We fought the good fight

As most of you know lost his battle on Sunday morning. He was a soldier in a war of cancer. “Mr C” thru everything at Daryl, and I don’t think most people would have survived as long as he did. Most time it  seemed we took on step forward and cancer took two steps back, but we kept taking those steps.

To be transparent, as I have been on the blog. After my last post, they transferred him to the ICU because he required a lot more suctioning to cleat his airway.  They let me know around 3:00mam on Friday morning. The nurse called me around 7:00 am to say Daryl wanted me to come in.  As I was driving in I saw a car before me and recognize it was Dr. Mansfield. Hum I thought, he told us he was pack with appointments and had a colleague to follow-up.   When I got to Daryl’s bedside he was alert but having some trouble breathing. Sure enough 5 minute later Dr. Mansfield appeared in the doorway!  He performed an bronchoscopy ( a tube that  looks  down your windpipe to see what happening). I was able to be in the room and observed , Daryl a lot of old blood that was blocking his airway. it was amazing he was ab le to breath at all!  Dr. Mansfield cleared as much as he could and put in a new very long tube to secure his airway. Daryl instantly was breathing better!

Later in the day, when Daryl was sitting up in the chair trying to figure out which baseball game was on the limited cable at the hospital, we had a visit from our oncologist Dr Kossman. We have always liked Dr. Kossman for being real, sense of humor and I do not know of any other oncologist that wears cowboy boots. He sat across from Daryl and I sat in a seat which , ironically was a nice cushion cover for the toilet. At one point I reach to do something for Daryl  and flushed the toilets with my cell phone in my  pocket. Who says there is no humor!  Dr Kossman laid  out our options of  1- IV drug once a week really bad side effects, pill form at home, still side effects both of these drugs would not cure Daryl as the cancer was so invasive and 3- Hospice . We are today just happy he could breathe on his own!Now I know Hospice may sound bad, but it would give Daryl the best options for pain control. Dr. Kossman said  take your time and think about

Saturday:  Daryl was pretty tired most of the day but still got up to the chair, we briefly spoke about the options and decided  we would make the decision on Sunday.

Sunday: I was call around five am that Daryl was being “coded” aka,  stopped breathing and no pulse he was being fully resuscitate. I said ” Keep him alive I am on my way”  Thank goodness the streets  were quite, I ran ever red light to make it  to his bedside.  I arrived and Daryl had a pulse and was breathing.

We had discussed  his wishes and the decisions were what he would not want  to be put on  breathing machine. He wanted to be kept comfortable. They removed all the equipment, gave him some pain meds and I was able to sit with him. He went  in 15-20 minutes  with me at his side. I will be forever grateful that   I was able to  be there. The hardest part was to say goodbye and leave. I wanted to stay forever but that not realistic. I spent my time, told him how much I loved him, how everyone loved him  and gave him many  kisses.

He passed away at 5:45 on Sunday August 12, 2018. He is free of pain , in heaven and I know talking p a storm and meeting all of our loved ones and a few baseball legends.  The picture above was taken at the Ahwahnee, in Yosemite were went to see the Bracebridge dinner in December. The gentlemen in the background sitting in the chair, we had met him and his wife early in the day. They need some directions for the buses in Yosemite. We chatted and helped them get to where they needed to go.  He was Bob Hopes son, and asked us all about the memorial in San Diego for his Dad.  Daryl had a gift to meet people and share his love of life.