I am exhausted beyond belief. The light is on in Gary's room, and I tell him I'm going to take a short nap. Robert is somewhere out in the hall squirreling arround. I cover my head with one of the blankets and plop the chair back. Within 20 minutes, I wake up to find the lights out and Robert at the control desk. It's sort of a shocker.
I'm hungry and cramped up. I decide to go to the college and get something to eat. There's a rumor they have a really nice all-night cafe across the skywalk. Robert says he's going to clean Gary up while I'm gone. I have no idea what his bio status is -- that is, whether he's been pooping himself or not. I've watched every organ shut down on the monitors. His stomach isn't working, but they've been giving him sugar water in his IV. The water part seems to be going directly into his belly. They've got a catheter in him, and he's produced very little urine, so his kidneys aren't working. His liver is, of course, non-functioning. Still, his heart is strong and has a very regular rhythm, and his breathing seems to be regular, ahead of the machine.
The all-night cafe isn't what it's cracked up to be, and I eat some fruit and what I can scavange from there. I get coffee and head back to the room. Before I can get there, I get a call on my cell from ICU. They say I need to get there now. When I arrive, Gary's not doing well at all. His numbers are all bottoming out. I hold his hand and tell him to do what he needs to, that I'm there. Doctors come in and can't find a pulse. The machines show nothing. Robert insists he feels something. He changes out the connections on the EKG. There is a faint beat to his heart. He lasts a few more minutes. Finally, they turn everything off. It's 3AM.
I tell them to remove all the machinery and I'll be back in 10 minutes. I went out to call Mom and tell her, and returned to say my final goodbye to Gary. As I laid my head on his chest and said goodbye, I heard a final sigh. A last expulsion of air from his lungs.
This was not how things were supposed to turn out. I meant to bring him back home, alive, one way or another. Over the years, Gary and I have had our differences, our wars, our threats, long conversations, and incoherant ramblings. We've been fishing, hunting and, our favorite, travelling in the West. I just never thought this would be our last trip.
I went back to the hotel at 6AM and collapsed into the bed, awakening at noon. What to do now? I went to the restaurant in the parking lot of the hotel and had potatoe pancakes and sausage (weird, but good). I drove mindlessly around Portland. I talked to people on the phone. I went back to the hotel and started packing.
The hospital was anxious to get rid of the body, and I had to figure out how to get him back to San Antonio. Mom called mortuaries. Nothing seemed to work. The guy at the VA, David, was particularly obstinate and mean to Me-Ma. He seemed to want everything recorded over the phone and she didn't quite get it -- so he decided to be an ass. Finally, I got the two of them working together and at least got authority to get Gary home however I could. I told David I'd come in tomorrow to figure out what we would do. I explained that this case wasn't typical because of the distance.
I spent a lot of time on the phone, and then finally, fell to sleep.
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