Prepare yourself

I hate those two words: Prepare yourself.

There are several phrases I hate:

"You need to sit down."
"Prepare yourself."
"Take a deep breath."
"It's time."
"He's had a good life."
Anything with the words "do not resuscitate."


On Saturday, I got the phone call I've been dreading the last 9 years. I don't remember everything about that phone calls, but some various words I heard:

Emergency Room
Critical Care
Struggling to Breathe
Immobile
Vomiting
Prepare yourself

After hemming and hawing over these words that circled in my head, my husband and I went up to the Critical Care Unit for me to visit. I "took a deep breath" and went in. What I saw wasn't pretty because it sure looked like to me that "it's time."

Sunday he's doing better. I hear nothing Monday or Tuesday, but on Wednesday I get another phone call. Again the words struggling to breathe were part of the phone call. On Thursday, I get all the phrases I hate ... including Prepare yourself & the DNR orders.

So now it's a waiting game. Will it be today, tonight, tomorrow? This weekend, next week, the week after? We do not know. What we do know is that he's struggling with oxygen levels and that he is refusing to eat. He's barely talking b/c he's struggling to breathe. Will the last words I him say is "I love you too." I hope so. That's a phrase that I could hear over and over again and never tire.

But in the meantime, I am just trying to "prepare myself" because "it's time" and "he's had a good life." I'm struggling to breathe, but trying to "take a deep breath" and I am "sitting down" because it's all I can do at the moment knowing that my Dad & Uncle signed the "DNR" orders just the other day.

Honestly, I am doing the very best I can with my motto: "The skills that I have and the love I receive."