Hello everyone! My entry today is a sad and yet happy Thanksgiving story. My dad has been going through a lot of medical problems for the last year or so. He started out a few years ago with needing a quadruple bypass on his heart. He also had to have shunts put into his legs to try and open up his arteries. His legs were not getting very much blood and causing him a lot of pain and physical problems. He also had to have new veins put into his neck area. His blood network was starting to sound like a clocked tub drain; things would go but not fast enough.

This year he had to be rushed into the hospital once again because his leg turned blue and was not getting any blood at all. We were very scared at this time because we didn’t know what was going on. When we did find out it wasn’t much better. They found a blood clot in his groin area and were afraid they would have to amputate his whole leg. This did not set well with dad or us.

Anyone who knows me or dad knows that just wood not work. We both loved the outdoors. We loved fishing, hunting, camping, or just about anything that evolved being in God’s country, as we called it. It was bad enough that he could not walk very far anymore without great amounts of pain in his legs, but if he lost a leg he would have been devastated inside.

Well luckily the surgery went well and they got the clot out, so he left with both legs!! We were all very happy that everything worked out. We were even getting excited thinking that now that they re-did his legs maybe they would be good and he could start walking more again. That got us excited and planning our hunting trips for this winter and talking about another trip to Canada, to see if he could catch any fish bigger than I did on our last trips, hehe! Everything was going and sounding good for a change.

Well around June or July, I think, (everything started running together in the last year with everything going wrong medically for him) he had to go back to the doctor because he sounded like he had a bad case of phenomena. He went in and they did x-rays to make sure that is what it was. He did have a case of phenomena but we found out he also had a tumor in his lungs. Well we then went through a lot of tests to find out if the tumor was cancer or not. They could not tell on the first tests.

This was very frustrating for us. He had to have the test done three different times to find out if it was cancer or not. Well the tests finally got done correctly and we found out that it was cancer. We also found out that it was the worst kind of lung cancer you could have, small cell cancer. Well this was very scary for all of us involved. We had no idea of what to do. So dad went to the doctor and they set up a treatment plan for him to try and get rid of the tumor.

Dad had a great game plan for his treatment procedure that was to follow. He was going to go in on Friday to do his chemo and radiation treatments. He then planned to sleep all weekend to try and build up his energy so he could work during the week. Now it was very hard for him because they hit him really hard with radiation because of the size of the tumor, it was about the size of a grapefruit. This went on for a few weeks like planned but then we hit yet another snag in the plans of things.

The radiation actually burned his esophagus so he could no longer swallow anything. The next step was to put him on a feeding tube. His wife Jackie who is a great woman (my second mom) kept him at home and took care of him while she worked full time. Her work schedule was about right so she could take him into the doctor every day. Dad got really week over the next few weeks and lost a lot of weight. He would get up and go to the doctor and then go back home and sleep. This was hard on everyone but I think it was hardest on Jackie. What she did for dad was a true act of love, the way Jesus describes it in the Bible. What a wonderful woman she is.

I went up one day to see him and try to talk to him to get him to take his food. He didn’t like the feeding tube and didn’t want to eat the food that he needed. Well when I got there he was asleep and slept most of the time I was there. I honestly don’t know if he ever really knew that I was there. I talked to him while he slept and I think some of what I said sunk in. He did start to eat all of his food but still was not getting any strength back. His esophagus was still not healing up and they couldn’t figure out why.

Now there was a lot more going on during this but these are the parts I know of and am deciding to talk about. This went on for a long time for him and I know he was in a lot of pain. Things did start to look a little better because he started talking about going on a trip next summer. He was defiantly a trooper.

The day I sat with him we did talk a few times while he was up for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. He said how it was hard to not give into the depression of just laying there but he was fighting hard. I don’t recall the exact word he used but, that was the main point of the conversation. I told him to be strong and that God would help him out.

We got a call one evening and it was Jackie. She said that dad wanted everyone over for Thanksgiving like we do every year. We were hesitant at first because we knew that dad could not eat with us and that he has been sick for some time now. In our hearts though, we knew that we needed to be there because that is what he wanted.

Now my family is notorious for leaving late when we go to dad’s house for anything. As you can imagine with three kids it is hard to get everything ready and going on time. We thought at first that we would just go up Saturday morning, but we were bringing the turkey, so this would not work. So we planned on leaving Friday night. We got on the road, only about tem minutes into our hour long drive, and I said to Jen, wow, we actually left earlier then we had thought. This was a first for us for sure.

Well we got to dads house and brought everything in. Dad was up sitting in his normal spot at the counter and looking good. We commented on how well he was looking and we were excited, because he must be doing better for him to look so good. We all talked and found out his mom and step dad had come over earlier that day and spent some time with him. We also found out that one of the other kids and her kids had stopped over earlier as well.

Well we were excited and all talked for some time. Then out of the blue he looked over and told us how stressful it was when he went to the doctor that day. We talked about this and he admitted that every time he went he got scared and nervous as to what would happen next. Shortly after that he got up and started to head to his bedroom, and started to say goodnight. I jumped up and ran over to him and gave him a big hug. While we were hugging he said to me that he always had time to hug me!

Now for those of you who don’t know him that was odd for him. He never talked about pain or fear with anyone openly like that. It was also strange for him to say what he said to me. It was about 9:30 that night when he went to bed. We talked about how long he had stayed up and how good he looked. It had been months since he was able to stay up for that long.

Well I woke up in the morning to my daughter crying in the other room. Jen went to her and I went back to sleep. It was only about ten minutes later that Jen came into the room and woke me up saying I needed to get upstairs. At first I was scared something happened to Jaden, because she was crying earlier. When I started out of the room I realized it was not about my daughter, something was wrong with my dad.

I ran upstairs and went into my dad’s room. He was lying on the floor, face down with his head somehow up on a lower shelf of his nightstand. At first I told myself the noise I was hearing was him snoring. I yelled for him to wake up and there was no response. We called the paramedics and I pulled him back some and rolled him over. I then put him up on the bed still trying to get him to wake up. That is when I noticed that his eyes were fixed and dilated and I knew it was bad.

Jen was on the phone getting the ambulance there and we were doing what they said on the phone to try and help him. I had to start tilting his head so he could breath. His lungs had filled up with fluids and you could hear it when he was trying to breath. Well we kept him going and then the paramedics arrived and did there thing. We answered questions and stood out of the way. I asked one of them 3 times why my dad’s eyes were fixed and dilated and he would not answer me. He kept talking to Jackie instead. They were guessing that he had some kind of heart attack.

We got to the hospital and I started doing the only thing I could think of, calling friends and pastors asking for all the prayers we could get. They did some tests and we found out he had a major brain hemorrhage and there was nothing they could do for him. They had him on ventilation to keep him breathing but that was the only thing keeping him alive. We were given the option to keep him alive in that state or to let him pass. My dad was not one to lie around and do nothing and we knew that is not what he would have wanted so we all decided to let him go.

They moved him to a different floor and room and we took him off of the ventilator after some time. We all had our time to go in and talk to him and say the things we needed to say. After awhile it looked like he would not hang on much longer so we gathered in his room with Pastor John and we all held hands. He said a prayer and then we all said the Lord’s Prayer together. At the end of the prayer God came down and took him up to heaven. As soon as we said amen the nurse came in and said that his heart had stopped beating.

That was an awesome and yet terrifying thing. God took him to heaven on a prayer, how amazing. We cried and are still crying at times but we also spent a lot of time remembering that he was not hurting anymore and he was finally home with God and his little daughter who had died when she was only 9. That is what I held on to get through everything. I could not be selfish, I had his love for the last 30 years and now he could go and see his daughter again.

One of the last times when dad was at our house, he sat with Jen and I and we talked about God and religion. The one thing out of the whole conversation that I can remember is that he wanted to know when he stood before God and was asked if he did everything here on earth to make sure we knew about God and followed his word he wanted to be able to say yes. I know for a fact that he was able to do that and I think that was his last task here on earth from God.

There seem to be a lot of other miracles that came from this and I will probably go into more detail about those at a later date. The one thing that I want to point out to everyone is that you never know when your time here on earth will be over, so make the most of it now. Spend time with family and friends. Don’t let yourself become too busy for those things.

Make sure you have a loving relationship with God. God has a place in his house for everyone no matter what you have done in your life. Jesus died to save our sins, every one of them. Even when He was taking His last breath on the cross, He took time to forgive one of the other people hanging there with Him, so he to good go to His Father’s house and be saved. It’s never too late to believe. Just simply pray the following

I love you all and so does God! You are never alone when you trust and love in the Lord!

"Jesus, I believe that you died on the cross to save my sins.

Please forgive me for all that I have done wrong, wash my sins

away. I love you Jesus!"      

That is all you need to do to start your journey with God, please do it now before it is too late. Time is something you cannot get back and you never know how much of it is left!