Went to Memorial

I was shocked to see the turnout. I put together an eleven minute movie with every photo any video I had of Grandpa which I showed to anyone who was interested. The preacher did a really good service and we finished it by sing the hymn "Lord of the Dance".

Memorial coming soon

Memorial's scheduled for Saturday.  He's going to be cremated, so we'll just have  a picture.  We've had such an outpouring of love from the community. That is one of the nice things about living in a small town: They're always there for you.

Visitation(For us) at 9:30  a.m
Memorial 11:00 a.m
Desert(yum!)

He died yesterday. He was having breathing problems for an hour and then just passed.

Grandpa had some minor troubles

Grandpa had some troubles with pain today. He was thrashing in his sleep, so Mom and Aunt Lynne called The Doctor, who told us to give him more morphine to compensate. My cousin came over to see him, and we believe that Grandpa will wait for my Uncle to arrive to say goodbye and then, Grandpa will pass. We've estimated he has two weeks and Uncle Rick's coming in about 2 days.

Close to the end

Last week, we went to the Doctor's. He told us that there was no way to continue chemo, and if we did it wouldn't increase quality of life. They sent him home to die. It's taken this long to write this post, and I'm writing this post separate from the post I'm going to make later.

Went to Doctor to see about chemo

He told us that we were going to have to prepare ourselves and that Grandpa's body was shutting down. Later on, he told us that Grandpa only had about a month. Grandpa doesn't know, but is actually happy to know what is at the end of the road. My Aunt is coming down and we're staying  here.

Hallucinations

Grandpa's been hallucinating a bit. A few days ago, he was seeing things like someone putting up a pool in our backyard, but that was before Mom took him off the meds causing it. Now, he's just speaking to himself. Unfortunately, however, it's making it a bit hard for Mom to sleep.

Saw Doctor

So, went to Grandpa's cancer doctor to see about his arm. (He broke his arm the day before I started the blog.) He told us basically what we feared: That Grandpa might not be able to use his arm again and that maybe he won't be able to do chemo. They pumped fluids in him for about four hours and, in the meantime, I decided to donate my hair to "Locks of Love".

Reason why I'm Here

Cancer: The most dreaded word in any language, country, or culture. Just about everyone has lost or is slowly losing someone to this dreaded disease. I lost my uncle from it when I was five, and now am slowly losing my Grandpa to it. You know, we never imagined him dying of cancer. We always imagined it would be a stroke or a silent heart attack, but never lung cancer. Sure, he smoked about thirty years ago, but that time came and went. We discovered he had cancer the day before we were going to move a thousand miles away, and since then have been forced to move, but switch off with my aunt who also moved with us in caring for him. So, now, here I am, in Small Town, USA, writing a blog about his experiences and my own as my entire family struggles to care for him and my grandma, who has dementia and can no longer care for herself.