Hi, this is Erica Lance. I'm the producer of Kind World. In honor of Thanksgiving, I've put five

kind world stories into one big episode. Turn it on this weekend when you want to get in the

mood to give thanks. And just a reminder, I want to hear your stories too.

Email me anytime at kind world at W-B-U-R-O-O-R-O-R-O-G.

Thanks for listening.

My name is Maureen O'Rourke.

I am originally from Worcester, Massachusetts.

My dad was a typical Massachusetts Irishman, very stubborn, very opinionated, but also very emotional.

Over time, we noticed that his mental capacity was clearly slipping and it was became obvious that he had Alzheimer's disease.

My mom diligently cared for him, did everything for him,

and it was becoming more and more difficult.

And my dad developed pneumonia and was taken to the hospital and I had talked

with my dad when he wasn't so cognitively impaired about what his last wishes were and he did

not want to be on a ventilator, have feeding tubes, etc.

So instantly they wanted to transfer him to a nursing home and the long-term care there was just wonderful.

You know, the next few weeks my dad started hallucinating and he was gasping for air all the time, so I called in the hospice team and it appeared my dad was going to peacefully pass on within a day or two. Weeks later I'm

I'm basically living at the nursing home, you know, napping in a chair,

attending to all of his physical needs, and, you know, holding his hand hand and he's just gasping gasping but he just

keeps hanging on nothing to eat nothing to drink but he's just not going anywhere and you know we're kind of jokingly telling him

Uncle Ed's waiting for you he's got a tea time

But he wasn't going anywhere

So after you you know, over three weeks of this, I was just spent.

...