The summer of 2004

This is my dad.. he's got to be the handsomest guy in the whole wide world. This post connects with my previous post about spending the night w/ him. :)
I must warn you, this is a horrible story, that NO ONE should have to go through.

Rewind to the summer of 2004. Summers always found my parents up in the forest-land in their trailer. When they came home, my dad went to the DR. because he had this cold he couldn't get rid of. A constant cough, like a smokers cough, that was most annoying. Of course DR's now-a-days "treat & street" so all they did was gave him "cough medicine". He took it like he was told, but it did nothing. Finally one day my dad was in the bathroom & he coughed so hard, it through out his back and he fell on the floor. His back was never the same. He would have to brace himself if he laughed, coughed or even sneezed. It was so sad.
He saw a chiropractor once or twice, but it really didnt do anything. Over time, it actually got worse, to where he couldn't manuver. Eventually, he was so sick he stopped eating. After 3 days, of that nonsense-we finally convinced my mom he needed to get help NOW! We took him to the ER, and got him checked in. After tests, we found out he had pneumonia, and cancer of the bone marrow(which explains the back pain). I can't imagine the pain he had endured for 2 months. This brought us to the beginning of December. He stayed in the hospital for about a week. Getting all his "everythings" back to normal. We had awsome hope, cz it could actually be treated by chemo. We got him a hosp. bed, bcz his back still had a lot of healing. So he camped out in the front room!
About a week after coming home, his right leg started to swell. Of course we called all the doctors & they said it was water retention from the cancer. They added ANOTHER pill, to the 15 or so he was already taking. His leg never got better & it only became more painful. Couldn't touch it, couldn't even MOVE the blanket to cover him. I've never seen my dad in pain. Eventually he couldn't even get up anymore. . . (this was w/in a week) and we decided this was going on long enough & we needed to take him in. That night I stayed w/ my dad bcz I wanted to. I was up all night, talking to him, rubbing his back, or just trying to sleep or get him to sleep. At one point he said to me.."I don't know how I'd do this without you." ** and if you know my dad, compliments don't really come, so this was the nicest thing he's ever said to me** That next morning, my mom headed north for trailer business, so it was my sister & I that decided to take him in. We couldn't get him off the bed. He was dead weight to us. He didn't talk much, he was too weak & in too much pain. I called my father in law, who happened to NOT be working, for help. It was all my dad had to just sit there while we tried to move him, in such horrible pain. The ride to the hospital was horrible. I kept telling my dad how sorry I was that we brought him back (lol). He wasn't very happy. :(
We told the desk people that we needed someone to LIFT him bcz he couldn't move from all the pain. It took 10 minutes just to get him out. It was like they didn't believe us or something. They brought one guy out and he plopped my daddy right in that wheel chair. I thought I was going to be ill. My dad was in so much pain, but he never said a word.
As they got ready for more tests, my dad just laid there. He would look back & forth at me & my sister. Trying to be "tough" and we tried to make light of things.
They figured the cancer was putting pressure on his spine, causing the swelling. How I wish thats what it had been. It wasn't til that night, that his leg suddenly turned black & blue with sores & they realized that what it was, was a flesh eating bacteria. This "thing" was eating away at my dad's leg & we didn't even know it. Or how it started we don't know. It comes from the "strep" virus.. so who knows. Anyone that's a carrier of strep (alot of people are) could have passed it on and his immune system couldn't fight it.
The only chance we had was to amputate that leg. And maybe the other one as well. As bad as that was, we still thought, well I guess we bring him home in a wheel chair.
That day grew in to the night as they proceeded w/ that surgery.
I'm the baby of the family so of course i'm the one w/ the little kids... and it was so hard to stay at the hospital leaving brendon & kiersten who was 8 mths old. I kept making trips back and forth. I was still nursing her once or twice a day.
My dad never really woke up from that surgery. When I got to see him for the first time,that next morning, my heart broke. That was NOT my dad. I instantly turned to Kevins chest and cried. We all took turns going in for our own reasons I guess, to say goodbye. He was on machines that he didn't want to be on. We had to let go. From the day we First took him in & found out all of this.... til the day we took him back to lose him, was 3 weeks. We never expected my dad to die. It was sudden & not easily taken. My dad died December 23, 2004.