Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 101163 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101163 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
My eyes roam over my brother, noting all the tiny signs I’m either hoping to see or dreading. His voice is weak, of course, the byproduct of his entire body being depleted. But I take hope somewhat in the fact that his eyes are clear. The logical part of me knows this is because he just came out of a sleep facilitated by morphine. Medication is for his comfort if he’s in any pain or has difficulty breathing. As his organs continue to shut down, particularly his lungs, we’ll need to titer up the dosage.
But for now, we have settled into a waiting game. Most days Aiden is in and out of consciousness. Sometimes he’s just sleeping heavily, sometimes he’s floating on morphine. Other times he can stay awake for upward of fifteen minutes or so and carry on a conversation.
He does not eat and he does not drink. All IVs have been removed and he takes the morphine under his tongue via a dropper. His body stopped producing solid waste yesterday and hardly anything comes out of the catheter into the urine bag.
Literally wasting away in front of me, but right now his eyes are open and pinned on me. “Want some ginger ale or something?” I offer.
I know the answer will be no before he even shakes his head. He’s simply not hungry or thirsty. But his mouth is dry and it’s uncomfortable for him. “Some ice chips?”
I feed him a few from a spoon, just enough to wet his throat so talking is comfortable.
He glances around the room and licks at his dry lips. “Where’s Dad?”
“AA meeting down in the hospital chapel. He’ll be back soon.”
“And Boone?”
I give my brother a sly grin. “Down in the cafeteria, seeing what’s on the dessert tray.”
Despite the grim nature of things, we still try to keep our humor. It has become Boone’s mission to get Aiden to eat something. And he’s trying to appeal to the kid’s sweet tooth. He goes down to the cafeteria a couple times a day, hoping to find something that will entice Aiden to take a tiny bite.
So far, no luck.
Aiden’s laugh is dry and husky. “He’s tenacious, I’ll give him that.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Look at you, using big words.”
He reaches his hand out to me and asks, “How are you doing?”
I take his hand in mine and squeeze it gently. It’s mottled with bruises from the IV lines, made obvious now that they’ve been removed. “I can’t believe the kid who’s dying is asking me how I’m doing.”
Yeah… our humor has gotten a little morbid, but this only came on the heels of Aiden demanding that I stop crying yesterday. He said he would refuse to talk to me anymore if we couldn’t laugh about everything.
Yesterday, things changed.
He and I had a long talk and by long I mean a total of maybe seven minutes of clear, lucid conversation. Boone was in the room and had offered to leave, but Aiden told him to stay. Dad was also in the room but he was napping in the recliner. He didn’t hear any of it.
My heart about stopped when Aiden admitted to me, “I’m scared, Lilly. Do you think there’s an afterlife?”
That led to a much deeper discussion than what I’d been prepared for because he was asking me all kinds of questions I’d never bothered to think about in my own life, and I knew I would be searching for answers long after Aiden was gone.
Boone chimed in and talked about heaven and that he believes that’s where Aiden will go. That’s the difference between having religion in your upbringing and not.
After that, I cried because it was upsetting to have those discussions. I decided I would not hold back my emotions. I would not be ashamed of feeling devastated that my brother was dying.
It was then that Aiden cracked a joke about the possibility he could go to hell. He promised he would give Satan so much grief that he’d boot him right out.
My mouth dropped open, appalled that he would even think to say such a thing or that we even had to have such a stupid conversation, but then Aiden and Boone both started laughing. It was loud enough to wake my dad and the next thing I knew, those three were cracking heaven and hell jokes.
I was pissed.
And I told them I was pissed.
And then Aiden said, “Get over it, Lilly. I want my last days here to be filled with laughs.”
Boy, that put me right in my place and I’ve stayed there since.
Aiden takes in a deep breath, or at least he attempts to. He has virtually no lung capacity and another two minutes into this conversation he’ll be gasping. I’ll get the nurse to bring a dose of morphine because he can take it every four hours. It really helps alleviate the sensation that he’s suffocating from his diminished lung capacity. The downside is it basically puts him to sleep, so he’s living most of his days now unaware of his body failing.