Dad found an office on 10th Street in Port Huron and for two years he sold life and health insurance here, but in the end of 1989 he moved his base of operations to Imlay City and gave me this famous words which I have never forgotten, "Sarah, I can't support you all your life!" I then found other employment until being accepted to graduate school at the University of Michigan.
Dad had his own office in Imlay City on Third Street and it wasn't long before he knew that he would need clerical work so he hired my sister Beth Anne to become his secretary...she also worked for Dad for six years.
As I mentioned Dad excelled in the insurance industry and he also pursued sales in the investment area, mainly retirement options for people such as IRAs dealing in mutual funds. Dad once told me that he never wanted to retire and he worked steadily in his business until age 66 when it was discovered that he had a massive brain tumor, a menginoma, which he had surgery in Saginaw, in May 1997 to remove. The surgery was successful but he suffered two strokes almost immediately following the surgery and these strokes caused him to be disabled, partial blindness and difficulty in walking, unaided.
The last nearly 13 years of Dad's life were spent in the Extended Care Facility attached to the Marlette Hospital in Marlette, Michigan. Through patience and love, these twilight years of Dad's life happy and sad altogether. I lost with the disability the chance to talk to Dad on many, many subjects. Another tragedy of the two strokes was the short term memory loss that Dad suffered from. I would try to talk to him as we used to on history or other subjects, but he couldn't recall details and struggled to recall things until it frustrated him and he would become angry, so I learned not to try to have our former discussions as it was important not to get Dad upset. Dad could recall many; logic, science, cold, hard facts...not theoretical or hypothetical things.
It was discovered in late 2007 that Dad had prostate cancer, but it was successfully treated with radiation there at the Seton Center at the Marlette Hospital. But in February 2009 Dad began to have some symptons that indicated he was having problems and a medical test revealed that he had a growth on his pancreas, i.e. being pancreatic cancer. We (Mom, Dad, Susan, Jennifer and I) decided not to do any testing or surgery for this new cancer. Even doctors concurred with our decision, that testing, surgery, and follow-up therapy wouldn't extend Dad's life nor improve the quality of time he had left.
Dad's health improved greatly and we began to believe that maybe Dad didn't have cancer for a third time. But he took a bad spell in June, 2009 and the doctors again, through testing, saw that the growth that was on his pancreas had enlarged and Mom and Dad discussed things and we were introduced to United Hospice who would share medical care with the Extended Care Facility at the Marlette Hospital. The staff at the ECF were awesome and so loving with the care of Dad there for almost 13 years. The staff at the ECF are among the finest medical staff I've been exposed to with Dad's illness, my sister Beth Anne who also resides at ECF since 2003 due to a bee sting, my own health, and Mom's.
Dad's health returned to robustness and it was very difficult for me to believe that he was dying. He remained in very good health until the fall of 2009 when his legs from the knees down began swelling and the staff said this was a sympton of his declining pancreas. His calves and feet were hugely swollen and hurt him severely. The staff and the Hospice staff treated his pain with Methadone and Morphine, again the staff was very attentive to Dad's care.
I saw Dad at Thanksgiving and Christmas and he was in good humor. I didn't get to see him in January of 2010 as the weather was not good to travel. Dad was doing pretty good on February 5, 2010 when he and Mom celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary and very shortly after this, Dad began to decline.
I was able to visit Dad in Marlette with Mom and Susan sometime after Feb. 5th. He didn't get out of bed and was mostly sleeping the entire time we were there. This sleeping was described in the hospice book on the signs of dying, but I never realized how short of time Dad would remain with us. I went as often as I could, usually on an alternate Friday or Saturday (when I didn't work on this day) and Sunday. On these visits, again, Dad was in bed and didn't eat or sit up in his wheelchair whatsoever.
He wasn't always asleep. Many times he would be listening to Mom, Susan and I talk while his eyes were closed. The last time I was with Dad where he was sleeping and listening was Sunday, 14 March 2010 and he was smiling while he laid down on the bed and responded with his usual good cheer when people came in to talk to him.
This was the last week of Dad's life. The staff of the ECF moved him from the room where he'd lived for most of the nearly 13 years there to another private room as another resident needed to the room to be close to the staff area as she was falling from bed. It was upsetting to have Dad moved after so long in one place but I doubt that Dad really noticed the difference. He had a really bad day in the new room on Thursday, 18 March 2010 and Mom called me so upset that he was vomiting bile and this was not a good sign. I came to see Dad the next day on the 19th and he was sleeping again and I could not understand him hardly at at as he was heavily sedated. At one point he indicated that he wanted the bed to be raised, in the head area, so I began to push the button on the bed to raise the bed, inch by inch, and as I did so, I would ask Dad, "Is this enough?"
Dad got so mad at my frequent questions that he said quite clearly, "If you ask me one more time..." that I ceased my endless questions and adjusted the bed one more time. These were the last words Dad said to me. Mom got a call early Sunday morning on the 21st that Dad was in terminal congestion and she left Imlay City immediately to be by his side, getting there at 2:30am. Mom called me at 7:30am and said I might want to come and explained that Dad was dying and I was not to rush over and it took me two hours to prepare and I got to Marlette ECF at 10:30am and walked into the room where I saw Mom and my brother-in-law Randy, and then I saw Dad gasping horrifically on the bed and I left the room almost immediately as I couldn't bear to see Dad like this, struggling so hard to die!
The medical staff of the ECF came in to relieve Dad's suffering and put him on a nasal canula and this seemed to ease the breathing. I think Dad may have known I was there but I am not certain. I believe he squeezed my hand when I first got there, but afterward, his eyes wouldn't focus on anything and he had many body tremors. I talked to Dad periodically telling how I loved him and that it was okay for him to give up the struggle and return to Jesus. Dad continued fighting to breathe until 1:30pm when the nurse came in to give him some pain meds and I watched him breathe slower and slower until just as the nurse was leaving the room I called out, "Dad's not breathing," and the nurse returned immediately and Randy and Mom looked at the clock on the wall, 1:30pm, and Dad had died, no longer suffering, but at peace.
