How do I cope?

Sat. morning I woke up as usual around 6 am to start  wake up process and have my morning coffee, so basically it started like any other day when I’m getting ready for work. When I got to the living room I noticed my dad was up already and watching an old black and white John Wayne movie. I said my good mornings to him and asked him how he had slept, to which I heard so so. I brewed my usual pot of coffee asked dad if he wanted a cup. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary other then he appeared to be having trouble breathing.

I got to work and was taking care of things there when about 9 am dad called and asked me to run a trailer up to the church for him, and to tell me that he was having mom take him to the hospital since he couldn’t seem to catch his breath. He told me not to worry (yeah right I’m not going to worry) he thought it was just allergies giving him the trouble. He told me that he would call me later to let me know what was going on or mom would call. I told him ok, that I would take care of it for him.

 I got off work around 10 am, headed to the house, got his truck and hooked up the trailer to take off to the church for him. As I’m pulling out of the ranch to head off with the trailer, mom calls me and tells me as I’m pulling on to the road; dad has had a heart attack. BAM there goes the mailbox; I took it out with the trailer. There goes my concentration. After a cpl of backups and forwards I get the trailer out and head off as fast as I can to get rid of the thing so I can get to the hospital.

I finally get to the hospital (good thing DPS wasn’t on I-20). I get in to see him and he appears to be feeling good, his breathing is a lot better. They take him to ICU for the normal 24 hours of observation. We all take turns going into see him and visit. He’s in good spirits, joking with the nurses as the come in and out.  I call work tell them what’s going on (I had to go back for my afternoon loads) and get my supervisor to come in and cover them for me.

Sunday morning I go on to work since all the family is here and its going to be crowed at the hospital and I need the distraction of work to help ease my mind. I take care of business at the office and head to the hospital for an afternoon visit with him. I get there and find out that his heart is enlarged by 4 different doctors who can’t seem to make up their minds if it’s really enlarged or slightly or grossly or what ever. They tell us they are going to do a heart cath surgery on him Monday morning to check for blockage in his arteries.

Monday is here and I take off the whole day of work to be there at the hospital for dads’ procedure. The whole family pretty much takes up the heart cath waiting room while dad is in for his procedure. After about an hour the doctor comes in a tells us he’s doing well and that the LAD is 100% blocked and that they cleaned it out and put a stint in to help keep it open and give blood flow back to the left side of his heart. He also tells us dad is going to have to have a pacemaker put in to help his heart since it is enlarged and very weak. He tells us this will have to be done in the next few months.

We all go see dad in his room up in ICU for a lil bit after they get him all settled back in. Once he’s been on his back for a few hours they will move him to a regular room, later in the day. We all go for a lil while to go eat lunch and try to relax from everything that’s been going on. Mom and my uncle and grandmother all go back later in the day to go see him and me and trey stay home to go feed animals and clean stalls.

Tuesday morning mom calls me at work to let me know dad his being released from the hospital. I get home from work and dads home relaxing and feeling a lot better. I go outside to do something for mom at the house when she comes out and tells me that the Dr. wants to put dad on the heart transplant list for a new heart. Mine falls from my chest when I hear this. She then goes on to tell me that dad tells the Dr. no do not put me on the list. He goes on to tell him, I’m 63 years old my kids are grown, I’ve raised my family, let the heart go to a young man who needs it that has small kids and still needs to raise his family. As much as I can understand why my dad said this, there is just as much I don’t understand why he said this. I feel like I’m going to be robbed of my dad sooner than should be. Does this make me selfish? I feel like I can be selfish about wanting to keep my dad around to see his grand kids grow up and get to see his great grand kids. Is this wrong of me? Why do I feel hurt? I know he’s ok for right now, but what about tomorrow, or the next day? It’s almost like someone has put a time table on my dad now and when the days hit the red X on the calendar then his times up, but if I look further on the calendar there’s another red X that’s still 20 years away. I want the one that’s 20 years away.