20 Days Till Heaven…Day 19 – Grace, Courage, and Faith

November 3, 2017 Michael Weese Comments 0 Comment

20 Days Till Heaven…Day 19 – Grace, Courage, and Faith

Memories from November 3rd, 2016 – Day 19

From the start, this day didn’t start off as a good one. Neither one of us was able to get much sleep. I know that she was tired and I know that she was having some pains.

We had seven calls recorded from this day. The first four were normal calls with the exception that she was upset and in pain. I want to share what was in those four calls, but there is no reason to share audio clips of all of them today. They were a little tough to listen to. However, she never lost her composure. She was so strong and stood by her faith.

I did decide to add this one below. It is not that bad, but it gives a sense of how she felt when she woke up.

Kate called me in the morning and was telling me about her pain. I was trying to be calm and subtle and not get upset or cry, she already had enough on her plate.

Here is an audio clip of that call.

These would be our last messages ever. These were from that morning.

We spoke a little while later. She was trying not to get sick. She remained in bed. I asked her if now is the time that she wanted me to start taking my time off. She said, “not yet.” Mom mother was in the room and she asked me if she should call the doctor. Kate said that they were already coming at 2:30pm. My mom said that she was going to have Kate call them anyway. She said not to worry and that she would make sure that she called. Kate said that she was going to take a pain pill to try to feel better. She seemed to have calmed down since the beginning of the call. My mother said that she was going to bring her up a drink and some food.

Some time had passed and we spoke again. The pain in her back was becoming worse. I asked if she got in touch with the nurse and the call was disconnected.

She called right back and my mother was in the room with her and said that she was going to stay with her until the nurse got there. Kate said that she did call the nurse, but they were still just coming at the normal time.

Some time had passed and by now I was off and on my way home. The last three recorded calls that I have were from this trip home. I knew on my trip home that this was when I was going to start using my vacation time. I was going to do it regardless of what she said.

When I got home, I went up to see her. She was beyond tired and fully exhausted. She was still sitting up in the same position that she was when I left, and the same position from last night. I tried to get her to lay her head down. She would do so for maybe a few seconds, but then she would sit back up.

I was positive if she would just get an hour or two of sleep she would bounce back and feel a little better. It was clear that she needed to get some sort of rest. I would try over and over again to help her lay down, but it was the same result every time. She would just sit back up. When talking to her she would respond with one word answers, but would not initiate any conversations.

This was frustrating, overwhelming, I was becoming scared. This was disheartening. She was exhausted.

It was hard to tell what was going on. We were just normally talking a couple of hours ago, and now it’s impossible to hold a conversation. Again, the only thing that I thought would help was just a little sleep and everything would be better, but she was still having trouble laying down. Nothing would work. Asking wouldn’t work, demanding wouldn’t work, and begging wouldn’t work. I didn’t know what else to do. No one had ever said what to do in this situation.

Things became difficult and all of those emotions above started to take over. Things weren’t pretty during certain moments. You could ask my mother, she was there for all of it.

This is one of those moments that not too many people get to experience, so there is not a lot of advice to go on. There’s little preparation to be had. What do you do when you there is nothing that anyone can do for you? I don’t think I was ever in a position before where there wasn’t anything that you could do and no one you could call for immediate help. We just had to wait for a hospice nurse to come and all that they were going to try to do was make her comfortable.

The nurse would eventually come. They took her vitals, they asked if there were any issues. They asked which of her pills she was taking, how often and how much. I think they called in a prescription for nausea, and that was about it.

Kate at this point was still not sleeping, sitting up with her pillow in her lap. Her eyes were closed most of the time, but she would still respond. Very short or one word answers is all that she would give. She was still there and competent, but you could just tell that she was struggling. I could tell that she wanted to rest just as bad as I wanted her to rest.

Things had calmed down over the past hour or so and we just sat there. My mother was with the kids. I had remembered that Kate always just wanted to be held or talked to. I talked with her and she would still respond, still mostly one word answers, except for this one thing I asked her. I told her that I was sorry and to forgive me for things becoming chaotic earlier and being confused with what was going on with her. I’ll never forget when she said, “I do and I love you.”

I wasn’t appreciative of her because she understood what I was asking and answered me. I was appreciative because I saw the effort that it took for her to get those words out. That’s whats sticks with me the most of that moment.

That was the moment that I realized that this may not just be exhaustion. This may finally be the day that we used to talk about. This may be when they start to heavily medicate her and she just stays in bed for days until the body gives up and she passes away.

Some more time passes on and the pastor told us seven days ago that he would be back this day. We had called him earlier and let him know that things may be getting worse. We asked Kate if she wanted to go downstairs and meet with him or have him come up. She said go downstairs. We got her to the top of the stairs, but she wasn’t able to go down. I don’t remember why, but I believe this was the point when she blurted out that she wants her Mom or wanted to be with her Mom. If it wasn’t at this moment it was sometime right around this moment that she had said that.

The pastor arrived, and I put a chair upstairs for him. He sat bedside with Kate and me. He visited and spent some time with us. Kate was actually able to give him her attention. I wasn’t surprised, but I was glad to see her able to focus and respond to him when he would talk to her. It was still short answers, but she was responding well. The pastor told us that he would come back tomorrow and that we should have all of our family present if possible. He said that we would have a little service in the house, where we basically would pray together and ask God to take Kate when the time came. He left Kate and I a few rough draft bulletins to review later in the night.

Knowing that Regan was not going to be at our house the next few days I asked Kate if she wanted me to call her over so that they could spend some time together. I called her mother and asked them to come over so that Regan could spend some time with her in case things became worse over the next few days while she wasn’t here. Kate was able to speak with her when she arrived and have a moment together.

The day carried on and my mother stayed to watch the kids so that I could be with Kate. Not much of anything had changed over the next few hours. At one point she finally did lay down, but it was for less than an hour.

A little more of the evening had passed. Seeing that there was no signs of her laying down anytime soon and because of some other smaller issues that would arise, I called the nurse back to the house that night.

I am sure the boys were in and out of the room at different times of the day to visit and that at some point they had come in to say goodnight to mama for their routine.

The nurse arrived and began to go down her checklist. I don’t remember everything the nurse said, but she had mentioned that Kate was under medicating for the pain that she said she was having. She had Kate take some more medicine while she was there. I remember Kate was beginning to look pale and she was feeling a little cold to the touch. The nurse didn’t really make mention of anything one way or another, but that it was normal at times.

After the nurse left I remember sitting with Kate and deciding to grab my phone and search “Feeling cold pale during hospice”. I did this because nobody was giving me answers, warnings, or things to look out for. Every new minute was a moment that we were going into blind. I needed to know what to possibly expect and this was the only way I could think of to maybe get some answers.

I remember all of the results saying that it could be the heart slowing down, and possibly the 1st stages of heart failure. This would make sense as chemotherapy can damage the heart and other organs of cancer patients that go through aggressive treatments. It could also have been because the cancer had spread to her lungs and she wasn’t breathing well. She may not have been getting enough oxygen any longer. I still don’t know, but those two things made the most sense.

Right after reading that, I was definitely a little more scared, but also more aware at least. I remember the very next thing I did was ask her if we can read the rough draft bulletin that the pastor left behind for our service tomorrow. She nodded yes and so we did. I don’t remember the exact words, and I am not going to go digging for it right now, but there was this one part in there that I won’t forget. It was a sentence where you asked God to take Kate as his. As soon as I read that sentence I remember thinking to myself, “there, I said it.” Again, not that it works like that, but I remembered that she just asked me to say that last night.

I sent a message to my boss saying that I needed off tomorrow. Like I said above, there was no way I was going in after the way today had been.

I finally got into bed and laid down with her. She laid her head on her pillows that were stacked three high on her lap. I figured if there was anytime to try to get some rest it was now while she was able to put her head down. It was pretty late, we prayed and that’s the last thing I remember before falling asleep.

I know its becoming redundant, but I wish there was a way to put her expressions, poise and display of grace into words. Even on this day as rough as it had been and as challenging as it may have been, her demeanor and presence remained unchanged. To me, that will always be what I identify her with. In the days and weeks to follow when I would write or say that I wanted to be more like her, this is what I was talking about. I try all of the time and I am still not even close, not one bit, but I am thankful that I was able to watch her show us how it should be done every day that we are here.

-Mindset Matters

Day 1 – I’LL TRY NOT TO SCARE YOU AND YELLOW CHEESE

Day 2 – DO YOU KISS ME, CO-PAYS, PINTEREST, AND SCANS

Day 3 – I GET TO BE HAPPY NOW, THIS IS A POSITIVE THING

Day 4 – SHARE THE NEWS, HAPPY DWARF, AND PEOPLE ARE AWESOME

Day 5 – FIELD TRIP, DELICIOUS FLOWER BOUQUET, AND LAST PICTURE

Day 6 – DISNEY SMELLS, NURSE, AND SLEEPOVER

Day 7 – CONFESSIONS, CARDS AND JOURNALS

Day 8 – PIGGYBACKS, CHEER SUPPORT, VISITS, AND ITALIAN WEDDING SOUP

Day 9 – SPREADING GERMS, CINNAMON TOAST, AND LILLY PULITZER

Day 10 – IF YOU HAVE A BAD DAY…PRAY

Day 11 – SETTING THE STAGE, URN EMOJI, AND CHECK YOURSELF