My husband has passed
Posted: Thu Apr 04, 2019 9:36 am
After 18 months of fighting stage iv colon cancer, diagnosed on 8/26/17 at Summit overlook hospital in NJmy husband, age 49 passed away March 27th. At the time he was diagnosed it had already spread to his liver and lungs, later to his bones and eventually to his brain. He had brain surgery on January 2019, they removed a large tumor and later did gamma knife on other smaller tumors. He also did Y90 on his liver and was doing ok until 10 days ago when he woke up and started getting confused. I called an ambulance immediately as he wasn't even able to answer basic questions like " what is your name?" . They gave him a Narcan shot while in the ambulance in case he was overdosing from pain meds and he got a seizure right before getting to the hospital. I'm not sure this seizure was due to the injection or if it was due to the new brain tumor they found later on the same spot where the large tumor was removed. the doctors at the emergency room asked me if I wanted to start hospice there and it was probably one of the hardest decisions I had to make so far. They told me they would not perform CPR if needed, use any antibiotics if for infections or even do any more scans or bloodwork. I decided on what was best for him and since he always had so much pain from his bone mets decided to started hospice right then. He spent the next 3 days with a morphine drip and pain-free. On Wednesday morning I started noticing his breathing changing and realized that the sound was what I had already googled before and what is called the death rattle. He was surrounded by me, his mother, his brother and his best friend. My 2 boys aged 9 and 11 years old were able to visit him the day before while he looked peaceful since he was under heavy medication for pain and they assumed he was just resting. My 2-year-old is too young to understand anything so she did not come to the hospital. I'm still numb and unable to process what happened. I don't cry much because my brain keeps blocking any negative thoughts. I know at some point it will hit me and it worries me since I have 3 young children to look after. My mother passed away from pancreatic cancer at the age of 47 and it took me 2 months to start the grieving process. Anyway, just wanted to share my story as let everyone know that i will forever love my husband and make sure my children will forever remember him as a great dad and an amazing husband.