a longer email on Dale

[Guest guest]

Thank you everyone for your kind words and prayers. I wanted to give a more detailed account of Dale's last day. Monday and Tuesday Dale was in a semi-coma, every time he woke up he had a seizure. But he never opened his eyes very wide and didn't respond much. He hadn't been very verbal since the seizures started a week earlier. Then Wed morning he "woke up." He wouldn't stop moving, shifting, rolling to his side. He also kept trying to talk to me. I spent most of the day by his side, comforting him and telling him it was ok. By evening I was exhausted. His sister came over in the evening about 730, and she went to talk to him, and he began to cry. He cried the rest of the evening and got more adement in his attempts to talk to us. (The night before he had told me and Betty that he loved us, unintelligible except to those of us who knew him and what he was saying.) I put a chair by his bed and cuddled up to him the

best I could. If I stopped touching him he tried again to speak. At 10 it was time for medication, I crushed up the pills and put them in water. He swallowed very well for me until the last 2 mls. They went into his lungs. He couldn't cough it out and his breathing got raspier and raspier. After 1/2 hour I was crying and he was crying, so I called hospice and the nurse had me turn him on his side, once again on his back his breathing was better, but still loud. Dale had promised me twice that he would die in my presence as it was important to me to be there. But the stubborn man waited until I fell asleep. At midnight I awoke to silence. I touched him. Then I woke up his daughter Carol. She came out and picked his hand up off his chest, and the last air came out of his lungs. Then it started to snow outside. His sister said it was his last snowball fight. His family came over and we had over an hour together with the

pastor before I called and had the mortuary come get him. Hospice pronounced him over the phone on my word. I was up the rest of the night and most of today. Taking something soon and falling sound asleep. One of my friends brought pizza and Ben & Jerrys Ice cream for lunch. Carol and I vegged all day. Peace on the journey,Juel captwildchild@...************************************If you are going through hell....keep going. -Sir Winston ChurchillMalecare ( www.malecare.com ) recommends that all men, upon attaining adulthood, discuss prostate cancer and the latest prostate cancer screening tests, with their physician, annually.

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