by Sylvester Pierpoint (aka John Jeffries)

Created on: June 29, 2008

MY BROTHER

My brother, Cliff, with heavily labored breathing, struggled to turn onto his right side to turn off the screaming alarm clock that shattered his peaceful sleep with its ear splitting, annoying sound. It was four A M and his daily struggle just to stay alive was beginning once again. His weakened body continually resisted his many attempts to get out of bed and each attempt found him lying back on the bed. He would finally manage to get his feet on the floor and place his elbows resting on his knees with his face resting between his hands. The struggle to get to his feet required all the determination he could muster to make his legs find the strength to push and pull himself to his feet. His breath was becoming harder to gather with each day and the distance he could walk without stopping to breathe became shorter and shorter. The kitchen was only a short distance from the bedroom, but it would take him several minutes just to get there. He would support himself on the walls of the short hallway until he reached the living room. From there to the kitchen the living room furniture would be his support. The coffee maker had been prepared the night before so he had only to turn it on. He liked the small frozen waffles he could put in the toaster and that would be his breakfast. This was another day for dialysis and he had to be there at six A. M. He staggered back to his bedroom to begin the laboring task of dressing himself.

Cliff suffered with congestive heart and kidney failure and had to go to dialysis three times a week and the fluid drained from around his heart every three days. He had been in and out of hospitals on a regular basis for the last two years. The last time was a battle with pneumonia and the disease weakened him beyond his ability to fully recover. It was this hospital stay where they discovered he was accumulating too much fluid around his heart and they inserted another tube in his chest to drain the fluid. The procedure was so new and unique the hospital had nobody trained in the procedure, so they asked his daughter-in-law Lynn if she would learn and administer the procedure, which she did. Prior to this hospital stay, he had been driving himself to and from dialysis three days a week. Although limited, his mobility prior to the pneumonia attack allowed him to basically care for himself, but now because of the pneumonia and the continuous accumulation of fluid around his heart he found himself in such a weakened condition he

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