In Memory of My Dad

In Memory of My Dad - Kenneth Edward Lipke
April 20, 1943 - July 26, 2007

Dad's Death...
...was a shock. We hadn't expected him to be taken so quickly - they say no one is ever prepared, and we weren't. Dad had Emphasyma and COPD for years - but he never let it get him down. He never could quit smoking cigarettes. How he tried, he really did, but he just said he couldn't put them down. Through bouts of bronchitis over the years, he'd try again, make it for a while, but kept going back to the cigarettes.

He didn't feel well his last 2 months, he was slowing down, not eating as much or as often as he used to do. His color wasn't good, and he just seemed drained of energy. We all saw it, all of his family, and all of his friends, and we all tried repeatedly to get him to go to the doctor. He'd get annoyed with us, leave the room, or sit there losing his breath in his aggitation, and insist he was fine, and would go to the doctor when his own doctor got back from Florida. Still, we tried every day to get him to go, but daily he'd firmly refuse. I'm angry that he put it off until it was too late. That hurts. Still...Dad always knew best. While I'm angry that this has happened, part of me understands that he knew he was sick, and he decided to die his own way, on his own terms. I think that's exactly what he did.

We were all on the back patio at Mom's the last day that Dad worked. It was Wednesday July 11, 2007. My heart sank as I watched Lisa driving Dad's truck all the way up to the door. He was too sick to walk from the driveway. I remember saying, "This isn't good." We helped him inside, again, begging him to go to the hospital, but again he insisted "NO! I have bronchitis and will be fine, I'll see my doc on Tuesday when she gets back!" He was emphatic, and went to bed, saying he just needed to rest.

From that day until Tuesday, July 17, he was pretty much the same. He'd get up, eat just a little, make coffee, but then just stare at it, talk a little, so frail, he sounded so frail, and then he'd go back to bed. He seemed exhausted. After he got back from the doctor on Tuesday and had taken the first dose of antibiotics, the Prednisone, the shot she gave him in her office, he was feeling much better. He told me to come smell his cheek, he'd even showered and shaved, and was letting me know he felt good enough to do that. We were all relieved. Maybe it was just bronchitis, though we hadn't heard him cough like he ususally did when he had that. I'd not really heard him cough at all, though Mom did. She'd given him cough medicine and that's why we hadn't heard it.

We were all looking for my Grandfather to take a turn for the worse, so I'd been sleeping with the phone on my bedside table, so that if Mom needed me in the night I could get to the phone quickly. It rang, waking me at 7:00 the morning of July 18. That was Sarah's 27th birthday. I answered it thinking that something had happened to Papaw, and I was shocked to hear Mom, her voice Terrified, "Juel, get over here, he can't breathe, your Dad can't breathe!" I don't know if I even hung up the phone, I just grabbed up the girls and we took off for Mom's.

As we were nearing the turn to their house, we came up behind the ambulance. When I saw it, I knew it was for Dad and I got so scared. He'd never been to the hospital before. It had to be bad for him to need an ambulance. I just wasn't comprehending that he wasn't breathing. I couldn't. When we pulled into the driveway, I glanced at the clock in the car. It said 7:04. I know it's impossible that we got there in 4 minutes, but we did get there fast. Mom was standing outside at the door, begging, crying, screaming for the EMT's to hurry. She was hysterical, and I just took off towards the house in a run. She told me he was on the bed, so that's where I headed. He was laying there, so pale, trying to mumble something, but I couldn't hear him. The EMT's came in about that time, one of them was Mikyla's uncle, Doyle.

He listened to Dad's lungs, then asked me if Dad had Congestive Heart Failure. NO. He has COPD. Doyle his partner and I quickly got Dad onto the gurney, Dad was just gasping, one breath maybe every 15 seconds. I knew he was dying.

When they got him into the ambulance, it seemed like they sat there for a good 20, to 25 minutes. I thought for sure Dad was dead already, just right there in the driveway, because they didn't seem to be in any hurry to leave for the hospital. I found out later, they'd done CPR and intubated him there.

The next time I saw Dad, he was on a Respirator. He was in critical but stable condition, and after hours of waiting, we found out that he had pneumonia.