November 22............

You are probably wondering, what is so important about this date..
This year is the 9Th anniversary of my fathers death. I can't believe he's been gone that long. You never know how much you miss someone until they are gone. There are many times I think about the date November 22 and the days following and the days before this date.
The story goes like this: On November 8Th 1999 my father was scheduled for surgery heart surgery four bypass and a valve, he was so sick and weak before he went to the hospital. Some times I wonder why he went through with the procedure. The Sunday before the surgery we all got together, and my mother told me to come to the party because it would be the last time I would ever see my father, and at that time that statement was so wrong and so mean but now thinking about it, it was so amazingly true. So I went to the party and wished him luck for his surgery, and he was so thankful but at the same time so scared of the consequences of his choice for this surgery.
So now it is Monday morning, and he is on his way to the hospital, and the rest of the family went to the hospital except for me because I couldn't get off work because I was afraid to affect my perfect attendance, because I had to have perfect attendance because I was so self centered and he told me to not come to the hospital for he would be fine the night before the surgery. So after work I went to the hospital in Appleton, Wisconsin; for this is the last day my dad ate a regular meal. When I went in he was eating his meal and was trying to give everyone his food off his plate for he always worried if we ate before he did. For I did not take anything off his tray everyone else in the family did. About 0800 pm that night they pumped his stomach to get the food that he just ate out of his stomach out before the procedure. Now days he would have been on a clear liquid instead of a normal diet it would not have been so hard on him. I remember hearing my dad scream and yell in pain as they proceeded with this procedure to prep him for surgery. It broke my heart. We all spent the night at the hospital the first night, for tomorrow was his big day for his surgery.
Now it was Tuesday and it was the eighth of November, this is surgery day as we all didn't want it to come. The expectation for him to make it out of the surgery was 50% chance and could go either way for the good or the bad. We all went in his room the morning of the surgery and that was the last day I ever heard him speak. He apologized to all of us for the things he did to us as a child and told us all that we were all Great kids. Then the surgeon came in and said "lets get this program on the road" and 10 minutes later they took him to surgery. After 5 hours of not hearing anything about my dad's condition we started asking questions, and the sad thing was no one in the department heard anything of my fathers condition. After 11 hours in surgery the surgeon came out and explained that they almost lost my dad on the operating table, and that his blood pressures were dropping and his heart rate was increasing (technical terms meaning shock). About another hour after figuring out his condition and getting him stable he finally went back to his ICU room 6. Because he was under so much stress, they would only let one person back at a time. for I am the last one in the family of 6 kids, you guessed it I had to go last. The first night he made it through the hospital very good. He made it ten day getting out of bed and holding my hand and pushing me away, and that was the hardest thing I had to go through. And then one day the balloon for his heart was going to come out and the surgeon pulled it out to early and pushed it back in and hit the aortic artery, and mentioned to the nurse not to move my father for the balloon was to close the the aortic valve that was just replaced. So needless to say the next four days were hell for the whole family. The next day he could not breathe with out a ventilator and then the throat closed up and a tracheotomy was started (hole in the neck and ventilator breathing for my father), and the next day he was put on dialysis because his kidneys were failing and he went through complete kidney failure. After finding out that my father was in kidney failure I offered one of my kidneys to be donated to my father, to help him make it through this awful time in his life. But because he was not a candidate for a transplant, they refused my offer.
After about six code blues (cardiac arrest) my mother made the decision to let my father go to the after life. I remember the day my father passed away for the night before I had a dream at 0245 am in the morning on every event that happened when my father died, for that was scary for me, I told no one and I just went to work the next day. I never told my mother that I had this dream for she would only think I was crazier than she thought I was.
I remember he died that day at 0245 pm (Weird huh), and the whole family was there and everyone comforted each other except for me, I had no one for I am the always the odd one out, like always I sat in the corner all by myself and no one said anything to me. But by now I am used to it. Everything happened so fast the death, the showing, the funeral, the cremation, and the burial- and sometimes I wonder how I made it through this point in my life for I was 21 years old when my father passed away and I miss him extremely bad.
I will never forget my father for he was my rock and my inspiration and my role model. I wished I had a little more of him in me. I could only wish for one more day with him. But life leads you in awkward directions. We just have to take the pathway that was meant for us.

If tears could build a staircase and
heartaches make a lane,
We'd walk the path to Heaven and bring
you home again.
We hold you close within our hearts and
there you will remain.
To talk with us throughout our lives until,
we meet again
Our family chain is broken now and
nothing seems the same,
But, as god call us, one by one, chain will link again.