Eleanor - March 20, 1928 - February 10, 2009

Monday was a bad day. One I don't think I will forget. Larr and the kids went to visit with Eleanor before going to school. They've done this nearly every day since we found out that Eleanor was ill. Monday found her clutching Don's hand and pleading for help, "Don, please get me help. PPPLLLEEEAAAASSSEE!" (These were the first clear words we've heard her utter in many weeks.) It frightened the kids. It frightened everyone, actually. There was nothing Don or any of us could do so by noon she was moved into the hospice. We had hoped that she could die at home, but this really was the best answer. Her pain had become too intense and we had no means to curb it more than we had already tried. At the hospice they were able to give her other medications that worked like a charm. The change was really best for all involved. Eleanor's pain was managed. Don could just be the loving, dedicated husband he has been throughout this ordeal. He no longer had to be his caregiver, too. From that point on she was not very concious. Her blood pressure went up and down. So did her breathing. I was beside myself and met with Skye, the head nurse for the crew that evening, otherwise known as a angel in disguise. I calmed down after a while. I had to try and keep some of my stress to myself. I was upsetting Don. We thought she would be stable. Larr and I went home. Larr was called back at 11:30 p.m. They could not find her pulse. Larr and Don rallied. Eleanor perked up, sort of. None of us slept well that night. My stress and anxiety produced a back ache, a stomach ache, all of my teeth hurt and I had a head ache. I was a wreck. Larr attempted to sleep on a pullout couch bed. Don slept in a recliner next to Eleanor.

Tuesday she began to make that terrible gurgling sound that comes from the liquid in her lungs. Towards the end the blood simply can't power all of the function and something has to give. The arms and legs become colder. The thinking is fuzzy because the blood is making slower trip through each segment. The organs in the torso fight for controll. The lungs eventually lose the fight. At around 4:30 Bonnie came in to help me do a casting of my hand holding Eleanor's hand. This is an amazing and wonderful service she offers and it will be an item I treasure. (I will write about it more on another day.) She mixed up a power liquid item and dipped out hands in it. We held still for about five minutes while the mold gelled.It is the same stuff used to make imprints for dentures. We removed Eleanor's hand first, then mine. About 10 minutes later a thick burgandy-black liquid began to be expelled from Eleanor's mouth. It did not seem to bother her, but was terribly alarming to us. It looked like old blood. We called the nurse. She checked Eleanor's vitals and noted that her color was beginning to drain from her face and limbs. Larr and Don held her hands. Ethan comforted Don. I tried to comfort Larr. He bent forward and whispered in her ear. We were told that hearing is the last sense to go. Larr could feel her life force leave her body. Her face was peaceful and the gurgling sound had quieted. We sat there for some time, hoping that the heart would jump into action, but she was gone. The ending was as good as it could be in such a situation. She was peaceful and we were with her. We were all so sad. We were relieved, too. Her suffering had ended. Calls were made. The minister, Paul, came by for the second time that day. We spent the evening together. Don's leg was hurting. We thought it was from stress. We would soon find we were wrong.

Wednesday Larr found Don unable to get out of his bed. His lower leg had swollen to an enormous size and had change to a shade of deep wine red. Instead of going to take care of funeral arrangements Larr took his father to the doctor. After many tests it was discovered that Don has a blood clot in his leg. Alarmed, we are on full alert, again. Larr had to go out of town so the kids and I spent the evening with Grandpa.

Thursday morning Don's lower leg hurt even more. Uncle Mark and I went over to get him out of bed. Mark took him to the doctor again while I cleaned the house. I tucked away all the evidence of Eleanor's illness and washed her clothes, putting them into her closet and closing the door. There to be found, but not out in the open as to remind Don of his loss. They doctor ran more tests and found that Don's blood has been behaving badly.The red blood cells have become sticky and clumpy. They slow down the flow of blood. As a result, the other cells have created more blood and now he has too much. The nurses removed a cup of blood today and will do the same again tomorrow. They've also given him a new blood thinner. We've kept him in bed. The hospital bed that was for Eleanor is now serving Don, helping him feel better. There was a large number of visitors today, helping to keep Don entertained. This evening Doug (Larr's middle brother) arrives and he will take over the care of Don. Tomorrow I go back to work. I have not stepped into the school since last week.

Eleanor's death does not seem real, yet. I am not sure what it will take to get there. Perhaps we are still all too shell shocked to feel the full impact. Perhaps it is being kept at bay with this new wave of concern that has been shifted to Don. Perhaps it will visit little but little, letting us get used to the grief that will settle on our hearts like a bird on a branch. Days, or rather weeks, like this make me thankful for the time (the exciting and the mundane alike) we have with our family

Working on a Tribute for Eleanor

Ack, where have I been you say? My kids might almost say the same thing. This last week things have taken a big turn for the worse. Last Sunday while people were prepping for the Superbowl, we were picking out a place in the cemetery for Eleanor and for Don when his time comes. I actually stayed with Eleanor while the guys did the difficult work of reconciling with this duty. The hospice nurse has given us strong hints that the end is very near. Her need for pain medication has gone from about 5 times a day to upwards of twice an hour now. The medication puts her in a pain free fog. Or at least I hope it is really pain free. Most of the time she looks like she is just sleeping, but sometimes she chimes in on the conversations. We talked about flowers on Wednesday. It amazes me that she can respond to that but cannot tell us when she is thirsty. It is getting more and more difficult for the kids to visit her. Ethan does not want to be the first person to enter the room anymore for fear that he will find that she has died. It is scary. The other night her breathing was erratic. Some breathes would be normal then there would be long periods where she looked like she was not breathing. We have made all of the difficult phone calls and put the out of town family members on alert.

Meanwhile I am working on my video tribute to her. I've been working my way through a life time of slides. Eleanor does not like to have her photograph taken so there are not that many to find. I pick a reel and look at each slide in the light. Put it back in place and look at another one. I had hoped to go through all of the reels, but that is just not happening. The kids tried to help me but they could not recognize her in the earlier photos. On Wednesday Don urged me to have it ready to show her by today, Friday. He is worried that she will not get an opportunity to see it. I think the opportunity may have already passed. However, each night after feeding the family I have been plugging away at this project. It has been hard, emotional and wonderful all at the same time. I was up until past 11:00 p.m. last night burning a version that I tried to show her this morning. I had a hard time picking good music. I started with "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby" followed by "What a Wonderful World" and ended with "We'll Meet Again." Larr said that the music takes it too over the top. He asked me to turn the music off so he could watch the slides without it. He thinks I should put something more nondescript with it. I showed what I have done to Don. He was emotional too, but that is no surprise. He wants me to find someway to be able to stop it on some of the slides so that they can look at an image longer. I will have to research and see if you can do that. I am using ProShow Gold, a fabulous program. However, I don't know it very well so I don't know if that option exists. If not, I will simply make a file with the photos for him.

Don and my husband are dealing with this end very gracefully. It is down to sitting with her, holding her hand, giving her kisses. If you are lucky you might even get a kiss back. You can see the love they have in her face. In some ways I am thankful that we have this time to be very consciously appreciative for her in our lives. In other ways I worry that she is beginning to linger. She spends most of her time sleeping and does not seem to be able to be very conscious even when people are there to see her. We wonder if she is waiting for something or if she just does not want to go. We will simply be thankful for each day that we can hold her soft, warm hand, brush back her hair from her face and remember her love for us. The slide show is my way of remembering.

The Eleanors - A Girl's Trip and an Update

Eleanor is in the slow process of leaving us. On Monday we had a meeting with the social worker from the hospice telling us that the next stage for her will be when she becomes unconscious for a long time, most likely upwards of 72+ hours. After that she is likely to die. That was a hard meeting to get through. No one can give us a guess at how long this stage will last. She has a catheter and sleeps much of the day. Her body, especially her stomach, feels bloated. She often makes a "whish, whish" sound to relieve the sensation. However, she is still there. She greets us by name and tries to look at us, even if only for a second.

I purchased a device to transfer images from slides to digital and am working through the huge number of slide reels that represent her life since the 1960's. It is a slow but really wonderful process. I wish I had started this years and years ago. There are such lovely photos that I would have liked to print and hang up. I am focusing mostly on Don and Eleanor, but from time to time I find a really fun image of Larr, Doug or Rex that I just have to scan it, too. In an effort to share it with family members who are not in town I have set up a free website through Shutterfly.com. It is a wonderful, personal way to share photos. I am so glad they offer that service.

We have realized that the time for asking questions is over. We have to be contented with mostly sitting with her and holding her hand. It is hard for me to sit quietly for long periods of time so I have started describing the photographs to Eleanor. One of my favorite ones is the one above where Eleanor is standing by a Fuchsia plant. As I was talking about it she chimed in, "The fuchsias grow wild in Ireland. That bush was more than three feet taller than me." Wow, that caught me by surprise! It helps me see that she is still in there, even if her body does not want to cooperate. I thought the project might be hard (and it is) but it is more healing than I had expected. I hope to get it done before she dies. I also want to put the photos into a book for Don, Doug, Rex, Larr and whom ever would want one. Thank goodness for technology and Shutterfly!



On an entirely different note, the younger Eleanor has a fun girl's trip in her near future. Here you can see how much fun Ellie and Anna have together. Laura's brother (Anna's mom) has invited Anna to visit for spring break. He encouraged her to bring along friends. Anna, Ellie and Christy will spend nearly a week in sunny San Diego. They will swim, play on the beach, play with the dog, go to Disneyland and many other things. Ellie is super excited. We are thankful that such an opportunity is available for her!

A Ticket to Ride

Larr's cousin Jean is in town from California. She came to see Eleanor and has been a tremendous help. While Don was running errands she took down all of the Christmas decorations and the tree. Please her heart for flying all the way here to do stuff like that. This evening our family, along with Lilia and Greg (her brother) had dinner with Eleanor and Don. I was very pleased to see that Eleanor got out of bed to sit in the living room and have dinner with us. We even got a little conversation in. It made me feel better. After a while she fell back to sleep. Ethan, Jean, Mark and I spent a while playing "Ticket to Ride." It is a game board that I love to play. Larr hates it as it gets too intense for him. Ethan and I were glad for a chance to play. Ethan won, as usual, but Mark was only a few points away from beating him. It was lovely to have a family evening having dinner conversation and playing a game.

An Eleanor Update - a Largely down hill bumpy ride

Eleanor had a goal to enjoy the holiday season. We had 18 people in town to celebrate. As they went back home Eleanor seemed to diminish. By the time Truike and Jan returned to Roderdam she was almost back to her old sleep a lot routine - only it got worse. I believe it was about eight days before she got out of bed again. Most days she sleeps most of the time. She might eat once or not at all. We are pretty sure it is the medication for the pain. She says it makes her feel foggy and sleepy. When she is awake she simply opens her eyes. Many days we don't even see her head off of the pillow. However, a spark of her personality still shines through. Earlier this week she promised to haunt my dear husband from the other side, leaving him messages written with a cider block. She cracked a few quite jokes with the kids. Most of her conversations are about trying to get us ready for her to die. She is completely at peace with it. I'm glad she is a peace, but I am not sure I can or will ever be there as far as her death will be concerned. I feel connected by trying to be useful. I am beginning to think about what it will take to make a film about her life. We have very few photos from when she was a little girl. Most of her photos from her married life are in slides. I am looking into the best way to convert those slide images into digital ones. I have also asked Eleanor and Don to think about the music from their life that holds meaning for them. My hope is that I can produce a quality program that captures the essence of Eleanor - one that can be a celebration of her life and a memento for those who hold her dear.

Ellie's Day with Grandma Eleanor

Ellie's day with Grandma Eleanor was perfect as could be. I am so thankful for that. I hope that once Eleanor is sick, Ellie will remember the day with fondness. We started out at Mimi's Cafe and had a wonderful (albeit noisy) breakfast. We went all out. We had juice,Ellie had hot chocolate with real whipped create, and we had tea. Then we ate enough that none of us needed to eat again until dinner time. Eleanor got the stuffed french toast with a nice berry topping. I got the same, but without the berries and potatoes on the side. Ellie got Belgium waffles with lots of stuff on the side. She love bacon and ended up eating every piece that made its way to the table.

Next up was putting up a few Halloween decorations, including Guy, Grandma Eleanor's scarecrow. This was the first year that Ellie was big enough to bring it upstairs on her own. Then we carved pumpkin, or rather, Ellie carved two pumpkins and I carved one. Eleanor was happier just watching and admiring instead of carving. I think we might have worn her out at that point. After I was done carving I whipped up a Spiced Pumpkin bread with a maple cream cheese ripple through the center. Ellie declared it the best pumpkin bread ever and asked that we have it on Thanksgiving. Don loved it, too. I will post that recipe as soon as I have time to make it into a nice little recipe card.


The last thing we did was play an intense game of Scrabble, Ellie's new favorite game. She asks to play EVERY time we go to Grandma Eleanor's house. She usually ends up winning. It was a tough game, I'll tell you! We had a blast. By the time we went home Ellie and I were pooped out, too. It was a great way to spend the day!