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.