Dad and Chuck were in the dining room when I arrived. Dad asked for some milk and Tony brought us a glass of soy milk. Dad took a couple of long, slow draughts and took in about half an ounce. He seemed to like it. I told him he had some jello on the table and he carefully reached for it. He was struggling with the plastic wrap and I asked if he needed help, "No, it gives me something to do."
A couple of times he looked like he saw something and I asked about it. He said "I've seen Max run by a couple of times. He sure is busy." He had a couple of bites and a few more sips of the soy milk before asking to go back to the room.
He looked at the door and said how nice it was decorated. He told me about a visit from Bonnie and Tak, although he could not remember much.
He laid down after a great labor to move from the chair to the bed. He lays here moaning with almost every breath. I've got the heating pad on him and try to comfort him from time to time, but it does not seem to help much. His eyes move around the room as he is seeing things. I'm certain that between the lack of calories and input from his own eyes, that his brain still needs to see something and conjures up images from old memories and mashes them together.
I sat there for about twenty minutes and finally sad good-bye. He said, "Okay hon, I'm going to take a nap and see what happens. I'll see you later."
I recorded some of our breakfast conversation. The audio is not the best - I'm too loud, he's too quiet, and there is a lot of background noise - but I thought Jim in particular could stand to hear a bit more of Dad's voice.
On October 21st, 2012, our father, William Harrer, lost his battle with lymphoma. Through the last years of his life, we (his five kids) blogged about what was happening. It tells a story of how one family dealt with the end of their father's life. We thought if it can help a family with similar struggles, he would very much want that, and so we are making our blog public. You can read Dad's obit on the page "Dad's Life in a Nutshell" and see for yourself what an amazing life he had.
Friday, October 12, 2012
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Just realized that I believe most read these off their email. If you want to hear the audio it is embedded in the blog site and you have to go there to see it.
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