Darrel's Memorial Playground
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Aug 6/07 - Getting More Difficult

6/12/2011

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Getting More Difficult
Category: Life

Last week was not a happy or pleasant one here.  Starting on Tuesday, 
Darrel's pain levels increased in regularity and intensity.  It was necessary
to adjust both his base and break-thru doses of morphine several times before
his discomfort levelled off.  It is never pleasant to watch anyone suffer, 
especially your own kid.  Rebecca worked as quickly as she could to measure out 
and prepare the needed injection, but as long as it seemed to me, it most 
certainly felt longer for Darrel.  We were beginning to believe that we had
come to the point of no return, when the situation finally began to settle down
on Saturday morning.  Though his daily base level of morphine is now double
what it was at the start of that week, no additional morphine has been required
in almost 72 hours.  This is a great relief to say the least.

As if all this wasn't depressing and emotional enough, we also went down to 
the funeral home to discuss what kind of arrangements we were going to have for 
Darrel.  Other that what I'd seen watching  on how the events unfold at the 
Fischer and Sons Funeral Home on Six Feet Under over the years, this was my 
first time being involved in the preparation stages of a funeral.  Of course, 
this was a very awkward and surreal experience to be planning for your child's 
funeral, and the fact that he was at that moment, still at home watching TV
with his sisters.  Fortunately for us, the funeral director was comforting, 
understanding, and also had previously had lost his son at an early age to 
cancer.  He many times stated that he couldn't relate to our situation...yet he 
could on so many levels of emotions.  He had had issues with how the doctors
and religious figures handled the care, treatments, and eventual death of his
son when he was only 14.  Many were similar to what had been through with
Darrel over the past two years, but even the differences were not that
different.

Though nothing was finalized after our discussion, it was in a strange way 
comforting to know that there were very few options that could not be persued 
now, or further down the road.  Things will not have to proceed at someone 
else's timetable, or the service being overly religious if we don't want it to. 
This has caused some friction within the family, as there as those who are
more traditional, and deeply rooted in their faith than we are.  Hopefully this
can be resolved more calmly than it began, and currently still is, but time
will  tell.  The service we want will be all about DARREL...not us...and not the 
Catholic Church with its beliefs and doctrines.  The last thing anybody in the 
family needs now is added stress and/or emotional burdens.  While the opinions
  and beliefs of others could be considered to a certain degree, the final
  decisions are ultimately for Rebecca and I to make.

The girls have already left for camping, and if Darrel feels up to it, we
  will be joining them tomorrow.  Since this is the one trip they all look
forward  to every year, I hate to not be able to do it with Darrel one last
time.  He  still wants to go, but if he is regularly unable to be comfortable
with all the  resources we have at the house, I'm quite concerned about how we
are going to be  able to accomplish this in a campground.  I guess that will
probably be the  subject in the next post.  Thanks again
everybody.
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    The majority of all these entries were written by Darrel's father, Stephen.  For those that are not, efforts have been made to give proper credit where it is due.

    The bulk of the posts are in the June 2011 Archives Section, as that is when I transferred them over to this site.  Category Tags should allow you to find entries easier.

    I've tried to correct spacing issues on many of the entries, as most of the older ones have been copied from different sites I've used in the past. I apologize if some have been overlooked.

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