wiping a friends ass

saturday feb 17
spoke to bear about wishes for will. bear wrote down what he wanted. Stayed w/ him until 1:40am. he got 2 bags of blood and had to pee a lot... when he peed he had to shit. he asked me to wipe his ass. He was really concerned that we would leave when he was pottying... and would cry out "please don't go"

sunday
only stayed 4 hours or so... he asked Taft to cathederize him so he wouldn't have to get up to pee (since sat it took everything out of him). Had to shit a couple of times when we were there. Ended up getting the nurses to get a portable potty. i wiped him again. He ended up sleeping quite a bit in the evening after the nurse gave him xanix (sp). He kept waking and saying, "please don't go" and "please stay"

Monday
things were different. Worse. his lung collapsed late this afternoon, so Dr. Lopez had to do "surgery" in his room... they cut a hole in his chest in orger to put in a tube to a vaacuum so that his lung would inflate. He slept most of the evening (8-midnight). we spoke w/ a very nice nurse (susan) who informed us that there was a FULL code on his chart and that dr. taft had asked Rick repetitively about changing this. She was so sweet...she listened to us and cared. She hugged us both too! Rick had been refusing baths or changing his linens. Tonight, he had shit in his pants, so we got the nurse to help change his bottoms and wipe up his butt. She convinced him to let her give him a full scrub bath! Bear and i helped. bear did a lot of the drying w/ a towel. i helped hold him when we rolled him on his sides. When he needed to take his pills he needed help sitting up, i lifted his back to a sitting position. he wasn't able to stay "awake" enough to hold any sort of cohesive conversation. He still was well aware of who we were and cognizant of factual information.

Attorney came w/ will to sign.
Tues onward, Rick's eyesight rapidly declined.

Friday...he was refusing a lot of his meds and hadn't been eating hardly anything. He asked us before we left (midnight+) if we would look in to changing his Alexander Hamilton Life insurance policy and cashing it in via a viatical settlement, since he needed the $ to live out the rest of his life.

Saturday feb 24
The nurses on 6th floor called Bear early in the morning and suggested that we come soon to the hospital. They said that Rick had fallen out of bed the night before and that he was in worse shape... and the time was soon. he also decided on Friday night (after we left at near 2am) that he no longer wanted the oxygen mask. The nurses tried to keep it on him.

Rick's brother Jon (and his wife Pat and son steve) came to see Rick in the afternoon. At dinner time, Rick had 2-3 grand mall seizures. After the first one (which we were downstairs eating Hui's dinner), the priest was called. We gathered around Rick and all touched him while the priest prayed and annointed him with oil.

almost all of sat he wasn't very cognizant. He was talking about things in the past.... about people he wanted to get drunk with, etc.

After the seizures, the priest and nurses made mom decided on the code status--which was still full code. They had to explain again to mom that the code would harm rick more than help him. She used her medical power of attorney and told the nurses to change the records to no code.

Dr. Dorf--taft's partner--came in middle sat evening... told the family that rick was not in good shape and that he would order a morphine drip to keep him comfortable.

i decided that i would spend the night w/ him (the bear did too).

We watched over him and pseudo-slept throughout the night. The nurse kept trying to force him to use his oxygen mask and Rick made it very clear that he didn't want it. By the end of her shift, she told us that if he refused either the IV hydration/meds and/or the O2, he'd be dead w/i 8 hours.

Sunday, no one forced him to use the mask. He was semi-aware at times, but mainly just slept or talked about things that weren't in this plane.

They came in at 8am to do another chest x-ray. Rick YELLED very loudly "NO NO NO", when they sat him up. it made me angry that they were doing things to him, when he was so close to death. the respiratory therapist came in in the morning and his O2 level was down to 60.

Mom and Robert came at 11:30am. Tim--the young priest--came in right near 11:30 and prayed. The deacon woman came around 12:45. Bear had left around noon to go home to shower. The deacon, robert, mom and i made a circle around rick and prayed. We made a complete circle. The deacon holding his left hand, to robert, to mom, to me, to my holding rick's right hand. He did not respond when she called out his name.

At a few minutes before 1pm, Rick's breathing stopped being so labored...and slowed down very gradually. Mom asked if he was still breathing. i was watching and told her that it had just slowed down and become more shallow. Robert said a minute later... i don't think he's breathing. i watched more and then took rick's right wrist in my hand to feel for a pulse, which i couldn't find. And he hadn't breathed. Robert went out to find a nurse. Sue--the wonderful nurse who we spent a lot of time talking to--came in w/ a BP cuff and took his pressure....and then kneeled on the floor in front of betty and said "Mrs Gardner, i'm sorry to tell you that your son has passed". and then sue hugged her tight.

i started leaking... leaning up against the radiator by the window. Sue came over and hugged me very close.

i think we were all relieved, but all very sad.

w/in minutes, Tim, the priest came and we were all there (except the bear). Tim and the deacon--karen--administered the last rights. Tim tried to close rick's eyes, but there was so little remaining fat that he couldn't shut his eyes.

Tim took care of calling Krause funeral home and mom, robert and i headed out to make calls, etc. While we were out, the nurses came in to remove the tubes and comb his hair and put a sheet over him.

I watched a bit and helped. i couldn't reach the Bear until 1:45 since sie was checking the BBS for Rick, through his account on his Toshiba laptop.

The Bear made it to the hospital by a little after 2pm. mom and robert left for home. Bear and i sat and groked the fact that he was dead...spend almost an hour in the room w/ his dead body--eyes and mouth both open.

i was concerned that he would die either gasping for breath or saying 'oh christ'... but he just gradually stopped breathing, very peacefully and quietly.

At 1:00pm, Sunday February 25, 1996, Richard Allison Gardner died peacefully after an incredibly long and painful battle with AIDS.

Rick--aka Lt. Starbuck, Sticky Ricky, Hoover Butt, Mr. Wizard--was one of the quietest and smartest people i've had the pleasure of knowing. He was a self-made man, a lover of blonde bears, the founder of GSN (gay sysops network) and Starcom BBS, a member of the Beer Town Badgers for many years, the creator of excentric *.bat files, and a lover of loud disco music. He was outspoken--letting people know what he thought, yet was incredibly shy. He had very few friends, since he was so difficult to get to know--but made a quiet dent in both the local leather community and BBSs across the country.

------

Aside from Rick's mother, the Bear and i were the only people who visited Rick in the hospital this time...and every other time he was in the hospital over the past 2 years. We had the pleasure of getting to know so much about him, especially over the last year. With each passing week, he revealed more and more of himself to us. Our relationship moved from a casual social friendship at the Boot Camp and w/ the Beer Town Badgers, to a friendship that was slightly deeper than just club politics, to a friendship in which Rick and i would cruise the bears together--spotting the cute one's and pointint 'em out, to a friendship that was more based on computers than anything else, to a friendship of the most intimate kind in his last several months he was alive.

I feel very honored that he chose to confide in us and share parts of himself that he had not shared w/ anyone else before. I'm stunned that he trusted us as much as he has and did. And i'm surprised that we became the primary people in his life and in his healthcare over the past few months.

Bear and i slept in the room with him over Saturday night, since we all knew the end was near. i spent a LOT of time touching him, stroking his forearms and thighs, wiping the yeast build-up from his mouth, drying his cheeks from the tears that involuntarily flowed, changed his pillowcases as he sweated through them, made sure the nurse gave him as much morphine as he wanted, and was just *there* for him. i don't think, still, even to his death, he believed that we would actually stay with him, that we would LITERALLY do anything for him. he never understood why anyone would do nice things for other people... but maybe he finally groked it by the time he died. i hope so. i hope he knew how much i love(d) him, how much i care(d) about him.

i promised him that i would be there 'til the end. fortunately, i was with him when he died Sunday afternoon. The Bear had gone home to shower and change, but i stayed. His breathing which had been so labored, slowed down and shallowed over the hour before he died. i held his hand and forearm... his breathing just gradually slowed to a stop, ending his suffering, bringing him to a place of rest and peace. 

i'm not sure what my life will be like without him physically in it... but i know that he will always be with me. i miss him so much already and know that the impact of his death has just barely hit me. Each time i see a big, hairly blonde bear, i will think of him--remember him. Each time i get frustrated because i can't figure something out, i'll hear him telling me to "Read the Fucking Manual First"! He will most certainly not be forgotten--ever.