Today, My Dad died.

If you were with us in August, you'll know that my Father suffered from inoperable and aggressive bowel cancer, which, after stealing a look at his notes this morning, had metastasised, or spread, to other parts of his body.  He was given between three and twelve months to live, and he lasted for five.

He'd had a couple of falls recently that had taken it out of him a bit, one particularly nasty one earlier this week that had grazed his arms quite badly.  But as was his style, and the style of many ex-servicemen, he refused to go to the Doctor and get them checked out - on the basis that he "had had worse".  My wife and I took it in turns to go and see him, her one day and I the next, after I finished work.

Last night I let myself into his house to find that he had fallen after answering the door to someone and had lain in an unheated room, with his front door ajar for a number of hours.  The paramedic, who arrived within minutes of me calling 999 declared him Hypothermic, with a temperature so low that it didn't even show as a number on his electronic thermometer.

You know what I did between calling the emergency services and their arrival? Remembering all the time that I'm a qualified first aider?

I did nothing, I froze, I could not think what I should be doing... Luckily the guy on the end of the phone kept reminding me to breathe, otherwise I would have probably forgotten to do even that simple task.

The ambulance crew asked me all sorts of questions as we drove to the hospital, and every one of my answers were suffixed with 'I think' or 'But I'm not sure'

I sat in the waiting room for about three hours whilst they tried to bring his body temperature up to something approaching normal, going no faster than one degree per hour, so that they didn't introduce any extra strain onto his heart.  When they finally let me in to see him, we didn't recognise each other, there was just a frail old man swaddled in blankets, staring into the distance.  I sat with him for a while longer, watching tears forming in the corners of his unblinking, unmoving eyes.

When the nurses came, they asked me if I could leave the cubicle so that they could put him on a 'comfier bed' ready to take him up to the ward later, when his tests had come back.

I left the Cubicle,
then I left Resus,
then I left Accident & Emergency
then I left the Hospital and got a taxi home.

I felt so completely useless, almost in the way.

When the phone rang this morning at 05:30, I already knew why, the Ward Sister said that his status had declined, or some-such bland phrase and that I should probably come in as soon as I could.

He was in a side-room when I got there, which dissolved any last real threads of hope I had.  The Sister led me in and explained that all they were doing was making sure that he was comfortable, she asked how I took my coffee and left us alone.  I looked down at the shell of the man who had single-handedly raised me since I was eleven years old.  I asked him if he could hear me, I asked him if he knew how much I loved him.

Then I got angry and asked him if he knew what he was doing to everyone that he was leaving behind.

Then I watched as the shallow up and down movement of his chest slowed and stopped.

I thanked the Doctor, who explained that he hadn't suffered - That's the done thing I guess.

I thanked the Sister, who had given me the coffee and the 'Dealing with bereavement' booklet.

I walked the length of the ward, towards the exit with what I imagined to be the stoic, dignified stride of a gunslinger walking away from his last fight, determined to make it outside before I broke into a million pieces, I almost made it too.

Sabian, The Token Yank

PLEASE NOTE: THERE IS AN UPDATE TO THE STORY AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST 13/09/13

About a million years ago, back at the turn of the millennium in fact, there was a program on BBC 2 called 'attachments' (With a lower-case 'A' because: hipsters)  that detailed the lives of six 'New-Media' types and their Internet start-up company 'SeeThru'.  The programme sank after a couple of series, but the high-points included an awful lot of just-post-watershed sex, and a young David Walliams.

The other thing that they did, which was pretty revolutionary at the time, was to created a 'real' copy of the website that was featured in the series.  It was pretty cool really, if you were a geek... Things that they talked about on the show would often appear on the site the next day and there was a Forum where you could post messages.  Kind of a proto-Facebook and it was pretty popular for a couple of years, even after the show had finished.

I was a member, and it used to help me while away the hours whilst I was working as an email-snooper for a large brewing and leisure company.  There were about forty people who used the site regularly, we had intellectuals, people who worked for American Newspapers, boy-racers, Babylon 5 CosPlayers, University students, IT Types, journalists (one of whom particularly enjoyed falling out of trees for some reason),  and a selection of other rum and uncanny people.  We even had our own pet Troll.

We formed a close-knit group of 20-30 somethings who, on very odd occasions would meet up and drink beer, there are pictures that prove this floating around the internet somewhere probably - We used to call these things 'Meat-meets' because they took place in 'meatspace', a term the author William Gibson coined to describe 'real-life' as seen by people who spend a lot of time hidden away in 'Cyber-Space'
In fact, a lot of us are still connected via Facebook - Which is kind of cool.

We all had Nicknames back in the day, some even had a few and used to play different characters, and towards the end it all got a bit 'collaborative writing' based with people having conversations with themselves (as two, or even three, separate characters) and people trying to guess who everyone else was.  It sounds horrid and pretentious, but you have to remember that this was well before Candy Crush Saga or Angry Birds, and back in the olden days, we had to make our own entertainment.

I met a lot of great people, two of which I'd like to have a bit of a talk about.

They were (and still are) a husband and wife who met on the Internet (before it was fashionable - in fact, I think The Sun did an article on them), fell deeply in love and spent their time wandering about the place infecting all around them with love-waves.

They were called Sabian and Pie.

They say opposites attract don't they?  Well, certainly in this case that seems to hold true.  Sabian (or Andy, to people who 'only' know him from MeatSpace) is a big American guy from New Yoike (The State, not the City) and Pie (Celeste) is an incredibly pretty, diminutive girl of East Asian descent.  They live in London, they have kids, and a life and friends and things are great.

Sabian and I were pretty close at the time, to the point where, if the MiniDandy had been born a boy, her/his name would probably have been Sabian.

You know where this is going don't you?

We've all seen films where the pilot climbs into his cockpit and kisses a picture of his wife and kids then tucks it behind the instruments right?  You think to yourself 'He's gonna get shot down in flames...'

Well, I read a post on Facebook on Sunday that said that he had had a massive heart attack and had been rushed into intensive care.  Because he doesn't do things by halves, the doctors decided to put him into a coma, hopefully to help stave off brain damage. they then decided that they would induce Hypothermia to try and lessen the risk even more.

On Monday they dropped his sedation, let him warm to room temperature and tried to wake him up.  He almost managed to open his eyes, but the effort sent his heart rate through the roof.  Luckily his body's self-regulatory system kicked in and managed to bring it back down again, hopefully before it could do any harm.

Currently, he's stable, but suffering from Aspirational Pneumonia and he has a fever, which isn't really helping things.  There's slight movement from his eyelids and pupils.

The hospital are hopefully going to hook him up to an EEG today to see how much damage has been done, if any.

I know there aren't a lot of you who read this that know Andy, but I also know that most of you are good people.

If you get a spare moment today, or tomorrow, or every day for the rest of your life, I'd appreciate it if you could send happy thoughts, or pray, or chant or whatever you feel right doing, to my mate Andy.

This is him, if it helps you to focus - He doesn't look like someone who deserves all this does he?

If you don't want to for whatever reason (and who could blame you? You don't know him) at least think of someone you know, maybe give them a call, and ask if they're OK.

You don't know how much of a difference you'll make.

UPDATED STATUS - 13/09/13

I've just received an update from Andy's wife Celeste - I think it's best if I just copy and paste her words below.

Hi everyone. I've not wanted to put this update up but time isn't going to change what I have share.

I'm afraid, following a CT scan and his condition not improving, that the brain damage that Andy Thomas has is too extensive to recover from. He was without oxygen for about 70 minutes and although he's in hospital, still breathing, the reality is he probably left us last Saturday. The hospital will keep him going for as long as we need to say out goodbyes. His youngest brother Ryan Lawson will be here tomorrow.

I don't know how we're going to get through this, he's my soul and my heart and my everything. The girls just want their daddy back, I just want my Andy. I just want to wake up.