There is a surreality to this kind of waiting and watching. David is ready to go, but it seems his body is not. There are no good decisions, no good outcomes – just less bad ones.
I didn’t see David today, but Angi tells me that there were a lot of jokes about his funeral. She said he is a comedian and his personality is really coming out. He suggested, for example, that Leo get up at the very end of the funeral and tell a joke. And that his funeral should have an emcee. These sound like good ideas to me, but I don’t think the daughters will go for it.
Angi hasn’t been feeling well, but she felt well enough today to go over to see David. She spent the whole day there, so I spent the whole day working from home.
Today they transferred David to the hospital bed. He wasn’t very happy about it, but he accepted it. (And laughed when I told him it was coming. “This isn’t the first battle I’ve lost”) It had become too difficult for us to take care of him in his lovely full size bed. The hospital bed was delivered comically fast. Debbie ordered it, then the delivery guy called shorty thereafter, telling us it would be delivered in twelve minutes. Our 21yo son Elijah went over today after school and helped take the old bed apart.
Seated: Jo, David
When David was first diagnosed, I dived into the research and found some metrics that would give us an idea of how long he might survive. The first instrument I found was the LENT score, which indicated a 44-day median survival time after diagnosis in David’s case. We didn’t have all of the lab tests for the other scoring instruments, but with what we had, they predicted longer survival times. Today someone in the know told him two to four weeks. (Or two to three, depending on who you ask.)
The kids have school, soccer practice, and games. Elijah has school and work, and figuring out how to see his girlfriend who goes to OSU. Rachel lives in Chicago, but will coming in next week. Richard and I have work from 8 to 5 every day. Angi teaches English on Mondays and Wednesdays. We all have to juggle life. I feel like pulling on the non-existent emergency brake and yelling “Don’t you know this is an emergency?!” But the world keeps turning.
The upside, if there is one, is that David’s three girls are seeing him almost every day, and they are spending a lot of time together. It’s a terrible time, but it is also a holy time.
I would encourage you to continue to pray for David and those who are caring for him. We are there as much as we can, but Richard and Cindy are there overnight every night and almost all the time during the days. They are working so hard. Thankfully Debbie is staying there now and can help them.
Please leave a comment here for David to read. I print out every one for him and he does read them.
Love,
Dan
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