Joys father is dying

 alas still in ICU so the family can't be with him.

Prayers up.

he had a long a loving life.

We took him off the respirator yesterday because he was in a deep coma and after a couple of days the cerebral edema was going down and he was able to breathe on his own.

But now his vital signs are going down, and we are hoping he will pass peacefully.

The bad news: He was in ICU and one reason I advised removing the respirator was so we could move him to a private room and he could die with the family present, but covid restrictions mean fewer rooms since all the rooms were made private, so there are no rooms available.

 In ICU, only one person who had been vaccinated and passed the expensive swab test, is allowed to be with him. So we had a friend who is a caregiver stay with him.

So family still can't be with him.

Medical note: If you leave people on respirators, they still die, but if they are on them too long, it becomes impossible to take them off due to muscle wasting. And keeping a comatose dying patient on an artificial machine is not required by Catholic ethics:

Catholic ethics require ordinary treatment, including food and water, but not extraordinary treatment, which in this case would be a respirator.

Sigh.

This, by the way, was one reason Lolo refused to go to the hospital when he was dying of leukemia: We are physicians, and know that IVs, respirators, CPR etc would only prolong dying in his case.

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update: Joy's father died shortly after I posted this.

they will hold the wake at his farm in Bulacan: the tradition is 3 days of visiting for family. With Covid, if they hold it in a funeral home, it will limit visitors but at the farm it will be outside and so distancing can be observed for more people.

Because the family lot is in the Visayas, they will cremate him and place the ashes in a local church mortuary.

This weekend is All Saints day, or Undos, when everyone visits the graves of their loved ones. Usually you go back to your village, clean the gravesite, place flowers and candles, and then visit with family for a few hours. 

Before covid, this meant almost a party atmosphere, where the vendors travel around with food and water (and toys for the bored kids) but now with covid, our local cemetary is closed from today through

next Tuesday.

I Bought cut flowers and candles and sent the maid to clean up Lolo's grave on Tuesday, but did not go myself: it's hot and rainy and makes my asthma worse to be outside.