My Uncle Tom

Well, I spent a good portion of my day at the hospital visiting my Uncle Tom in the ICU. What was first thought to be pneumonia, turned out to be lung cancer and a fair size tumour beside his heart. Needless to say it's been a very emotional time for my mom, dad and other family members.

Today was a big day for him, they took him off Life Support at 12:30pm and he's still alive now. It was pretty nerve wracking when they took it off him, as we didn't know if he'd go into a cardiac arrest or what would happen. It's the unknown that's always the scariest.

I think he looked alot more comfortable off it, the tube down his throat couldn't be very comfortable. He even spoke a few words every now and then between dozing off, which we were all amazed by. He asked his brother how he was doing, talk about thinking about someone else. In addition to that, he was able to tell us if he was comfortable or in pain and said a few times to get him out of there, not easy words to hear but....

I feel terrible for him, I just can't imagine myself lying there waiting to die. We've learned a valuable lesson from all of this, make sure your wishes are very clear incase your ever in a situation where you need someone else to make important medical decisions for you. My family didn't know what he wanted, so when he had a hard attack after being admitted, he went on Life Support and has remained that way for about 11 days now. Some think it's been nice to visit him, hold his hand ect..but what does he think? that we really don't know, just that he doesn't want to be there. I personally just want him to be happy and comfortable and want what he would want, for me that would be to be out of my pain and suffering.