It’s Over…
Originally published at Walking on Christopher's Street. You can comment here or there.
I remember as a kid always looking forward to November of each year for a couple of reasons. One the first half is part of the my favorite season, fall. I have always been enamored by the changing colors, the move from shorts to sweaters (sometimes in the same day) and the feeling of new beginings I think brought on by people going back to school and focusing on work again, getting back into a routine.
November is also the month of my birth, toward the end mind you, but at least I made is as a Sagittarius.
This year neither event was spectacular, in fact quite the opposite.
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My Father
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This portion of the the month actually begins about 10:30pm on October 30th, it happens so late because I for some unbenosted reason forgot my cell phone at home, most people who know me know I almost always have my cell phone, it is amazingly rare when I don’t have it. However I must have been rushed when heading out to the first job as I could not check my messages until I got home from the second job about 10:30pm.
My mother left me a message telling me that in the early morning hours my father ‘fell out of bed’ and had seziures until the hospital sedated him. I was able to book a flight for the next morning to Las Vegas (where they have lived for about eight years) for a not too obscence price same with the car. I arrived the next day midmorning and went right to the hosptal. My father was still sedated or ‘medically induced coma’ and was on a ventalator and various other aparatus. The doctor explaned that he was going to advise them not to sedate any further and try to bring him concious, remove the ventilator and then conduct some test to see if he was able to sustain some basic functions on his own: Breathing, Swallowing, etc. Unfortunetly the nurseing staff did not read the charts correctly that night and continued sedation with and even stronger dose. So this made us wait even longer before conducting the tests. Part of this delima was that my mother and I signed a do not reccesitate / no extrodinary means charge which made it difficult to execute when he was still sedated, so we had to recind portions of the charge until such a time the the sedation medication left his body.
After all was said and done, he simply did not emerge from the coma and we began end-of-life preperations. They have a hospice out in Vegas called Nathan Adelson which is the closet thing to angels as you will find on this earth. They took care of everything - all at no cost to us - they bill medicare for what they can and they remainder is covered by donations which is truly a blessing. A nice lodging center that allowed us to bring my dad’s dog “Angel” everyday which truly added to my dad’s comfort.
It weird watching someone you love slowly die, knowing its for the best but still surreal. My father lingered for about a week until during the bears game on Sunday November 9th, 2008 at about 1:05pm local time he took his final breath and passed away.
The funeral was Wednesday of that week and burial the following Monday (Because of some werid Nevard waiting and review laws before the issuance of the burial certificate) and my father was buried in his Bears jacket, his cain and a stuffed dog that resembled his real dog.
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My Birthday
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I never work on my birthday, never have - hopefully never will. This year being the same, although my boss seemed to think that vacation meant he could call and email me to no end because he messed up with a client and needed me to fix his mistakes, not in the mood for that at all.
So for the evening I choose the new bar in town Tickles, a piano bar with food. When I had been there before I noticed they have Prime Rib (My absolute favorite) and the piano would be a nice backdrop. We arrive and guess what, being the wednesday before thanksgiveing they didn’t have a piano player AND they decied to serve turkey instead of Prime Rib. Ughh I just can’t win… A nice night was had though, I am grateful for those who came out and also for T1 and WD who also went to the Townhouse after Tickels for cheapie night, however with the closeing of PI the lesbian bar, Townhouse was once agina overrun with lesbians, too many, too crowed so about 11:30 I said to the boys, I give up - I guess I wasn’t suppose to have my birthday tonight.
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So that was my November 2008