from here on in, the story of my dad's illness becomes less linear, and more like a calendar. each day was a new development.

this happened, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened.

we rarely had more than a day without changes.

friday, july 24:

i called joy first thing friday morning. she reported that the surgery went well, and he was heavily sedated. there was no urgency or need to talk with him on the phone, since he was sleeping. he still had his intubation tube in, and they planned to leave it in for a little while. he was in the kidd 2 ICU, because they had the capability to do dialysis if that was necessary.

that day i moved around as though in a dream. i felt hung-over from the intensity of the experience. i had almost no appetite. we went to nancy and gerry's for dinner, but i wasn't very chatty. just really worn out. thankfully, that was the first night of the year's baseball season, so after dinner we sat and watched the game together.

joy had pre-arranged plans to go camping with their best couple friends and kids, at a campground north of kingston. she spoke with the doctors before she went and everything was stable. if anything changed, i was to call her. the doctors knew to call me first if anything happened.

saturday, july 25:

i got a call from the vascular surgeon around 10:30 am. i remember that the phone rang while i was trying to put in my contact lenses and i rushed to the phone with one lens in my eye, and the other on my finger. dr yacob told me that while the surgery was a success, my dad was clearly still fighting an infection, and the other leg would need to come off. he told me that the first leg could not have been more infected – he specifically said that even the bone was infected.

so i started from square one again. recalling all the friends and family we'd spoken to on thursday. brendan and i tried calling joy, but her cell phone went straight to voicemail. we couldn't remember which campground she'd gone to, but thankfully, we got a hold of some close friends of hers, who knew the name of the camp. they called the camp office and left a message that joy should call me. they even went so far to say that they would drive up there and relay the message about this second surgery in person if necessary. i really appreciated their help.

when joy called me, i gave her the update. she was very upset. she said that she'd been holding out hope that he'd be able to drive again. my dad's car was his only worldly possession and he was deeply attached to it. he loved helping others by giving them drives. it was his love language. he'd taught brendan to drive in that car. he'd taught joelle. he drove all the grandkids to awana, and when i had a broken foot, he drove me to and from work. he drove eamon to day camp. he frequently helped with after school pick-up (if i wasn't available), and would help us with our paper route on rainy days (bagging the papers for us, and passing them through the car window). for my dad to lose his ability to drive was to lose a really significant part of his identity. joy told me to tell the hospital staff that we love him.

the young anesthesiologist called me. the one we'd spoken with on thursday. he said that he'd been in to speak with my dad. although my dad couldn't speak because of his intubation tube, he was able to gesture and spell out questions and comments on a letter sheet. the doctor told me that my dad had remembered him and mentioned our 'mcdonald' inside joke. hearing that warmed my heart. that even though he'd been through hell, he was still himself. he explained the risks to me again, that he was highly likely to have a heart-attack on the operating table, but that he again wanted to proceed. i relayed the message from joy – to tell him that we love him. he said he'd give him the message right away.

when speaking with my dad's friend e.ann, she asked me if he was awake and knew what was happening. i told her yes, and that he'd even made a joke with the doctor. she laughed with disbelief – only george... :) she'd been worried that he would wake up to having no legs instead of one, and how he (or anyone) would react to that. but thankfully he did know and gave his consent. she and i talked about how unfair it felt for him to make it through the first surgery, only to die in the second – if that were to happen.

nancy had come to get the boys. brendan and i were just hanging out at home, waiting for news from the hospital. around 1 they called to say he was up next for surgery. thankfully, since baseball season had started the day before, i sat half spaced out watching the game. the nice thing about watching baseball is that you don't fully have to pay attention, but it gives you something somewhat low-energy to watch. so i had something to distract me, without having to fully engage my mind.

again, around 2 hours later, they called and the doctor started by simply saying "the surgery went well". again, he was heavily sedated, but i could visit the next day.

frig, what a rollercoaster (little did i know, that was just the beginning). i was sunk with emotional exhaustion. it was like i could exhale again. brendan opened some wine and we toasted my dad. i was thankful, and i was proud of him. he was courageous and he'd made it through TWICE!

before we left, we contacted all his closest friends and our relatives in toronto to tell them about the situation. it took some sleuthing on my part to find his best friend, bob's number. my dad had tried to tell us, but was getting his numbers mixed up. he mostly called bob using motor memory, and couldn't tell us the number. but after looking up an acquaintance of mine on facebook, who was married to bob's grandson, i was able to figure out the spelling of his last name, and we found his phone number online. he was so glad we'd called him.

the emergency room doctor the night before had told me that my dad was the sickest person in emerge that night. having heard the news that he was in such bad shape that he was not expected to make it through the surgery, it was difficult to know what to expect when we arrived. i had not actually seen him since father's day. it had been a month, which was an unusually long time, considering we lived in the same town and normally i'd see him at least every week. during the pandemic he'd drop by to sit on my porch to read or to chat. he loved our porch.

when we arrived at the hospital, we found our dad in surprisingly good spirits. we had questions about his condition. while the nurse did a scan of his heart, a social worker came by to talk with us. she wanted to know if there was anything he needed, and asked questions about his living arrangements. we were quite discouraged about how he would manage living independently with only one leg, but the social worker told us that in times like this, when the mind wants to live, the body and mind start to work together and adapt. she arranged for a chaplain to come by and visit us, and took joy down to the giftshop to buy my dad some reading glasses. he was having difficulty seeing the numbers on the phone. he was making a lot of phone calls. there were a lot of people he wanted to say goodbye to. sometimes when he dialed, he'd fumble and hit the wrong number. i said to him "dad, use your index finger, instead of your thumb. you keep hitting the wrong numbers". and he said "i always use my thumb". that struck me as something about him that i didn't know.

his legs were bandaged up and elevated. they were covered in so many bandages that it looked as though he had bulky casts on. his legs were puffy, and cold to the touch. one doctor pressed on his right leg, and when he moved his finger away it left an imprint – joy and i just looked at each other as if to say "did you see that?". he asked us "have they said anything about his right leg? it's not that much better than his left". we told him that they had not mentioned it, and he responded saying "they probably don't want to do both legs, because the longer he's in surgery the higher his risk of heart attack". it was clear that his legs were dying.

that doctor was a young anesthesiologist. we spent quite a bit of time with him that day, since he would come and assess my dad's condition to decide on the best method of anesthetic for the surgery – the one that would reduce his risk of dying. my dad was always a social person, and had a habit of asking all about where the doctors/nurses were from, and where they went to school, rather than asking questions related to his health. at one point, he said to the young doctor (believing the man's name was mcdonald) "do you know how many people with the last name mcdonald are anesthesiologists?". the young doctor politely shared his rather eastern european last name, and added "and actually, i don't think i've known any mcdonalds in anesthesiology". we all had a good, comfortable laugh about that. that's pretty much how the day went. we hung out, we joked, we laughed, and chatted. i'd taken the little memoir book with me to fill in. i figured i'd get some more information, but it might provide a few conversation prompters if we ever found ourselves at a loss for what to say. he really enjoyed chatting about his personal history. sometimes he'd ask us questions about what our favourite family vacations had been. we'd already said our goodbyes over the phone that morning, so after that, we were just enjoying being together.

he talked to all joy's kids on the phone, saying goodbye. he talked to my mom (and told her he was sorry – that meant a lot to her), and he talked to both brendan and tim. he chose not to talk with my boys, since he thought they were too young. it was difficult enough for him to know what to say to liam and erin. he was also adamant he wanted caleb to have his watch. he told us "i don't have will. just divide everything between the two of you. i just don't want you fighting over anything", which we both kind of found funny. he didn't have anything anyone would fight over to begin with, but agreed that we wouldn't. he wanted me to call his bank lady, anne, and assured me that she'd help with anything she could. then he said with satisfaction "ok, so miss magoog will be the treasurer".

the medical team had three options for anesthetic. one, a general anesthetic, which was the highest risk of a heart attack. the second, was a local anesthetic in his leg. the third was a spinal (spinal tap i think, but i'm not sure). the second and third options came with the risk of bleeding out, since he was on blood thinners. i was confused, since i thought if they're taking off his leg, wasn't there a high risk of him bleeded out from the operation alone. but the doctor explained that they would cauterize his leg, so he wouldn't bleed out. that made sense. with the local anesthetic and spinal, he would be awake the whole time. i asked him "how would you feel being awake for the whole surgery?" and he simply said "well... i'd learn a lot".

as noon came and went, we were told that his surgery would be around 3. so we continued to wait, chat and he would dose off every once in a while. he claimed he had not slept at all in emerge the night before, but he clearly had since he had no memory of them bandaging up his feet. and we could see for ourselves that he was in and out of sleep, even though he didn't think he was. that, along with his not-great hearing, made it easy to talk plainly with the doctors right in front of him. a catholic priest came in to see us, i assume there had been no protestant chaplains available, which was fine. we made some small talk (one of my dad's brothers is a priest), and the priest suggested we say the lord's prayer together. as we did that, i got choked up with tears.

by mid-afternoon i was getting hungry. and i found myself in the awkward position of wishing my dad would be taken off to his life-threatening surgery so i could go get a sandwich. while it was a natural impulse caused by a grumbly stomach, i felt badly for wanting to wrap things up, rather than get more time. i drank so water, and felt a little better.

in his vulnerable state (which is not uncommon after my dad has major surgery), he opened up about pretty deeply personal things, particularly relating to his faith and his marriage to my mom. and i was grateful for the insights, since it filled in more of my personal story. i understand my family's story better now, although it doesn't comfort me much, seeing how the problems had been preventable, or at the very least worked out under different circumstances.

his surgery was bumped again. so in the late afternoon, joy and i went to get some dinner, and told him we'd be back around 6. when we returned, he was sleeping soundly. we sat quietly with him, and would chat between us a little. eventually he woke up, and immediately made one last, significant phone call.

around 7:30 or 8, we said goodbye and headed home. he was at peace. we each gave him a big hug, and i told him "i love you and i'll miss you". he started to say "i'll miss you too", but then caught himself. in the elevator, i told joy how strange it felt leaving, not knowing if we'd ever see him again. we'd concluded earlier in the day that we would pray "your will be done" and leave it at that. the prospect of life with one leg was also scary, but we'd figure it out later.

by the time i got home, tim had called to tell brendan that the hospital had called and he'd been taken in for surgery. i was wiped, and went straight to bed. i lied awake for a while. my stomach was in deep knots. eventually, i called to brendan in the living room to come lie down with me. having him with me, gave me a chance to cry deeply, and that eased the knots in my stomach some. i tried to prepare myself for his death, but it seemed so sudden and it was so gut wrenching. i didn't want to lose him. 

i'm not sure if i eventually fell asleep, but around 10:30 the phone rang, and brendan came to tell me that he'd made it.

that drive to the hospital on wednesday, july 22 was the last time my boys and brendan ever saw him. brendan said he was in severe pain and in very rough shape. he couldn't walk, and was mostly quiet in an attempt to stay conscious. despite this, he did not fail to give brendan directions or comment when brendan chose not to take what he thought was the most efficient route (this was a persistent and humourous trait of his. brendan often tells a story of driving with both of us when he was learning to drive stick, and my dad and i complimenting each other on giving great directions). when they arrived at emerge, a nurse came out to get him with a wheelchair (we're still not sure if he called ahead and they were expecting him, or if that nurse just happened to be there), to help him inside. he used to work with her years ago. eamon told me that his granddad said to her with great enthusiasm "mary! you changed your hair!". this was around 4 pm. i was concerned by brendan's report, but waited a few hours before calling for information.

around 7:30, i called to get an update. the hospital staff said that just got moved into another area of emerge, and they suggested i call back in an hour. so i called back at 8:30, and the doctor was with him. i believe the doctor called me back shortly after. she told me quite directly that his leg was severely infected and it would need to come off. i was really shocked. we knew that losing some toes had been a possibility, so losing his foot wouldn't have been a big surprise. but his whole leg, above the knee was quite extreme. she said he had a life-threatening infection, and removing his leg was necessary to save his life. she explained that he had peripheral vascular disease, which meant that he wasn't getting enough blood circulating to his feet to heal his wounds. i asked her if this could have been prevented, and she said there was no way of knowing. that this kind of thing was highly likely and almost inevitable, and with his kidney disease and transplant, that his health was a real balancing act and anything could throw off the balance. she said if it wasn't this it would likely be something else. he would be scheduled for surgery first thing in the morning.

she had not yet spoken to him, and i told her "he's going to be VERY upset". having his freedom was a core value. he was someone who liked to come and go as he pleased, and feeling trapped in any way was detrimental to his mental state. i would often say that he was like a feral child raised with little-to-no adult influence, and continued to be a free-floater as an adult. i got off the phone and called my sister. i barely slept that night. i was worried about him. there were a lot of unknowns; things that my brain struggled to grasp. i was upset. losing a leg was a very big deal, especially at 75. he would be wheelchair bound. where would he live? his apartment wasn't accessible.

the next morning, i wanted to talk to him asap, but i thought it was important to check in with joy and get any updates available first. when i called, she was on the phone with the doctor and said she would call me right back. the news was not good. they said that my dad's heart was very weak, and based on heart scans they determined that he had (or may have had) a mild heart attack while in emerge the night before. they said there was a very high chance that he would die on the operating table. they felt he was not fully in a clear mind, so the decision was up to us if we wanted to proceed with the surgery or allow him to die peacefully from the infection. we bought felt that it would be better to die peacefully from the infection. we decided that joy would come to my house and we would call him together. because of COVID we could not go and be with him. i called my mom, because we knew she would want to be included, and asked her to come over and be with my kids while we spoke with dad. usually she's a very routine person, and doesn't like to deviate from that routine. but when i called and said "mom, i need you to come over to be with my boys" she didn't question me or hum or haw, she immediately said "ok". i asked her if she'd spoken with joy and knew about dad, she didn't, so i briefly filled her in over the phone. in the meantime, brendan's boss suggested he use his bank of emergency days to come home and be with the family. so he was here when my mom and joy arrived.

together, we called our dad. he sounded better than we expected. when we asked "how are you doing?" he said "oh, i'm dying". i was surprised by how matter-of-fact he was about it. he was neither emotional nor afraid, and he seemed to clearly understand the situation. we relayed to him what the doctor said about the high risks of the surgery, and to that he said "i've known lots of people to go on to live happy lives with amputations". we thought we understood what he was saying, but needed it more plainly than that, so we repeated our question about the surgery. that time he said again that he'd known lots of people to live happy lives with amputations, and that he wanted a chance at living. he was very clear, he wanted to live. when i asked him how he felt about losing his leg, he joked "oh hunky-dorey. i've been waiting for this my whole life", and we laughed. we cried too. he told us how much he loved us, and that he was sorry for anything he'd done to hurt us. that meant a lot to me. i'd briefly thought about what i'd want and need to hear from him in a goodbye, and i did want some kind of appology for the negative impact his choices had on me as a teen.

on the whole, it was clear from the conversation he was a lot less upset about losing his leg than i expected. he talked as though he was a dying, but still chose hope. it was clear that surviving was his top priority. without surviving, freedom was irrelevant. joy, mom and i sat chatting after the phone call. my mom and joy were sure they would not have chosen the surgery. i wasn't sure either way. but it was clear that he fully understood and he was very decisive about his choice, so joy called the hospital to give her consent to proceed with the surgery.

meanwhile, a nurse called on another number to say that she had pulled some strings and obtained permission for both joy and me to go see him on Davies 4. i asked how long we could visit for, and she said a couple hours. he was expected to go into surgery around 12 noon.

my suggestion for him to live in our basement was mostly to help support him, but i also really liked the idea of my kids getting more frequent time with him, and getting to raise them in a multi-generational home. i also liked the idea of me, myself, getting more time with him. but i was happy with the compromise. he told me quite sincerely that one of the reasons why he did want to postpone living with us was because he didn't want to be a strain on my marriage. i found it very sweet and thoughtful of him.

during his hospital stay, he'd become anxious in the night since they'd taken all his meds from him and he was worried they were going to leave him to die. he started crying and told himself "i don't want to die. i have too much to live for. i want to see the juniors grow up, i want to see joelle graduate from queen's". when he told me this, i was caught off guard, because i didn't think he was at risk of dying. but i appreciated the window into his heart and mind, i found his words revealing and very touching.

he had arranged with his landlord that he would move to a vacant apartment on the ground floor, which would be ideal for him as he aged and would increasingly rely on a walker. the plan was that he would be fully moved out of his existing apartment by the end of july.

so by this point, it was the beginning of june. i believe it was june 4, the day before my nephew's birthday. about 10 days later, on a sunday morning, i got a call from KGH, which surprised me. i was told that my dad was in emerge and needed to be picked up for a drive home. apparently he was there about his feet. i was really surprised by that; "your feet? what's wrong with your feet?". so the boys and i headed over to KGH to pick him up. i was already planning on doing a costco run for him, so we took the long way down front road and stopped at reid's dairy before going to costco. it was around 10:30 in the morning, but he was delighted at the thought of getting an ice cream cone while at reid's dairy. he even suggested me getting one for myself and the boys. i got him his cone, and got jumbo freezies for the boys. we bumped into my friend melodie in the parking lot and i told her how my dad wanted an ice cream cone. we laughed and she said "that seems like a solid life choice", to which he just shrugged.

i tried to get more information about his feet, which he had not really thought to tell us much about at that point. it turns out, that during his previous visit at the hospital, he wasn't wearing any shoes or sandals when he frequently needed to rush to the washroom. this resulted in 6 or 7 pressure sores on the soles of his feet. he was in severe pain and had decided to go to the hospital in the night. i think he took a taxi there. they had arranged for some homecare to come in and tend to his wounds. about 3 days later, i got a call from a local foot clinic (where he had monthly appointments to care for his feet – just regular foot maintenance, toenails and stuff). he was there for an appointment and the woman felt he needed to go to the hospital asap. so he drove up to our house, and brendan gave him a drive down to KGH. he was in emerge for the afternoon and evening, and was admitted for these large wounds/ulcers.

the next sunday was father's day, and we were going to have a fun father's day bbq in joy's backyard. my dad was so looking forward to it, but we said we'd postpone. instead, i went to visit him in the hospital. i'd given him this 'write your own memoir" book a few years ago, and during the pandemic, i was at him about filling in the questions (since he had so much time on his hands). but he suggested that we work on it together. i could ask him the question and he could tell me about it, and I'd write it down. that was actually my original suggestion, so that was fine with me. so i took that along with me, and we had a nice long conversation (about 2 hours) about his family, upbringing and childhood. he was so thrilled to see me, and to spend time with me. he said "i feel like i've just had a counselling session!". his childhood was extremely difficult and adverse. they were a poor, irish family; with a elderly, veteran father (already in his 50s and 60s when his second batch of kids were born), who his kids called 'sarge' instead of dad and a mother with an undiagnosed mental illness. both were heavy drinkers. it was a very rich conversation, and i was looking forward to many more. despite the bandages on his feet he was in good spirits and really enjoyed talking. he would move around on his bed a lot, and would opt to lie at the footend of the bed, so he could see out the window better. he remained pretty agile. his spunky self.

a few days later, i got a call from a social worker at the hospital. she said she'd spoken with my dad about having a two-month respite at a local seniors facility to help rebuild his strength and prepare him for independent living again. he wanted her to call joy and me for our opinions. this sounded great to us. he would have the 24-hour support that we thought he'd benefit from. having a team who could monitor his health and take action as needed. they'd also be able to do wound care, physio, and his meals would be provided. it all sounded great to us. so he got moved there at the end of june, and had to be in quarantine for 2 weeks (which meant he couldn't leave his room).

things started out ok, although a little weird. but it was all new to us, and the circumstances were different because of COVID, so we remained optimistic. it was roughly a 20 minute drive from our house, and i would occasionally drive out supplies to him (clothing, reading material, toiletries, etc), since he'd taken nothing with him to that hospital that day, but wouldn't get to see him. he was starting to get increasingly disgruntled there, and was unhappy with some of the staff (one woman repeatedly called him rude, which upset him, since he was, at that point, in severe pain from his feet). he was feeling disoriented about the date and day of week, since there was no calendar and his watch was being repaired. on at least two occasions, he got a drive (once from a friend, and once from joy) down to the hospital. the first time might have been about his feet or lungs (the meds they had him on was causing his lungs to fill with water and he was having difficulty breathing), and the second time was about his kidney or gout. he was worried that he was getting dehydrated. both times, he returned to the seniors place with reassurance things were fine. he developed a flare up of gout in his right foot. he had a history with gout, and his father before him. but his family doctor (who my dad gave permission to speak with joy) said that there were no safe medications to treat gout that wouldn't harm my dad's kidneys. we learned that in the past, he had received treatment for his gout and it did do harm to his kidneys. the doctor explained to joy that eventhough everyone thinks of the heart as the most important organ, everything goes through the kidney. another complicating factor is that my dad was not getting enough blood circulation to his feet, which was why they weren't healing properly. he had an appointment scheduled for later in july with the vascular team to put a stint in his leg. by this point, joy and i agreed that one of us needed to go along with him to appointments. his hearing wasn't good (although he wouldn't wear his hearing aids), and we were starting to wonder if he was hearing everything the medical team was saying; and if he was, did he understand it well enough to explain it to us. between his wounds and his gout, he was in severe agony. he would call us, but not even talk, he'd just moan in pain. joy was particularly traumatized by those calls.

on joelle's birthday, we had a family get together at sydenham beach for eamon and joelle (since they're birthday neighbours). my dad was so down that he wasn't permitted to go. i tried to reassure him that it was just because of COVID, but he was definitely feeling like a prisoner in the seniors' place. on the sunday, one of the staff called joy to say he appeared to be depressed and wondered if we could visit. at that point, i didn't even know he was allowed visitors. we had a bit of a discussion trying to figure out what our responsibilities were. was it on us to muster up some friends of our dad's to go visit him? i was struggling a little with feeling like he had made relationship decisions (to leave his marriage, to date but never get serious with anyone, to pull away from a significant other in his life in recent years) that meant he didn't have a partner, and i was resisting providing more care in the situation that a 'regular daughter'. what were we responsible for? i pretty much landed on being a loving, caring daughter, but not trying to be all things to him.

while all this was happening, his wounds and legs were slowly becoming infected and none of us had any idea. he'd been given instructions on what to look for, things that would indicate an infection. but i had not seen him, and was relying on him and the team at the senior's place to be vigilant. when we spoke on the wednesday morning, he told me that he'd woken in the night (he had not been sleeping well for weeks, if not months, and would frequently lie awake at night), and thought he was in a drug treatment facility in buffalo. he had always abstained from substances, and i wasn't sure if he'd ever been to buffalo. but regardless, it was very odd. a staff member came in the room for some reason in the night, and my dad said "i'm so glad you're here" because it helped him come back to reality. over the morning, and into the afternoon, he was concerned that he was becoming dehydrated, which would harm his kidney. i didn't really see any reason why he'd be dehydrated and wondered if he was just disoriented in the night. he needed a nightlight and a calendar. he called to say he needed a drive to the hospital. i was reluctant, and tried to assure him he was ok (in hindsight, i realize that it was my hope that he was fine. i didn't want there to be an issue, so i had encouraged him to stay put), but told him we could give him a drive if he needed one. he looked into a taxi, but it was going to cost $400 (we thought this seniors facility was going to take care of any transportation to and from the hospital. even before this, it was clear that the care there was not what we'd signed up for. we were disappointed and frustrated by the situation there). so brendan and the boys headed out to pick him up, while i worked.