life outside of school

Aside from my own health problems, my godfather, who happened to live next door to me, was diagnosed with lung cancer a few years ago. I have never known anyone in my life to have cancer, so this was my first experience. The process was long and hard with surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation, but he had SO much support from SO many people. At last, he had beat the cancer and thought the worst parts were over. Until last year in 2008 he became severely sick with an infection in his lungs, caused from the radiation. He continued his physical therapy but soon after the start of 2009, he began having weekly operations to clean out his lungs. For more than two months, he went into Reston Hospital early every Thursday morning to have the surgery. Only once did he come home a Thursday evening but other weeks he would stay a few days in the hospital or even through the weekend. Every time he came home, I was there with other family members, waiting to start my nursely tasks. It was so important to keep everything sanitary and in order, since we had to personally give him a series of IV's and medication every four to six hours. A few nurses from the hospital trained my godbrother, my godmother, and myself how to use the IV's and a machine that was cleaning out the infection in his lungs through tubes in his back and chest. The machine never worked right and beeped every five to fifteen minutes claiming there was a leak in the tubes or the container was full, which was false 99% of the time. Once we figured out a time schedule, we each took different 6 hours shifts a day to stay awake, reset the machine every few minutes, and give my godfather his two IV's which last an hour, sometimes two hours. Since my godbrother had work every day, and my godmother was constantly running on empty, I volunteered to take the night shifts, mostly on weekends but sometimes during the week. Once my two other godbrothers and one godsister were able to make more frequent trips up here, the work balanced out and we all began to get more sleep. A month or so ago, my godfather went into the hospital for his last big surgery which was sort of a relief for us all. The surgery was successful at first, but each week the doctors advised him to stay in the hospital in ICU, and eventually things took a turn for the worst. The infection in his lungs had returned and he got even more sick with pneumonia. As he got worse, the doctors did everything they could including performing a tracheotomy, but were not able to get rid of the disease. They could only keep him heavily sedated on pain medication and he needed a breathing ventilator to breath. The worst part was, he could not speak for himself and it was heartbreaking for all of us to see him so uncomfortably sedated. A few weeks ago, my godfamily came together to make the biggest decision ever, whether to keep him on the ventilator or not. On Thursday May 28th at 4 pm, they proceeded to take my godfather off the ventilator and finally give him peace and comfort. Unfortunately, this has been the worst experience in my entire life and I will never forget having such a wonderful man as a father-figure in my life. RIP