Missing David

 It's been over a year since David passed away. I still miss him, but it doesn't *usually* hurt as bad as it did at first. The other day when I was walking to the van after work I thought to myself, "It feels like David's been away on a long vacation."

Yesterday I passed a photo of David in the living room. I thought about how when Cameron was on his mission it was David's calling to make sure the church was all locked up every night. Cameron's photo was in the missionary case on the wall. Every night as David walked past Cameron's picture he would tell him good night and think about how he missed him. 

I thought of that and said good night to David's photo. Then I thought, "David hasn't even been gone as long as Cameron was - but he doesn't get to call home on Mother's Day or Christmas." (Ya don't call, ya don't write... :P)

Of course, the rules have changed a lot since Cameron was on his mission. I think missionaries are allowed to call home once a week or something now. I think they can even send emails every day now if they want. I'm not sure. 

Just thoughts. I sure miss David, though.

David is Gone 😢

It's been almost a year since I've posted. This is a sad post. 

David passed away on Saturday October 30 at 12:04 am. Technically it was probably around 11:00 pm on Friday October 29 but I was tired and freaked out, so I let the hospice nurse decide. Besides, I figured Jarom would like it better if David's death day was not the same as his birthday - the 29th. Sure, it's a different month, but it's the same number. Turns out Jarom didn't care.

Cameron, Jarom, and I tried to give David some medicine at 11:30 pm. We couldn't figure out if David was still breathing or had a heartbeat. The pulse oximeter stopped working a week or so ago and Wal-Mart was sold out when I went the day before. Cameron took David's temperature and it didn't register, so that should have been a giveaway. We were all too stressed out to figure out if David was still alive or not. We even kept his oxygen on him, just in case.

I called Meagan at 11:50 pm and told her to come out because her Dad was gone. Then I called hospice at 11:56 pm and asked for a nurse to come to our house and decide. Then I called Meagan back and told her no, maybe Dad was still alive, but I don't know, so come out anyway. Meagan and Zac got here before the hospice nurse did. The hospice nurse ended up putting the time of death as the time she called me, 12:04 am. She asked if that was OK. I said sure.

I called three mortuaries between 1:00-2:30 am for quotes. I should have done that earlier, but I thought I had another week. David outlived Dr. Mendez's predictions - both times - the 12-18 month prediction in March of 2020 and the 3-6 month prediction in November of 2020. 

Thankfully I decided on the mortuary by 8:15 am Saturday morning. *Whew!* 

I found out the funeral home didn't have to pick David up until 22-23 hours after his time of death. By law, the body has to be refrigerated within 24 hours of the time of death. After the whole Doug ordeal, I totally know why. I was glad that the funeral director I ended up choosing told me we could keep David that long. 

Oddly enough, I only knew to ask that question because of a post I saw on Facebook about a month ago. Who knew there was actually useful information on Facebook?

It was nice to have David until 4:00 pm in the afternoon. It gave the kids and I a little extra time to say goodbye. I don't think I slept at all that night. Most of the night - after the hospice nurse left and the kids had all spent some time with David - I was up talking to him. It may seem odd, but it was surprisingly comforting. I called David's siblings at around 8:30 in the morning. All except Dan were able to come say their goodbyes too. 

I asked the funeral home to pick David up between 3:00-4:00 pm on Saturday. At 4:15 they still hadn't showed up, so I called Elizabeth. They arrived 15 minutes later. It took them about a half hour to get him out of the house. Because of our narrow hallway outside the bedroom they had to put him in tarp with handles then carry him to the living room. The people who came to get him were a smaller man and woman. I wasn't sure they were going to make it around the corner to the gurney in the living room. But they did.

Saturday night all of the kids left to hang out with their friends. I took an Ambien and went to sleep. If any trick-or-treaters showed up, I don't know about it. I was passed out. I was not up to any holiday stuff. 

On Sunday afternoon Meagan and Zac brought a bunch of candy and handed it out. We had about 30 trick-or-treaters. I guess that's not bad for a pandemic year with Halloween on a Sunday?

The following week was a blur. Putting together a funeral is a surprising amount of work! 

Meagan and I met with Elizabeth on Monday for about 4 hours and made all of the funeral arrangement decisions. I finished two versions (short and long) of the obituary on Monday morning so I could take them to the 2:00 pm appointment. It took until Wednesday morning for the funeral home to post on the internet, then I only got it to post on one group/feed on Facebook!  It took Facebook a whole day to let me know they didn't post the other four because it thought it was spam. Gah!

I put together the funeral program myself. That was a lot of work! I stayed up all night. Next time I'll let the funeral home do the program. I hope that is not for a long, long time!

After that, I put together David's burial clothes. I threw his white shirt and pants in the washer and dryer to clean them and hoped they would fit. They are HUGE on him. David lost at least 100 pounds since was diagnosed with cancer. Most of it after he was admitted to hospice in mid-July.

Fortunately the funeral home got the pants and shirt to work. They looked fantastic!  And they pressed all of his temple clothes, which I didn't dare do in my state. Unfortunately the zipper on David's bag broke. I didn't want any of his clothes to fall out, so I put them in my bag. Elizabeth told me I'd get the bag back, but I didn't. I found out later they put my bag in the foot of the coffin and buried it with David. I didn't label the bag, because I didn't think I needed to - and I'd run out of masking tape. Oh well. Could be worse.

On Thursday morning Meagan, Zac and I went to the preview at the mortuary. David looked good, so we all approved. Then we went to the Dollar Store and Walmart to pick up a few picture frames, T-pins, photos, etc., for the viewing that night. Then we swung by Wendy's on the way home and grabbed dinner.

We made it to the church around 5:30 pm. Just in time to set up photos, paintings and dreamcatchers for the viewing. Mike G. (our neighbor) and Brent (?) H. from the mortuary were already there with David and had everything else set up. 

My fitbit band broke and the clock on the Relief Society wall needs a new battery, so I didn't have a clue what time it was. I took a Xanax before everything started so I wouldn't be a bundle of tears. Quite a few people came. We were busy from 5:50 to 8:20. It was only supposed to be from 6-8 pm, but we survived!

The next morning the viewing was at 8:45-9:45, then the funeral was from 10:00-11:00. It's a blur now. I vaguely remember it. I have a copy on a flash drive the funeral home gave me. Someday I might be up to watching it. 

I drove the van to the Bountiful City Cemetery. I don't think I was in any shape to drive, but I did. After the cemetery, Zac drove us back to the church for the luncheon. That was a relief!

Once everything was over, we put all the stuff we set up for the viewings back in the van. Plus the plants and flowers we weren't able to put on David's grave. Mostly those in glass vases. I was glad we hadn't set up more than we did. It was not fun packing everything back in the car.

I think the viewings, funeral and burial turned out nice. I hope David was happy with it. He refused to talk about what he wanted for his funeral when he could still talk. After he couldn't talk he would cry whenever anyone brought up death or funerals. I tried to console him and let him know we'd miss him, but he'd be OK and he'd get to see his mother and lots of other people who went before him. That did not console him, so I just avoided talking about it around him.

The Sunday after the funeral Meagan, Zac, and I visited David's grave and picked up the ribbons and some of the flowers so we could try drying them. Then we visited Mom, Dad, and Sheri for a few hours. It's been awhile since I'd been able to go visit them. Caring for David was labor intensive and overwhelming, but worth it.

After David passed and the funeral was over, I understood WHY he kept crying. Death is hard! I don't think I've ever cried so much in my whole life as since he passed away. I cried before, too, but not as much. I know I'll see him again. I know there is life after death - thanks to Jesus Christ, the atonement and the resurrection. And the near death experience I had when I gave birth to Meagan. But the separation death creates still hurts. 

Usually I don't know when the pain and crying are going to hit. I'll be fine, then I'll see a photo of David or do something I usually did with him and I'll burst in to tears. It's getting better, but it's still rough. That's why I took last week off of work. Even though I knew some of it would be unpaid leave. 

Well, it's past midnight. I should go to bed. Maybe I'll add a couple of photos to this later, but for now, this is what you get!

2020, In ALL Its Glory!

 I haven't posted anything on this blog in 6 years. Yikes! That's a looonnnnggg time! I figured it's about time. Since no one really reads this blog, I figure I can write just about anything. OK. That's not true, because it's on the internet, so that means it's published. And people can find it. Or something.

Heck, I know this blog exists and I had a hard time finding it! I had to remember the name - well the URL. That wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.

So, since the last time I blogged:

2015: 

- January: Last year David changed from AARP Medicare to BCBS Medicare so he could try an  Inogen oxygen concentrator before we shelled out $4,500 for one. It's battery powered, so you can charge it while you're driving or in a hotel room. You can even fly on an airplane with it!  It lived up to its reputation, so we bought one with an eight hour battery and two four hour batteries.

In 2003, when David first needed supplemental oxygen, he started out with the big metal "scuba" tanks. The biggest tank lasted 2 1/2 hours. We had to plan carefully whenever we went anywhere away from home. One Christmas Eve Dad had drag out a welding tank so David would have oxygen. 

A couple of years later David switched to a Helios portable oxygen tank. The Helios uses liquid oxygen and lasts about 12 hours. Huge improvement, but you can't be away from home longer than 12 hour - unless you reserve a "vacationer" tank filled with 3 days worth of liquid oxygen. IF it was available. It fit in the back of a Suburban or minivan, but it was still heavy and dangerous. 

A couple of years earlier (2013?) we were going to Cokeville Wyoming for the 24th of July weekend. We went to to pick up the vacationer and they'd given it to someone else. Overbooked, I guess? The kids ended up going to Cokeville with their Aunt Tammie. David and I stayed home. At least the kids had fun. After that, we gave up on going on vacation. Until David found out about the Inogen. It's been so good my Dad and several other people we know have bought them, too!

- March: We took a test-run trip to Bryce and Zions. The last night of our trip, Jetta, our 16 year old boxer-mix died. I was sad, but not surprised. Thor, our cat, did not trust us for about a year after we got back from vacation and didn't bring the dog home. I guess he thought he was next? I don't know why Thor would have abandonment issues... (He was abandonded when he was three months old and had to beg for food the next 3 years until we took him in.)

- August: We took the kids on a vacation to Cameron's old mission area. We drove through northern Nevada, over to San Jose, down to Big Sur, up to San Francisco then back through Nevada. It was the first time Jarom or Amber had ever seen the ocean. And the first time any of them saw redwood trees. It was a great vacation. I posted lots of photos of our vacation on Facebook.

- Also August: When I came back to work after a week-and-a-half vacation to California, my work moved my supervisor from Intake to Billing because of a dispute with one of my coworkers. I was on my supervisor's side. I knew then that it was time to find a different job. It was bad enough a year earlier when they let half of the office staff go with no notice. My friend Lorry was one of them. I think they only kept me because I was working in Intake.

2016:

- March: I started working at the local community college in financial aid. It's a much better job. Better pay, better benefits, no more on-call. I like all of the people. The first morning of my new job, I ended up in the parking lot of my old job. Auto-pilot? At least I was early enough I got to my new job on time.

2017 & 2018:

- Is it sad I can't remember what happened these two years? 2020/pandemic brain? Something. We went to some shows at Hale Center Theater and the Grand Theatre. Cameron worked as a paraeducator for a year at an elementary school. We went to Millcreek Canyon. We attempted to go back to Zions and we all got sinus infections.

2019:

- May: Cameron and Jarom both graduated from said community college. Cameron in Computer Science, Jarom in Chemical Engineering. Have they found jobs in their fields? Sadly, no. It seems everyone wants a someone with a bachelor's degree - or at least someone who is working on their bachelor's degree. Cameron has been in and out of 3 warehouse type jobs in that time. Jarom has worked nowhere.

2020: 

• January: Is a pretty normal month. 2020 is going to be the best year ever! Right?
• February: On the 26th we found out David has brain cancer. On the 28th he had surgery. Dr. House (haha, I know) was able to remove about 95% of the tumor.
• March: The COVID-19 pandemic officially reached Utah. 
• David  had lots of visitors in the hospital until they stopped allowing visitors. He spent about a week in the ICU, a week on the neuro floor and a week on the rehab floor. Fortunately they allowed me, Meagan, Tammie or Cameron to spend the night. He was a fall risk and wouldn't wait for the aid to take him to the bathroom, so...
• Mid-March, David got to go home. That was a relief! We all got a lot more sleep once he was home. David can talk with minimal stutter and remember most of his words. His walking is fairly steady. We don't dare let him drive or stay home alone, but his speech and mobility have improved. 
• In the United States, and most of the world:
• Pro sports games are cancelled
• Schools move to online
• Churches are closed
• Grocery stores are mad-houses and half the shelves are bare. Stores start rationing toilet paper, disinfectant wipes, liquid hand soap, paper towels, bottled water, canned soup, rice, beans and meat. Some things are completely sold out.
• Many people start working from home and using Zoom for virtual meetings. Most people didn't know what Zoom was a month ago.
• Lots of people lose their jobs - especially in entertainment, travel and restaurants. Except for fast food restaurants with drive-thru windows. They're still busy.
• March 18: 5.7 earthquake with its epicenter in Magna Utah. I literally thought our house was going to split in two! Fortunately, it seems to have not sustained any damage. Today is ALSO David's first appointment with Dr. Joe Mendez - his neurooncologist at IMC. I was so afraid they were going to cancel again, but they didn't. The news wasn't good. Glioblastoma - a very aggressive type of brain cancer with a life expectancy of 12-18 months from the time of diagnosis. I found out the first David. David didn't want to know until a week later.
• April: David does chemo and radiation. We chose the 3 week course instead of 6. It seems safer considering the pandemic. Dr. Hunter, the radiation oncologist, thinks it will be just as effective. I started back to work. Pretty much everyone in financial aid is working from home 5 days a week.
• May: Now that David is done with radiation, he takes oral chemo meds 5 days, then is off them for 23 days. He has an MRI every other month. Things are going well. He's pretty much back to his pre-Feb. 26 self, except for being tired for about a week while he's taking the chemo meds.
• Amber graduated from the community college with an associates in General Studies. It shold have been English, but she still had a couple of classes to retake. I guess it's Academic Advising - or maybe the Graduation Office?
• June: I'm now working in the office on Tuesday and Thursday. Still working from home Mon/Wed/Fri. Meagan is still working from home 5 days a week.
• July/August: I confused a cat backpack for a bunny backpack and thought it was Easter time. This year has been unreal. Parents debated whether to send their children to in-person school or keep them home for online school. It's a tough decision, unless both parents work. Then they just have to send their kids to school and hope for the best. The ATC Building on campus caught on fire and was destroyed. It's the building right next to the Student Center, where I work.
• September: David's MRIs are looking good. In each one, the tumor is smaller than before. Fall semester has started at the college, but most classes are online, so it feels like a ghost town. Or like it's still summer semester.
• October: The Presidential Debates:
• The Presidential Debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is a disaster. 
• The Vice Presidential Debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris was at my alma mater - the University of Utah. It was somewhat more civil than the presidential debate. The biggest excitement was a big, black fly landing on Pence's snow white hair and staying there for several minutes.
• The second presidential debate was postponed because President Trump caught COVID-19. Not surprising, since Trump never wears a face mask in public. It was more civil than the first debate, but only because they threatened to turn off microphones. 
• November: The Presidential Election: 
• David, Jarom and Amber mailed their ballots a few weeks in advance. Cameron and I didn't, so David and I dropped them in the ballot box by Kearns Fitness Center the night before the election. 
• Trumps freaked out because he said ballots weren't being counted correctly. Apparently Tim Pool, a YouTube news commentator, said that was right, so his listeners freaked out too - some of whom I know personally.
• Thanksgiving: David had an MRI two days before Thanksgiving. We met with Dr. Mendez the day before Thanksgiving. Bad news. The tumor is growing again. Dr. Mendez says David now has 3-6 months left. Thanksgiving was glum at our house. We waited until the day after Thanksgiving to break the news to everyone else, so it wouldn't ruin their holiday. I took the whole week off and was going to get all of my Christmas shopping done. For some reason I didn't feel like shopping - or any holidaying - after our appointment with Dr. Mendez.
• December: The election was called for Biden. Trump says he won't leave the White House in January 2021. Should be interesting. 
• Staff Retreat Cancelled: It would have been nice to see everyone, but it sure made life easier for me to not have to do all of the extra work Staff Retreat entails. Especially with the extra COVID restrictions - temperatures, questions, extra cleaning, separate meals, separate entrances, attendance tracking, etc., etc., etc. Instead we had Staff Meeting and I delivered things to the outlying campuses.
• David's Infusion & Surgery: David's surgery was scheduled for Dec. 22. Turns out it took almost a month for his infusion medication to be approved and delivered. So, instead of his first infusion being Dec. 18, it was Dec. 22. Long story there. The first infusion is supposed to be about a week before the surgery, so the surgery got pushed back to Jan. 5, 2021. I asked if one of the neurosurgeons could operate sooner,  but they're ALL on vacation this week. Jan. 5 is the earliest. So, I guess that's what we'll take. I sure hope Dr. Mendez's 
• Christmas: I finished my Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. That doesn't mean everything arrived on time, but I guess it was good enough. David and I were so tired we didn't wrap presents until Christmas morning. And Amber ended up filling the stockings. Meagan and Zac came over around noon and we opened presents. Then we had Christmas dinner around 2:30/3:00 pm. Meagan and Zac went home, then we did a Zoom call with my side of the family. The Christmas story from Luke & Matthew, Christmas carols and a game. It was fun, but not a fun as in-person. The 2 second technology lag made singing in unison almost impossible. We were starting to get the hang of it near the end of the ninth - and final - song.
• Amber starts a new job on Jan. 4, 2021. Yay! It's for the same company her Uncle Ray works at. I hope she likes it!

And now, here we are. It's 12:30 am on Dec. 31, 2021. Last day of 2020. I won't be sad to see this year go. I hope 2021 is better. I hope David survives it. *SIGH*

On the bright side, I've started doing the Anodea Judith Super Charge Your Chakra classes I got a year ago. A couple of days ago I took notes on Module 2. I did Module 1 - the overview - a month or so ago. Today I did the exercises and meditation. Module 2 is root chakra. It's supposed to ground you, connect you with the Earth, reduce fear and anxiety, create abundance. So, my main goal for 2021 is to make it through all 8 modules and get myself - and my chakras balanced.

It's a early into the classes, but today I have felt more energetic and less anxious. So, SCORE! Just gotta keep up with it. I did the 5 rites before the exercises and meditition. I figure that will help balance all of my chakras and even me out. I'll have to keep you posted on how I'm doing with that. Whoever YOU is. Probably just me. And, honestly, that's just fine. I'm the one who needs to track this stuff so I can see how far I've come. 

Hopefully getting all of this stuff out of my system will be cathartic.

Mission Reunion & The Cone of Doom

Where has the summer gone?

Here are a couple photos of what we've done:

Here are the missionaries at David's mission reunion in July. Can you find him? None of his companions made it, but he did get to talk to Pres. Stokes and five missionaries he knew from his mission. And a couple he didn't know before. He also found out about a Facebook page for his mission he didn't know about before, so he was able to reconnect with a couple of his companions.

Here's a photo of David with Pres. Stokes - who is 95 years young. I love that he was dressed in missionary attire and had his name tag on. I could feel the love he has for all of the missionaries he guided and directed. I know David certainly loved Pres. Stokes. Sadly, Sister Stokes passed away ten years ago. I think the last mission reunion David and I went to was 20 years ago. Maybe longer than that.

Last but not least, here is Jetta in her Cone of Doom. Several foxtails stuck in her feet and her sores got infected. I got most of the foxtails out, but the vet had to sedate her and get the rest of them out of her feet - 

and her ears. 

At first the cone made Jetta afraid of everything, especially the kitchen floor. Once she got used to it, Jetta started ramming into our legs with her cone. One day the sister missionaries were over and they were aiming Jetta at each other and giggling when she ran into them. Fortunately Jetta's feet are almost healed and she will soon be coneless.

Yesterday we went to the Hansen Family Reunion in Lehi and today we went to Jethro's baby blessing. Fortunately I was able to go to both of them even though I'm on call this weekend. Happy about that!

Wow, It's Already June...

...and I haven't posted anything since January!

So much has happened since my last blog post. I've started working full-time plus at work, Meagan can walk and drive a car again, Jarom's back from his first year of college and Amber just finished up her sophomore year of high school (today!). Cameron is still in California, but he transferred from San Jose to Salinas and is now a district leader - and he's now 21 years old. Wow.

Well, David's watching Into the Woods and I can't concentrate, so I guess I'll go soak in the tub for awhile. Maybe I'll try again later when it's quieter. At least I posted something!