March 11, 2004

Thursday morning I left home and decided I didn't want to take the time to get on the bus to get to the Brigham. It felt like I needed to get there right away.

I was right.

John had gone steadily downhill overnight. He was now on 100% oxygen and it wasn't enough to keep him stable. They decided he was so oxygen deprived that they would start morphine so that it might make it less of a struggle for him. He was still very much aware of his surroundings and wanted to talk a little.

I left his room briefly and called his father and said he had to get on a plane. He called the Dr. and he agreed. So he left Hawaii- headed home to Arizona- and then would make it to Boston. I just was hoping they would make it on time to say goodbye.

I called Dana- who had known that this might happen and had gone into work with a bag that had a change of clothes and enough things to keep her occupied so that she could be with me over at the hospital but not be in the room.

I called Mike and Nick. They came right away. They - who truly were his brothers in life- wanted to talk to him.

We all kind of hung around all day- in and out of the room off and on. At some opint I decided that I didn't care what the rules were I would spend the night there with my John. I told Dana to head home but leave the phone on. I checked in with Pat to see where they were at in their travels. I spoke to a few other people and then I pulled a chair up next to the bed and tried to settle my emotions down to speak to John.

We had many conversations that night- some of them not that coherent and others too painfully so. He had to keep sitting up throughout the night becasue he was so oxygen starved and the nurses kept checking his morphine.

About 5 am Friday he sat up and was very alert and I said to him, "Do you want to keep fighting? Or are you ready to go?" He replied, " I am ready. I just don't want you to have to go through this."

I said not to worry about me and that I would go speak to the nurse to see if they could make him a little more comfortable. I left the room and fell apart. I found the nurse and told her what he had said. Unfortunately John's mother would not let him sign a living will and so she said we would have to wait and see until his condition worsened what decisions would be made. I went back into the room. and John had seemed to have fallen asleep. I decided to let him be and go to the family room and try to sleep as well.