Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What's the hardest thing you've ever done?

What is the most difficult "thing" in life that you have personally gone through?

I spent nearly a month in the hospital a few years ago and flirted with the white light a little bit, but managed to pull through. Being in the hospital that long really sucked, but the recovery was nearly as brutal. I couldn't believe how weak a body can get in such a short amount of time or how long it took to build back strength.

The absolute worst part of the entire experience was being intubated. If you've never experienced this particular type of torture, I'll share a few of the highlights from my experience. Obviously, you're going to be in rough shape if the decision is made to intubate while you're laying in the hospital bed (I'm not talking about surgery prep here), so my recollection of some details is hazy at best. I remember being told what was going to happen, getting a sedative and seeing the doc's headlamp shining down into my eyes before the world went black. As I came back around, I had no clue where I was or what was going on. I felt something lodged in my throat and instinctively reached up to see what it was. That's when I discovered that my arms had been placed in restraints, though I didn't fully comprehend the particulars in that moment. I have to imagine that I looked something like a fish flopping around in the bottom of a jon boat on a hot summer day, trying to free myself from captivity. My family and a nurse flew across the room to try and explain to me what was going on, but I was completely flipping out and had absolutely no way of communicating with them at that point. As the fog, shock and fear slowly began to fade, we worked out a rudimentary system of blinks to answer simple yes and no questions. I graduated to pen and paper once the medical team was confident that I had my mental bearings and wasn't going to remove the breathing tube. I had that tube for a couple of days and it was pure hell.

Putting my dad in a memory care facility at age 87, and mom's health at age 86 at the same time. I'm the only living sibling and they are 2 hours away. To say it isn't fun is a vast understatement.

For me, at 18 yrs old, Mom called me into the kitchen. Said her head hurt terribly, collapsed into my arms and died of a stroke.

None of the chemo or other cancer treatments i have been through these past 6 years come close the evening.

40 years ago and just thinking about brings tears to my eyes still.

Pretty much everything between leaving home at age 19 until retirement was the hardest thing I've ever done.

I didn't expect it to be difficult when I began. I considered it an "adventure".

But I don't regret it. I don't know how difficult the alternatives would have been.

Raising two kids that turned out to be hard working, self-reliant, and good citizens.

Learning to live with my son getting killed two and a half years ago. At times it still seams like last week.

Moving my young family overseas.

It's also, the best thing we ever did !

Watching my beautiful wife of 52 years waste away thanks to the dementia destroying her brain. Went through it with my Grandmother as well. Hard to take both times.
PJ

I don't know yet how all this will turn out but so far its the folks and other family passing then my wife of 51 years. I don't think it will get any easier.

At 24, I had to bury my 20 year old brother after he wrapped his car around a telephone pole.

And I had to shoot my saddle horse a few years back.

Shooting the horse was just as tough to do. But of much shorter duration.

I have had to put down many dogs. Dogs are comparatively easy.

A dog has never carried my nappy ass off a cold frozen mountain in the middle of a freezing wind driven rain storm. A dog has never delivered me safely to camp while I snoozed in the saddle.

Burying a spouse tops my list but everything else in my life that I've had to fight off has been by my own doing or undoing. My dad always said that some people only learn the hard way.

Calling my first wife's folks to inform them their daughter was dead.

Being told that if I didn't have emergency open heart surgery I wouldn't see another sunrise. The exclamation point was when the surgeon who did my bypasses walked into the room, grabbed my bed and told the nurses who were shaving my chest that I was going to surgery NOW as he wheeled me out the door.
I didn't know that I would be intubated, as I was coming out of a coma I realized that my hands were tied to the bed rails. My RN walked up to the side of my bed as I was opening my eyes and asked me if I would try to yank the tube in my throat out or the IV lines/art line if she untied my hands. I nodded no, she released my hands. I was just thankful to be alive.

My mom dying when I was 16

Damn. That would be very difficult to do.

Watching F'ing cancer take my wife coming up on 4 years ago.

Watching EMT’s take my wife away an ambulance never to be seen again.

Burying my dad in the spring and my 1st wife the following winter. That was a really lousy year.

Accepting losing my kid through divorce. I exhausted the legal options. All that was left was to kill my ex, grab the kid, and run. That would have lead to me dead or in jail, my ex dead, and the kid in foster care. That's not a win for anyone. So I just had to accept the judge's ruling.

(It came out ok, just took roughly a decade to get there.)

some of these stories are hard on my head. I am so sorry for you guys. My story is rather self-centered and nothing compared to yours.

The hardest thing I can remember was trying to bench press an empty bar after two shoulder surgeries. I couldn't even pull the toothbrush off the electric toothbrush device.