The details

Just so you know, this is not a big surprise. I am not shocked. This was an eventuality that finally arrived. My father has been promising to kill himself since I was in diapers. My Dad has been seriously mentally ill for a long, long time.

Linda, his fiance, came home from the store and found my Dad hanging from the kitchen doorway. She cut him down and cut the rope from his neck. She called 911 and they walked her through CPR. When the paramedics got there they had to shock him to get his heart started again. He left a note. It read, "I love you all. I'm sorry. Don't revive me." They took him to the hospital and started interrogating her.

We found out by accident. A neighbor saw the commotion and went over and talked to one of the EMT's. He called a friend who happened to live next to my Grandfather (maternal) who then called my Mother. I was calling her to joke about her Super Bowl party when I found out.

I called my step-sister, Stacey who works at Christiana to see if she knew anything. At this point we didn't know if he was alive or not. He was not in the system at the hospital yet so we had no information. I hear Linda thought he was dead. She never made it to the hospital.

They think he was hanging for 15 minutes. But I guess that was long enough. He did not break his neck but he has a lot of greyed out spots on his brain. The resident says that the CAT scan tomorrow will most likely show even more extensive damage.

Right now he is over breathing the ventilator. Meaning he is on a vent but still breathing on his own some. But he cannot protect his airway. Meaning he cannot clear his throat. If we remove him from the vent he will eventually die from accumulated fluids in his throat. Ah, irony. I finally get irony. Irony sucks. My brother died from an accumulation of fluids in his esophagus. My Dad was depressed about my brother's birthday which he thought was today. He was off by a month. Ryan's birthday was last month on the 4th.

I stayed at the hospital until 12 am waiting to talk to the neurosurgeon. Timmo sent me home to my babies. My brother, Tim, is staying at the hospital. I don't think he is going to leave until my father does.

For now we have him listed as a DNR1. If he codes again we do not want him resuscitated. So now we wait.