Heaven has a new angel

 

Deborah Jean Dolen Bryan

9.27.55 to 11.16.10

Heaven welcomed a beautiful angel yesterday.

Aunt Debbie passed away at 7:10 A.M. at hospice with her loving husband and daughter by her side.  

She was one of the purest  people I knew, 

and I know that she is now wrapped in Gods loving arms and no longer sick.

She once again is walking, singing and laughing. 

Her spirit is no longer held back by her weakened body.

We are all blessed to have had her in our life, and I am so thankful 

that we got an extra four years with her after her diagnosis. 

The way she lived with brain cancer was an inspiration to so many. 

I know you are now smiling from above, 

and I’m happy that you are with the maker that you have worshiped for your entire life. 

God so proud of all of the work you did with your time here.

I will miss you Deb, you taught me so many things. 

I have peace knowing that you are no longer in pain and are not silenced by your sickness.

I am glad I got to tell you goodbye and share the things that were in my heart.

Rest in Peace dear one, I will see you again one day.

Her final journey home

The tests have come back  and there is nothing else that can be done to help my dear Aunt Debbie to wake up.  Her brain isn’t communicating with the rest of her body.  We are so thankful that she is not feeling any pain, but am saddened that the lines connecting her mind to her loving heart and body have disappeared.

My uncle and cousin had to make the heartbreaking decision today to follow my aunts wishes and take her off of life support.  She has been off the ventilator since this afternoon and is breathing on her own. Debbie didn’t want to be kept alive by a machine and didn’t want to be forced food thru a tube, so as hard as it is for us all to take away the things that are helping her stay alive, we have to do what she would want. She was transported back to our hometown this evening to Hospice where her family can be with her 24/7 as she continues her journey home.

Debbie has always been such an independent woman and always took care of others. She is a go getter and would often take charge of the situation.  She would tell you what you thought, even if it might not be what you wanted to hear.  She was a leader and took the lead respectfully, without hurting anyone or stepping on anyone’s toes.

Aunt Debbie had a living will and had thought about the way that she would want to continue living if her cancer were to become debilitating, she made her decision and choose to live the last few days of her life on her own strength.  She is a strong woman of faith and I am finding comfort in the idea that she isn’t afraid of dying and is ready to meet her heavenly father.  She has put up a hard fight over the past four years and is ready to let God lead her down the final path of this journey. I do not remember ever hearing her complain during her battle, and that speaks volumes about the kind of person that she was, she didn’t want to burden us with it. Instead you may just see the occasional tear slip down her cheek. What an amazing example of inner strength she is!

So my friends, I ask you this one last time for a few final prayers.
Please pray for my Uncle Jim who hasn’t left Debbie’s side and having to say goodbye to his best friend and wife of 35 years . He has been an amazing husband and has held her hand thru this difficult journey and never let go.

(Taken at their daughters wedding July 2009)

Please pray for my cousin Annie who is losing her Momma at the tender age of 21 years old.  There are so many things that I hope she learned from the way her mother lived her life and fought this disease, even if she doesn’t realize some of them yet.

 (Taken at the Light the Night Walk September 2010)

Please pray for her mother, her brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews and all the friends and church family that loves her and is so proud of her for staring brain cancer right in the face for so long and staying strong.  And she did it all with grace and poise we all wish we could possess.

We love you Debbie and miss you already…have a peaceful trip home.

I hope she liked her balloons…

I went down to see Aunt Debbie at the nursing home on Tuesday evening.  She had been in there since last Monday.  We stopped in and she was sleeping in her wheelchair with her daughter by her side.  She had been sleeping alot during the day and the staff thought she might have her days and nights confused.  The night before when my uncle came in after working 2nd shift, she was talking his ear off.  So I just rubbed her hair and told her we were there and to open her eyes and say hello.  She was out cold, sleeping like a log.  She would take some deep breathes in and kinda move her lips like she was trying to mumble but then just went back to the peaceful sleep.  Grandma said the last few days she occasionally would wake up and mumble a few things in a really soft voice and told her that her head hurt. So it didn’t startle me when she kept sleeping, it has to be tiring fighting cancer everyday.

I wanted to make sure it was ok to bring in balloons in to the nursing home and her daughter said yes, so we ran out and picked up some mylar balloons, I thought when she opened her eyes that might give her something shiny to focus on.  We were gone about 20 minutes picking them up and when we got back, they had moved her into her bed and she was still asleep.  Annie, her daughter, said that she was able to get a few spoonfuls of juice down her when they moved her because she kinda woke up then.  She hasn’t been able to swallow much lately and was holding stuff in her mouth, so they had to start thickening any liquid that they gave her, including water.  If she were to hold it in her mouth, it may go down into her lungs and cause her to get pneumonia. So I went over to her bed and told her that I brought her some balloons and toopen her eyes and let me know if she liked them.  She kinda frowned a little and moved her eyelids but never opened them.  I told her they were straight ahead so when she woke up they would be there.  I sat and talked with Annie for a little bit before giving Debbie a hug and kiss and telling her I would see her soon and to wake up and look at her balloons cause they were really pretty.

Last night my phone rang about midnight, I had just gone to bed and heard it before I had a chance to look at the caller id.  It was Tiny Dancer which meant it was my Grandma.  I grabbed the phone with my heart starting to race. 
Grandma:”Hi honey, its me. I’m at the hospital.  Hold on a minute….Let me call you back in a little bit.”
Me:”Grandma are you ok???”
Grandma:”I’m fine, it’s Debbie. I’ll call you back.”

So I tell my husband about the call and then try to lay back down and get some rest, breathing deeply as my heart rate slows back down from the shock of getting a phone call in the middle of the night. My Aunt Billie calls me back about 12:30am and I can tell she is crying, she said Debbie had a bad seizure at lunch that day and hadn’t waken up and her blood pressure dropped on them so they took her to the hospital earlier that evening about 9ish.  They had to put a tube down her throat to help her breathe.  They wanted to do a brainscan, but there wasn’t a neurologist on duty to do the test, so they were sending her to Ohio State Medical Hospital in Columbus to get it done. (Don’t even get me started about how this is the second time they were unable to do a scan in the middle of the night and had to send her elsewhere, this a place that is supposed to be a level 2 trauma hospital!) So they got her ready and put her into a semi coma for transport to Columbus, which is about an hour away from my hometown where she lived. My uncle was going up with her and the rest of the family was going home and heading up in the morning. Annie was in Kentucky and started her way back home about midnight when she found out they were transporting her.

Debbie had another seizure while in transport to OSU and I guess that she was still having a light one when they arrived.  They put her in MICU, which meant there were limited visiting hours.  So I got up there when the 1-2 today when visitation started.  When I got there, Annie and her husband was there.  My Aunt Linda and her husband Randy, Aunt Billie and Grandma had all rode up together, Aunt Joyce and her husband Joe had followed them. 

I sat down and Joyce told me that they were testing Debbie for Spinal Meningitis. I stopped in my tracks…that is so scary and dangerous, not that cancer isn’t frightening enough ,but that is dangerous to anyone who has been around her! She said that if they found it they may have to give anyone who came into contact with her fluids, so those were feeding or changing her shots and medicine.  I hadn’t done any of that but still would need to be suited up and scrubbed to go visit her.  Thankfully for Debbie and for all of us Jim came back and said that the test came back and she didn’t have it so we all were fine. I opted to wear a mask back anyway because of all the sickness floating around a hospital and I had just gotten my flu shot. And I coated myself in sanitizer.

A few minutes later, Jim said that people could start going back to visit 2 at a time.  So Annie and Matt went back, then Grandma and Billie went back, then Linda and Joyce, then me and Randy went.  When we walked back to see Debbie my heart was kinda in my throat. I knew she would be on a ventilator and would have tubes and wires all around her but nothing prepares you for when you actually see her hooked up to everything.   She was lying propped up against a few pillows and had dozens of wires hooked up to her head to monitor her brain activity for the EEG.  They had a video camera on the side keeping track of her eye flutters and body movements to see if there was any correlation between brain activity and the times her body moved.  She was on the ventilator and every handful of breaths you would see her left side kinda lift up like she was trying to breathe on her own along with it.  Then she would just lay back flat and kinda start to twitch her eyelids but never opened them. 

We each took turns talking to her telling her that we all were praying for her and were out there thinking of her and wanted her to know we all loved her. We told her we knew how strong she was, that she was a fighter but we knew her body was tired today and to just keep fighting and come back to us and open her eyes.  I told her that I loved her and would see her soon….that I knew she loved us and we had people all over the country praying for her.  We slowly walked out so the next group could come in, but it was hard saying goodbye, not knowing if she even knew we were there.

After we got back to the waiting room, Joe and Jim went back to talk to the nurses. Joe is a respiratory therapist so he translates some of the medical jargon to us. By that time my Uncle Tom and his wife Cheryl and their son Conner had come in and were followed soon by my Uncle Bob and his wife Teresa but it was after 2 so they just waited in the waiting room and then wentwith everyone when they took off to go get some lunch and wait till the next round of visitation at 5pm. Before I left I gave Annie and Uncle Jim a big hug and started to cry.  I whispered that I loved him and we just kept hugging each other. I could tell he needed that hug. I grew up staying with him and Debbie on Saturday nights and going to church with them Sunday morning, spending the day with them and then going back to church Sunday night and Grandma would pick me up at church.  They were a big influence on me growing up, so he was kinda a father figure to me.  I hope he could feel all the love and support I was trying to give him. Sometimes holding out a hug can say some of the words that you can’t mutter out when your heart is in your throat.

I talked with Grandma a little bit ago who just got home and here is the status as of tonight. Her heart and lungs look good and are functioning properly. Her blood pressure has stabilized and she is having occasional spikes in her blood sugar, so they are considering giving her insulin.  She is on 40% oxygen and has a oxygen level of 99%.  Breathing along with the ventilator but isn’t on any other meds at this time.  They found some small pieces of food in her lungs when they put in her breathing tube, and she has a some aspiration pneumonia. They have doing the EEG most of the day and will see how her brain activity looks and if it points to why she is having her seizures. She is scheduled for an MRI in the morning.  A few aunts said that she squeezed their hands today but she hasn’t woken up since yesterday afternoons seizure. The tests will tell us if there is any brain activity, and then we will know a little more about where we stand. But until then…we just wait.  Pray and hope that we get good news tomorrow and appreciate every extra day that we have had with her and pray that we get one more chance to look her in the eyes and tell her that we love her.

Monday Ramblings

Hi friends..long time no talk.  Let’s start with some updates.

My Aunt Debbie finished her Avastin treatment last week. She hasn’t had any more problems with blood clots so that’s a blessing but her foot is starting to turn down a little bit and she can’t walk anymore.  My uncle has decided to admit her to a rehab/extended care facility for a few weeks to get some PT twice a day to see if they can get her any more mobile.  She is pretty tired and is unable to feed herself. I guess she has been sleeping alot lately. So let’s hope that she can get some help at the rehab center and keep her spirit up. Love you Aunt Debbie…you are a tough cookie….keep fighting!

One of my cousins is pregnant with her second child and is due in Early January.  She was admitted to the hospital late last week.  She is 29 weeks and was having contractions and dilating.  They did some type of test to see if her water was going to break in the next few weeks, that came back ok so she got to come home this weekend.  She goes in every few days for an ultrasound to monitor the baby’s progress but for now she is dilated 2 and 70% effaced. Dr would like for her to keep baking until December 10.  So hang in there baby Hudson-another 7 weeks till it’s time to meet you!

Emma had her teeth cleaned last week…and she did wonderful!  She is my baby and I was so worried about how she would handle the anesthesia. But she came out with flying colors…and her teeth look fabulous!  Way better then I ever dreamed they would and her bad breathe is a thing of the past!  They ended up having to extract 3 small ones in the back and she has to take some antibiotics for a bit, but she’s just as peppy as always.

Ellie is doing really good…anymore its Emma who snips at her.  Our neighbor Kim brought over a giftbag for the girls.  There were some homemade dog treats and some chewable goodies and a kong for Ellie.  She loves it!  Thanks Kim….great idea!  We decided to get her a kong frisbee to play with outside and that’s all she wants now.  She is really a sweetie and will just sit beside you, of course needing to be petted almost constantly.  We are happy with our decision to bring her into the family…she’s making improvements every day.

I’m feeling good, work has calmed down a bit after last week’s craziness.  I was fighting some sniffles but that seems to have passed me by thank goodness. We have some stuff we want to do around the house, including get some new insulation sometime in the next few weeks so that will be good before the cold weather sets in.  We went to the Ohio State football game on Saturday, and it was perfect football weather! I’ll try to post some pics of that soon, we had a great time, just me and my man.  We did finally turn on our heater last week but was able to turn it down and open some windows yesterday, it was a beautiful fall day!

Hope you all have a great week! Anything I missed that you want to share?

Update on Aunt Debbie

~~UPDATE~~

Just got an email from my uncle.  They go to Cleveland Clinic Wednesday. Debbie has a CT scan to see if she has any bleeding on the brain, then she sees her doctor, and at 2:15 she receives the Avastin.  Please pray for them as they travel and that all goes well for Debbie. Thanks

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers over the last few weeks for my Aunt Debbie who is battling brain cancer, they are much appreciated.

At the beginning of August we set up a schedule to help sit with my aunt.  We are blessed with a big family that lives close so it are blessed that there are lots of people to help out when we need to.  It was getting too hard for one person to help get her up the stairs alone, and they were working on getting her master suite downstairs finished so she didn’t have to climb up to bed.  That was finished a few weeks ago just in time because her brain isn’t communicating very well with the left side of her body and she can’t hardly move her left leg.  She was forced to start using a walker to get back and forth from the sofa to the restroom, but still had some strength and would help us along with baby steps. The doctors at Cleveland Clinic put her back on a steroid because they thought maybe that was what was causing her to loose strength.  So she went back on that a few weeks ago and while it helped her a little, it didn’t seem to last too long.

They hired a full time nurse to be there with her, but family still is alternating visits with her and keeping her company even when the aide is there.  But its nice to have someone there with her at all times, especially when you need to get her into bed and such.  The last few weeks she has been losing strength and has lost her ability to walk and hold herself up.  So now she is using a wheelchair to get around, and go back and forth to church and family events.

She went back to Cleveland Clinic on 9/8 for another MRI to see how the tumors ware looking.  With her type of brain cancer, they can’t remove all the tumor because it kinda has fingers that are intertwined with her brain.  So they removed one a few years ago, shrunk the other and it was been stagnant for a few years, and the new one that formed had surgery earlier this year.  Ther MRI did not show problems with the tumor but from the effects of the radiation and treatment she went thru after her last surgery. The difference from the last MRI they had a few weeks earlier was significant, a fuzzy white cloud around her tumor that was growing.  They have a drug called Avastin they can give her with about a 60% chance it will help her get some of her strength back. There are some possible side effects, that may include bleeding of the brain, blood clots, and long term memory problems, just to name a few. So she and her family need to weigh the risks. The Tumor board at Cleveland Clinic has been reviewing her case since her first diagnosis so they were going to discuss and recommend what they thought was best.

We gathered at another uncles house yesterday for my cousins 12th birthday party.  Debbie and her husband Jim came a little later.  As soon as I saw her being pushed in the wheelchair I almost started to cry. She looked so scared and vulnerable as she leaned towards her weak left side.  She laughed and the men pushed her over the hump into the garage joking that she didn’t know she was on an amusement ride.  She laughed a little before gazing back into the darkness again.  She would have moments of normal conversation scattered with moments where you weren’t sure if she was understanding anything, then right back to answering your question when you asked it of her.  Damn that cancer, sucking the life and zest from my sweet wonderful Aunt.  I know she was so frustrated that she wasn’t able to move about on her own and keep focused on what we were all talking about.  Of course, neither could we really, but we tried to keep the atmosphere light and happy.

When they got ready to leave, we all hugged and said we’d see her later.  I walked over and gave her a hug and told her I loved her and I would see her soon. She said she loved me too and I noticed a tear in her eye.  I squeezed her hand a little tighter and we talked about what she would have for dinner at the BBQ place (she likes brisket).  She kept ahold of my hand for what seemed like 5 minutes and just kept looking at me.  It broke my heart, I didn’t want to let go.  I so wished I could help her in some way. I can’t even imagine not being able to control your body and lose pieces of your mind a little more each day.  The last week, she has mentioned some things to her husband and around some of her sisters and my Grandma that lead us to believe she is feeling her journey may be getting shorter.  I choose not to share them out of respect for her, but it kills me to even think about her saying those things.  She feels helpless and knows that her days are limited, even if we all try to keep her focusing on what she still can do, I think her ray of hope is starting to loose its glimmer, and that is taking a bigger toll on me then anything I think.  We always say that we have to be strong for her, but she actually is the one being strong for us.  And to see her start to doubt that strength leaves an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. I know it’s reality, but it is too hard to accept.  Too hard to imagine being the only outcome.

But thru it all, she keeps smiling, though not as much as before, but its still there.  And when she laughs you can see the sheepish grin that makes it seem like she is up to no good, even though Debbie has never done anything sneaky in her life. I just hope she keeps that grin, even if its only internal, at times she feels like she is losing hope. I will try to keep my grin if only to make her smile when she sees it.

My uncle sent out an email last night and he talked with her doctor.  They are going to try to get the Avastin started this week. It will take about 2 or 3 treatments before we may notice any improvement. The treatments are given every 2 weeks. The first one will be done at Cleveland Clinic and hopefully every other one can be done in her hometown.

Pray that these treatments will work and that Debbie can tolerate the treatments without the horrible side effects. She is a miracle and I know she is tired and frustrated, but I hope that the glimmer of hope she has held onto for the past 4 years comes back.

Weigh-In Wednesday

It’s time to check in with my Down and Dirty sisters. Been a long week since last weigh-in, I had to work physical inventory this weekend which means I put in over 25 hours between Friday and Saturday and recovered on Sunday.  As you can guess the only exercise I got since last week was walking the plant floor and running back and forth for reports.  Results….well see for yourself.

This week’s change: 0 lbs

Challenge total: -1.4 lbs

Can’t say I’m really surprised because I didn’t get much C25K in.  I did do a mile on Monday and the Tworkout with some sisters last night, but other then that no extra calories burned.  Oh well, back to the grind, if the rain holds out and I get out of here before dark, then the running will continue this evening. Next week I will see a loss.

On a side note, this is a check in so why not share some of the other stuff going on in my life right now.  Its weighing heavy on my heart, so I want to share.  We had a family meeting on Sunday night about helping to take shifts to sit with my Aunt Debbie, who is fighting brain cancer.  She has fallen quite a few times lately just walking to the kitchen or going to the bathroom, so we don’t want her to be alone if she doesn’t have to.  That’s one of the great things about having a big family, is that we are there for each other when we need it…and even when we don’t need it. My grandma has been going over each day to make her lunch and help her up and down the stairs, but she needs a break too, even if she won’t admit it.  Plus her little 78 year old body can’t support my aunt if she needs help or can’t help to get up the stairs. So my cousin, who is an elementrary teacher made a calender for the next few weeks so we all can keep track of who is going to go be with her on day shift and evenings when her husband is working.  I have Thursday nights, so I will go over tomorrow and make dinner and enjoy her company for a few hours.

She is headed to Cleveland Clinic today for her monthly MRI and checkup with the cancer specialists.  I guess that it took her daughter and 2 of her sisters to get her up the stairs to bed last night, she is quickly losing her strength.  She fell yesterday morning when she went to the bathroom again.  She basically has no strength left to support herself, and even had to take a wheelchair into church on Sunday.  Hopefully today they can see if something has changed that is making her weaker by the day.  Or if…well I just don’t want to think anything different.  She is a warrior but can use some backup fighters to help her this week, its been tough one.  So if you are of the praying type, when you say your prayers today, tonight or whenever you say them could you please say one for Aunt Debbie? She could use the support. Thank you.

cancer sucks

Cancer sucks.  I hate it.  All types of Cancers. They all can suck it. 

Right now my anger is directed towards Brain Cancer, particularly the tumors that have come back and are causing my Aunt Debbie troubles.

This is my Aunt Debbie.  She always has a smile on her face .

This was taken last weekend, when my cousin was home from St. Louis. 

She underwent brain surgery again a few months ago and has gone thru another round of radiation and chemo to help stop the new tumor from growing. She is at home and my Grandma has been going over to keep her company and help her up and down the stairs since she has been having more trouble walking and keeping her balance. They have lunch and play cards, and times when her husband is on second shift, they will watch some TV before Grandma makes sure she gets upstairs safe and puts her to bed

Grandma says she is loosing more of her memory and not remembering stuff even from the day before. This breaks my heart.  She was doing so much better and now seems to have fallen even lower then she was with the last set of tumors.

I guess that she has fallen a few times lately, including last night while getting some water from the kitchen.  Grandma went to help pick her up but wasn’t strong enough.  So after trying to reach a few of my aunts and uncles, she called my cousin who stopped over and helped get her up in a chair.  Thank goodness he was able to stop by.  Grandma is 78 years old.  She can hardly lift herself out of chairs sometimes if her legs hurt her, but she will try everything she can to help out her daughter when she needs it. And there are a few family members that are there in a heartbeat and stop in and check on her from time to time. But I’m afraid that she might need more help, someone there all the time that her husband isn’t home that can take care of her if she falls or starts to have any issues.  Grandma can come over for hours at at time, but she can’t be there 8 hours a day, everyday.  Although she would try to in a heartbeat.
 
I’m trying to find that place between trying not to worry about the toll this is taking on Grandma, she just got over pneumonia last week and is constantly tired because of all the running around and stress and has to have a heart cath on 7/15 to see if there are any issues,  yet be understanding that this is just her way of trying to help the evil beast that is Cancer by doing anything she can to help make my aunt forget about the cancer for a few hours.

I’m also trying to find that place between wanting to grab my cousin and shake some sense into her 22 year old head and say ‘Your Mom isn’t going to be around forever, maybe not for long at all, and I know you get frustrated with her because she can’t do the things you think she is able to do, but you need to realize that the roles have reversed and she needs you now more then ever so you should stop by and spend time with her every.single.day’ yet be compassionate that this is her way of dealing with the sickness, as wrong as I think it is, it’s not my place to judge.  Just because I’ve lost my mom, and I live with regrets of how I may have not treated her respectfully at times, does that give me any right to want to try and let her see that light while she can still do something about it?

She is a true example of a Miracle.  First diagnosed in 2006, she has fought the battle like a warrior and amazed her doctors with her recovery.  That is until they found another tumor. Then the battle began once again.   Please let her Miracle continue, it’s not fair. Cancer sucks.
I hate it.