I have had the worst day of my life today.
Bit of backstory: my father had a stroke Feb. 20. Not too bad, some muscle weakness, trouble walking, some slurring of words and aphasia. 2 days later, he had another one; this one resulted in loss of speech, trouble chewing and swallowing. He spent the better part of a month in the hospital/convalescent home recovering before coming home. Two weeks later, back into the hospital he goes, because he has stopped eating, lowered his water consumption a lot, and has a UTI.
No biggie, he's treated, sent back to the convalescent home for more rehab, he's doing a lot better. Then he starts shitting blood. Exam can't find anything wrong down below, but does find a patch of precancerous cells in his esophagus, which gets removed. A week later, he not only has blood in his stool, but starts puking up blood.
Doctor told me they still can't figure out where exactly the bleeding is coming from, which is a problem, because the hospital is giving him blood and plasma... 6 units in 24 hours, which I guess is a lot? He's also hooked up to a ventilator to allow him to breathe. Doc lays it out plainly: it's only a matter of time before they have to stop giving him blood/plasma, because they won't give all their supply to one patient. That's a risk they won't take.
So I had to make a decision, and take my dad's wishes into account. I told them to stop the blood transfusions, stop the drugs, take him off the ventilator, let him die a peaceful death... the way he told me wanted.
I got the call 90 minutes later.
