men from the church. The man told the pastor what was going on with Dad, so the next day, the pastor made arrangements to take Dad out to lunch and asked him how much a week of groceries would cost. Dad told him, the pastor gave him a check from the church relief fund, and Dad was able to buy food to last until he got an unemployment check. Dad said it was too much to be a coincidence that he ran into the man from church that day. He realized that God had arranged that meeting and that God is good.

I’m enjoying these stories that Dad has been telling me. They seem more positive than the stories I’ve been hearing for the last decade or so. It seems like Dad is preparing to meet his Maker. I thought it would be hard to be here while Dad is dying, but for the most part, he seems to be at peace with it. He is still able to praise God for all that He has done for him in his life. I went through the death of my stepmother, Sandy, and the death of my older sister, Sherill, and each was different. This is different from either of those experiences. I am learning that there are different ways to die, and I hope that when it’s my turn, I go like Dad!