No Regrets!

“You need to mind your own business!“ My brother’s words hit me as I entered our parent’s home. It was not a surprise attack; I knew it was coming as this was the first time we had been together since his last trip to the hospital. “How can I mind my own business when your doctor told me that the one lung you have left was tissue thin and once it tore you’d be dead before you hit the floor?!” The anger in him could be seen pacing back and forth behind his brown eyes. End stage COPD leaves little room for extreme emotions without a violent reaction, and, true to form, his coughing began. My brother, Paul, got up from the couch with his breathing machine in tow and headed out to patio to smoke and to calm down. He was angry that I had the nerve to discuss his ability to drive with his doctor. My position, if he could drop dead any moment was it safe for him to drive a vehicle. The doctor said no and then explained that they would be turning in the appropriate forms to notify the DMV. My brother never got over blaming me for taking his driving privileges away. He would tell me later that he needed time to himself and driving was the only respite he got from being around my parents 24/7. “Do you know what it’s like being a grown man living with your parents; you know I'll be looking for a place for me and Carol, how am I going to look for a place if I can't drive?!” The correction that I wanted to make, but wrestled to the ground before saying it, was, “You’re dying!!!!! It’s not like you had a bad run of things and are living here until you can rebuild your life; this is the END!!!!” But I sat on that statement until it cried Uncle and clenched my jaw shut as tight as I could. My brother's denial of his immanent condition, even though he was a hospice patient, was something no one could make him face.

Paul had been as steady a patient in the Florida Hospital ER as he was a patron at the Kangaroo Gas Station on the corner of Palm Coast Parkway and Belle Terre, his go to place for cheap cigars. With losing his driving privileges, my sister and I took turns taking him wherever he needed to go. In my case, we always ended up at the Kangaroo for him to score his filter-free brown coffin nails. It rattled me each time he prepared for the slow walk from my car into the store. Paul would always ask that I get as close to the door as possible but no matter my attempts, it was never close enough. At 6’6 and 130 pounds, he labored to go the distance from car door to counter. Each trip left me feeling guilty for being an accomplice in feeding his addiction. The angle of my car gave the perfect view of his frail frame barely able to stand holding his breathing machine in one hand and buying his death with the other; the stares he got bore through me like molten lava and I wanted to barge in with all my might and rip the judgment right off those nameless faces, but, that would require parking and possibly bond money--neither were appropriate under the circumstances. I've tried to wash that image of him at the Kangaroo off the walls of my mind and repaint something kinder and gentler, but I can’t so I avoid that intersection whenever possible.

He would tell the doctors that he quit smoking with each ER visit and just out of his vision I would shake my head, no he hasn’t. To his credit, Paul did try; his addiction just grew stronger the weaker his body became and he grew tired of dad having to call the ambulance every week. One morning Paul called wanting to know what time I would be over to mom and dads. When I asked him why he said he was having breathing issues and might need a ride to the hospital. Since he always had breathing issues, and he didn’t sound panicked; I felt no need to rush. Not even a second later I remembered that his last attack landed him on a ventilator for the first time. I called him right back, “Hey, do you mean I need to come right now?” Nonchalantly he said, “That would be a good idea.”



Pulling into the driveway I can still see him coming out of the front door with my dad behind him. “He needs an ambulance!” My dad insisted as Paul opened the door. The look on dad’s face should have been enough for me to turn off the car and call an ambulance but Paul waved him off and we drove away. Even before getting off my parent’s road, my brother’s breathing became erratic. He tried to say something but couldn’t. The sweat dripped off his forehead like a leaky faucet into a handkerchief he was thoughtful enough to bring. It was when he lost all color in his face that I started to lose it. Cars whizzed past us like bullets as my right foot pressed as hard as it could racing us to the ER. Fortunately, I remembered a friend’s presentation where she told the story about one of our Social Workers who witnessed something similar. The Social Worker slowed her own breathing down and calmly talked to the patient. It was all I could do to calm myself as the look on Paul’s face was so traumatic. My hands were white knuckling the steering wheel, I eased off the gas and began to slow my breathing as I spoke to Paul calmly. In that moment I thought my brother was going to die in my car before I could get him to the hospital.

Paul didn’t die that day but when he regained his color and the ability to breathe on his own, I marched into the ER room with my adrenalin still in full tilt about the horrifically selfish position he put me in. “NEVER call me again to take you to the ER!!!!” I said, daring him to challenge me. Instead, he admitted, softly (and with a greater awareness of his condition) that he didn’t think he was going to make it either. Sometimes when I’m driving alone, out of the blue, I’ll look over to my passenger seat and see him fighting for his life; my whole being reliving that tragic moment. That memory will be tucked into the glove compartment of my Kia when I trade it in; my hope is that it stays with the car as I've never had that memory come back anywhere else.

Paul came back into the living room from the patio and parked himself on the couch. He began texting his girlfriend when I decided to speak up. “I know you’re mad at me and think that your driving is none of my business but it IS my business! My family and friends are sharing the road with you. Your doctor said when that lung tears, you’ll be dead before you hit the ground. What if that lung tears and you drop dead behind the wheel and crash into another car killing innocent people? What if one of those innocent people where a family member or close friend? You’re being selfish! Stay mad at me as along as want; it will not change my mind. YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE DRIVING!” Paul didn’t look up from his phone but I refused to leave the room until he said something. “YOU WIN!” He said sternly. “You get what you want!” Again, his words tense with emotion. “I’m sentenced to this &^%$# house with no escape or peace from our parents, are you HAPPY now?!” His selfishness twisted around the axils in my mind and I struggled to remain calm. Paul clearly saw himself as my victim and made no attempt to understand the logic of what could happen. “It’s not about me winning, it’s about doing the right thing and I’m confident that I DID, but I'm sorry it makes you feel this way!” With that I got up from the recliner and went into my mom’s room to visit with her. Although I no longer engaged with him about the driving issues, Paul reminded me often about how my "thoughtless" decision impacted the quality of his life. There’s a part of me that remains sorry for the restrictions I placed on him just weeks before he died, but, my responsibility outweighed his person privilege.

It was October 17^th 2016 in the early part of morning when I walked into the bedroom. Paul was curled up on the floor in a fetal position, eyes closed and mouth closed. Cindy was laying in the hallway on her stomach cupping his head; her tears free falling into the floor with a few landing in Paul’s hair. She was upset about trying to lift his head to put a pillow under it---he was too stiff to move. “He’s not going to know.” I said, without thinking. “I just want his head on the pillow and not on the floor, it shouldn’t be on the floor.” Her words still wet walked slowly through my heart until I noticed what they were really saying; she was his big sister and still trying to comfort him even in his death. I suggested we attempt it one more time but we still failed to get the pillow under his head. Paul had been dead for hours. From what I can piece together of his last moments he got up out of bed for some reason and passed out just like the doctor said he would. He hit his head against the doorframe; when I moved his face there was blood and an obvious impact to the right side of his head. Cindy and I sat on the floor with our brother as dad paced around the house not knowing what to do with himself. He kept wanting to explain that Paul was supposed to blow the horn he had given him to alert dad that he needed help. “Why didn’t he blow the horn, WHY?” No matter Cindy’s attempts to explain to dad that it happened too quickly for Paul to even know what happed, dad’s guilt could be seen crawling all over him like a million baby spiders he could not shake.

Why am I sharing this very private story about me and my brother? It's to ask you to consider the people that you know who need to surrender their driver's license. We were fortunate that Paul died at home. Looking back over the headache and heartache this cost me; I have no regrets. Had my brother been behind the wheel when he died it is highly probable, since he drove I95 often, that he would have taken innocent lives with him. It feels important to me to spread the word. No one likes to lose their independence, but, even fewer like to lose a loved one over someone's inability to face the truth.

Feel free to share my blog if you think this information would be beneficial to others.

Mona McPherson