Ode to Papa: Tougher than Nails

This is the beginning of a 4 part series that details each of my grandparents endings.  As an ICU nurse I began seeing death of the elderly population in a whole new light and dealing with my own grandparents endings has forced me to really reflect on how we are dying these days.  It's not a pretty view in some of these 12 hour shifts where we as a medical team try to prevent the unpreventable.  Death comes to all and we need to talk about it...

This is my story of Arthur Wilmer Smith (Wilmer to Friends and Family)

I am very passionate about shining my light on what I believe our Loved Ones deserve and that includes an Enlightened Ending to their Life Story. 

One of my last meaningful conversations with Wilmer consisted of him telling me that he no longer felt like he was LIVING but rather EXISTING... This conversation probably happened 3 years before he passed but not long before he wound up in the land of Pillgatory...

More and more people are ending up in the place I have termed Pillgatory and most people can't even see it.  So I feel obligated to give it my best to Save as many people from this land as possible. 

Nobody wants Forced Health until they wish Death on themselves but that's the sad reality that many of our elderly Loved Ones face everyday and nobody seems to want to talk about it.  So I AM gonna talk about it and your welcome to listen.

This is where I start talking about it so follow me on a journey that will hopefully make you think about where we are going and whether or not you want to end up in the land of Pillgatory...

So if you think that you can handle my Truth then I'd love for you to join me on this  episode of Scrubs in the Trenches 

Ode to Papa: Tougher than Nails...

Transcript

Ode to Papa: Tougher than nails.  Warning do not listen to this episode in a public place unless you aren’t afraid to cry in front of total strangers…

I personally went through a lot of transformative experiences in 2023. I completed over 120 hours of nurse coach training and then passed the boards to become a board-certified nurse coach and went on to opened my first LLC in Higher Reflection Coaching.  

Being immersed in the world of coaching forced me to face the reality of whether my wife and I were done having children. We have been blessed with four amazing boys, but we’ve always wanted to keep going till we got a little girl.  Needless to say my wife completed her 3rd geriatric pregnancy and we have the most amazing little princess.  

And then on a more somber note my last grandparent standing or more appropriately grandparent laying finally exited this world/ plane of existence… however you want to look at it.  End it pains me to be like finally my papa died but I feel like I've been waiting for this for a while. After spending almost 2 years on hospice being moved into a 12 resident semi private car, nursing home thingy he finally found some peace.  

Finally being released from the cage of his body.

I want to share The last meaningful conversation I had with my Papa that was about three years before he died.  He verbalized to me that he no longer felt like he was living, but rather existing. The way he explained his personal state of BEING sounded a lot like Purgatory, at least to me it did.  Getting up and moving to his chair, watching the Atlanta bravery reruns on Valley sports, and having to sit and pee just in case a little turd wanted to pop poop out when he was just trying to take a leak.  No longer able to get to his shop in his basement and tinker with his tools. He already seems pretty miserable but At this point he could still interact and get around fairly well. Unfortunately this is the beginning of the end, but that actual END didn't happen for quite some time. He Began drifting into the realm of quantity and was rapidly losing quality time…. He was a MAN STUCK in PILLGATORY…..

My Papa was a very stoic to most, but for whatever reason he had no problem being affectionate with me…  perhaps it's because my family lived in his house when I was a baby and I've heard that I would lay on his chest for hours in his rocking chair while we napped together.  Maybe it's because when I was two, I drowned in his pool, and by the time anyone saw me at the bottom of the pool I was already technically dead but since my father was a volunteer fire fighter and knew CPR, he was able to bring my tiny little purple body back to life, put that spark back in me. Since this happened on his property, maybe it's possible to see me walk around on his land brought Joy into his life so he couldn't help himself to show me more affection than most. Strangely enough, all three of his grandsons that were middle children died before he did and I'm the only one he ever got back…. And even though he did try to take care of himself before the rest of us, I’ll touch more on that in a little bit

But for NOW Let me get back to why I’m talking about my Papa, I wanted to record this episode, along with an episode telling the ending to each of my wonderful grandparents LIVES to share a Nurses perspective on a dying loved one in this complex medical system that Forces Health on Many until they Wish Death upon themselves.   I'm gonna start with his story and then move backwards in time until I reach the story of my first grandparent I lost, PAWPAW!  NOW I believe that the world deserves enlightened endings for our loved ones and don't see how we can get there without real meaningful conversations about death, so HEAR, CUZ HERE WE GO.

My papa had four children and 13 grandchildren 30 something great-grandchildren and a handful of great great grand children when he passed at the Ripe old age of 90. This man was literally tougher than nails and has the x-ray to prove it or there's an x-ray out there somewhere that proves it.  My Papa found his calling in building houses in one day in the 80s he was coming out of an attic and the nail gun he was holding fired and went into his head, entering from behind his ear, pointing towards his eyeball. Needless to say…. he got his truck and drove himself to the hospital. Thinking… well if I pass out on the way there then they will take me to the hospital anyway.  upon arrival he was greeted by the classic medical secretary, then evidently began to argue with him that there's no way that a nail went into his head. Since my aunt was the vice president of nursing in the hospital, things apparently escalated quickly and he got an x-ray to prove that yes in fact, there was a nail in his brain.

Now at this point in time in space, he was life flighted to Atlanta, and legend has it that the doctor had to send an orderly to Ace Hardware to get some tools to sterilize. And then under x-ray pulled out millimeter by millimeter doing Neuro exams until the nail was completely removed.  I want to bring up a story to show how man that was so tough in his prime can be reduced down to a glorified, baby, eating mushed food and needing diaper changes when drugged out too Long… in PILLGATORY!!!  

Since he isn’t my Father I didn’t want to Force my opinions but I let his children know that I was available for advice if they ever wanted it.  But it did make me uncomfortable to see him go so slowly when taking him off his pills could have eliminated his suffering sooner.  My mom would say things like “I just think his Heart is too STRONG but I didn’t have the HEART to be like, “It wouldn’t be if we took him off his LASIX”.  Even though my Mom was a Nurse it seems that it is nearly impossible to be objective when losing a LOVED One.  SO It didn’t feel like my place to say it at the TIME but it broke my HEART to see him get LOST in that STRANGE LAND…

On a side note, I was planning on visiting Papa on a Wednesday, got convinced that I could wait till Saturday to visit and on one of the nights in between that Time I prayed that he not have to hang around until Saturday just for me to “see” him and hold his hand one last time.  I can’t remember exactly if it was the morning after I prayed that prayer or the next morning but he was finally able to cross over After almost 2 years of living in a Zombie like state.  Sometimes I THINK, If only I would've murdered him on my grandmother's death bed like she asked me to.  I could've prevented a lot of suffering, but that's a story for the next episode. Needless to say even with hind sight I don't think I could have Romeo and Juliet’d my grandparents like my grandma wanted me too. 

And I promise to spill more pilly details in the next episode, but because I couldn't kill them together, my papa got stuck in that strange land I call PILLGATORY… and what's that… you want to know more about PILLGATORY?  

Well, let me tell you, I swear its where way too many people end up or maybe down, I dunno especially in this American dream thats beginning to strangely enough turn into a 

Medically Induced Nightmare……………. Fade in SoulSoupForYou

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Oh, I hope y'all can. Please forgive me. I didn't really want to sell part of myself for quick easy money. But they are paying really good money for selling things that you don't believe in during these CRAZY DAYS, SO DON”T MISS OUT… on that FREE MONEY HONEY.  Anyways, join me next time when I tell the story of my Rapid Response to my Grandma’s downfall…