Sad Times

Well, I haven't updated in a while. I haven't really had anything to write about lately. I've decided that I'm going to deploy with my Soldiers, and hang around in the Army for at least another 2 years at this point. After 19, what's another 2. Right?

I also decided to write because about 3 weeks ago, my father had a stroke. It was in a very bad area of the brain, right on the brain stem. (Which is the area of the brain that EVERYTHING goes through. Nerves and blood vessels, all of the important stuff.) It looked like he was going to be ok. The first 2 days after it happened, he was lucid and talking to everyone, but by the time I got there, he was in a coma. He stayed like that for 10 days and came out of it, but he wasn't really there. After he came out, they did another CT Scan, and it showed more areas becoming damaged from the original stroke, which was still bleeding, but at a lesser rate.

The doctors told me and my brother that the chances of Dad being able to ever have anything more than a life confined to a bed and having to be cared for ever again were so small that he couldn't calculate the odds. (Something my Dad would never want.) As well as, everyday, there was more damage to different areas. So my brother, and myself, decided that the best thing for him would be hospice care. (That's where they make a terminal patient comfortable until they pass.) The hospital moved him from the ICU to the regular hospital. Then they moved him to a long term care facility on Tuesday, 28 August. And within 2 hours of him getting there, he finally gave into the stroke and passed.

Now, me and my brother are getting his services arrainged. And it is so confusing. You know, its never somehing I have thought about. After all, my Dad has always been there, and he always would be. Right? We're trying to get Military Honors for him, but we have to find something showing that he served, which we can't. I just don't know. All of his friends know that he did and are trying to help. We're planning to have the services on Wednesday. I just hope we do right by him.

I'll talk to ya'll later.