Dad's obituary was in the paper today. I'm including a link to the obit in this blog for anyone interested. We did not include a picture but it's a nice write-up.
Also, for anyone interested, we'll be having dad's memorial service at Wilmington Cremation and Burial on 41st Street in Wilmington, on Sunday October 17 at 1 pm. We wanted to give friends and family from out of town a chance to come if they can. It will be very small and intimate per dad's wishes. He always said he wanted to be cremated and so that's what we've done.
For my local buddies, I'll be calling up willing troops soon to help me clean out my parents' house. Hopefully we'll have mom placed in a home soon and we can put the house on the market. For now, Bonnie continues to take good care of mom, but Geoff and I cannot afford round the clock care for too much longer. She should qualify for medicaid and that will hopefully pay fully for her care. Ugghhh. I never knew how hard it is to get financial help for elderly folks with alzheimers until this started -- someone needs to get medicare on board to start taking care of all these people. It's not fair that, if she had cancer or something, medicare would cover a nursing home stay for her. With alzheimers, however, there is no coverage unless you are dirt poor and qualify for medicaid. The income limit for medicaid is about $1100 a month. Seriously?????
The plan is to get her placed, pay for it for a few weeks, and have medicaid come in and pick up the tab. They'll probably take her meager social security and my dad's pension, but that beats trying to come up with about $5300 a month to pay for her care. What a racket!
Anyone, things should start to normalize again soon. Geoff and I are planning a much needed grown-up weekend away in a couple of weeks. Ahhhh. And Wendy and I are headed back to California in early December to either Napa or Mendocino. AHHHHH! Sure, I should be saving that money. But sometimes, you've got to pamper yourself, right? :)
Love,
Sofie
P.S. TGIF!
Friday, September 10, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
More on my dad
Hi everyone,
I'll make this short. We took dad off of life support yesterday after docs announced that there was nothing else they could do to help him. His fever was still 104, and he required more and more support to keep his heart and lungs working. I wanted to be there when he passed on and considered staying all night but headed home to get caught up on work and everything else that I have to do. At 1 am I got "the call" and hurried to the hospital, but he'd already passed away at about 1:30 am. Just looking at him I knew his soul was gone and that he'd headed to a better place. At least we know that :)
Now to getting mom in a nursing home. At least she has Bonnie to care for her until then... Lord knows I could not do that. Thank you for all your prayers. We'll probably have a memorial service for dad in mid October so out of towners can come - he wants to be cremated.
Thanks for your thoughts and well wishes,
Sofie
I'll make this short. We took dad off of life support yesterday after docs announced that there was nothing else they could do to help him. His fever was still 104, and he required more and more support to keep his heart and lungs working. I wanted to be there when he passed on and considered staying all night but headed home to get caught up on work and everything else that I have to do. At 1 am I got "the call" and hurried to the hospital, but he'd already passed away at about 1:30 am. Just looking at him I knew his soul was gone and that he'd headed to a better place. At least we know that :)
Now to getting mom in a nursing home. At least she has Bonnie to care for her until then... Lord knows I could not do that. Thank you for all your prayers. We'll probably have a memorial service for dad in mid October so out of towners can come - he wants to be cremated.
Thanks for your thoughts and well wishes,
Sofie
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
My Dad
Hi everyone,
As many of you have no doubt heard, my dad is in the hospital again. His PICC (sp?)(what oncologist uses to administer chemo) line got infected and he caught an e-coli infection. Then, he went into septic shock and had at least one heart attack. On Sunday morning, it looked like he would not make it. When his heart was trying to stop, docs shocked him. I went in early Sunday morning to be with him while he passed on (or so we thought). To make a long story short, he's still in the ICU, still on a ventilator with blood pressure meds and antibiotics and not doing so great. They tried to let him breathe on his own and his body reacted badly so they put him back on the ventilator. I don't know if he'll make it or not. Obviously, he has to be able to breathe on his own at some point. At the moment, we're just waiting to see if he can get rid of the infection. If he does, that may help his body strengthen enough to start breathing on its own. His heart is not happy at the moment so it's very iffy.
He is sedated and asleep at the ICU so he cannot talk on the phone. The ICU does not allow flowers or anything like that. Basically, we're just waiting and praying. I hope he can breathe on his own soon or we'll have to make some big decisions that I don't want to make.
Nevertheless, the family is set to go to Bald Head Island for Labor Day weekend. Geoff and my 12th wedding anniversary is the 5th so we absolutely have to celebrate. It's close enough that I can get back the hospital if I have to but the house is reserved and it's supposed to be amazing. Geoff got the rental as a fee in exchange for some work (on a civil case for a change). Otherwise, no family vacations any time soon. We're broke due to paying my mom's caregiver around the clock and me not working. We also have a rental house that we're going to try and sell. Anyone want to buy a 1500 square foot house in Churchill Estates in Wilmington for about $160,000? We need to overhaul that house that has had tenants for 8 + years and put it on the market. Busy busy. No time to get into trouble:)
As for me, I'm hanging on. Lots of pain and fatigue as usual. Taking lots of meds as usual. For the time being, I'm in charge of the Wonderly affairs. Scary! Thank goodness I've surrendered my care and concerns to God. Lord knows I'm not capable of handling this on my own. One blessing with living in crisis mode is that you learn how to deal with crisis!
Many blessings to everyone. Please pray for my dad.... I want to keep his stubborn a** around for a while longer!
Love,
Sofie
As many of you have no doubt heard, my dad is in the hospital again. His PICC (sp?)(what oncologist uses to administer chemo) line got infected and he caught an e-coli infection. Then, he went into septic shock and had at least one heart attack. On Sunday morning, it looked like he would not make it. When his heart was trying to stop, docs shocked him. I went in early Sunday morning to be with him while he passed on (or so we thought). To make a long story short, he's still in the ICU, still on a ventilator with blood pressure meds and antibiotics and not doing so great. They tried to let him breathe on his own and his body reacted badly so they put him back on the ventilator. I don't know if he'll make it or not. Obviously, he has to be able to breathe on his own at some point. At the moment, we're just waiting to see if he can get rid of the infection. If he does, that may help his body strengthen enough to start breathing on its own. His heart is not happy at the moment so it's very iffy.
He is sedated and asleep at the ICU so he cannot talk on the phone. The ICU does not allow flowers or anything like that. Basically, we're just waiting and praying. I hope he can breathe on his own soon or we'll have to make some big decisions that I don't want to make.
Nevertheless, the family is set to go to Bald Head Island for Labor Day weekend. Geoff and my 12th wedding anniversary is the 5th so we absolutely have to celebrate. It's close enough that I can get back the hospital if I have to but the house is reserved and it's supposed to be amazing. Geoff got the rental as a fee in exchange for some work (on a civil case for a change). Otherwise, no family vacations any time soon. We're broke due to paying my mom's caregiver around the clock and me not working. We also have a rental house that we're going to try and sell. Anyone want to buy a 1500 square foot house in Churchill Estates in Wilmington for about $160,000? We need to overhaul that house that has had tenants for 8 + years and put it on the market. Busy busy. No time to get into trouble:)
As for me, I'm hanging on. Lots of pain and fatigue as usual. Taking lots of meds as usual. For the time being, I'm in charge of the Wonderly affairs. Scary! Thank goodness I've surrendered my care and concerns to God. Lord knows I'm not capable of handling this on my own. One blessing with living in crisis mode is that you learn how to deal with crisis!
Many blessings to everyone. Please pray for my dad.... I want to keep his stubborn a** around for a while longer!
Love,
Sofie
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