Life is Short. Eat Dessert First.

Today we are grateful for: 

Shrimp

Biscuits and gravy

Fresh Cheese curds

Grapes

Raspberries

Clementine Oranges

Turkey, bread for stuffing, black olives, jellied cranberry 

And Lefse.

I made a trip across country to stay with my grand children last week so that our oldest daughter could come visit her Dad. 

She, my son in law and my two grandchildren were here in August. Amanda was supposed to come again in March. We all agreed that perhaps she shouldn’t wait until March so she came last week. 

I got to spend some nice time with my son in law and grandchildren, she got to spend time with her sister and her Dad. 

It was a good visit for her. She asked her Dad to tell her some of the family stories, like his version of the birth stories. For instance: When she was born, after 7 hours of natural child birth, I said, “Oh! It’s a baby!” He said, “What did you expect? Puppies?!” 

She asked him to tell his version of how we met, then when she saw me, she asked me to tell her the same story. She says it’s fun to see the differences. 

His version had lots of details. I think that is because the moment he saw me in my hiking boots, khaki army pants and pink cotton peasant blouse, he thought, “I am going to marry that woman”. It took me a bit longer to realize that we should get married. 

Amanda wanted those stories recorded in his voice, which was a wise choice!

She also got to spoil her Dad with some of his favorite foods. He is still hungry and enjoying foods so we are not wasting time on getting his favorites. 
She was wise and had ordered Lefse from Freddys Lefse months ago and put it in her freezer. She got some to him, which made him very happy.
One of the stories, she recorded was his story about Freddy’s Lefse. 
When Michael was a kid, he lived across the street from Freddy’s Lefse. His friend was Terry Cox, who was Freddy’s son. The little kids would play in the room downstairs in the Cox’s house, which was next to the downstairs one room Lefse Bakery where all the Scandinavian ladies were making the Lefse.  The little boys would go under the table and the ladies would flip them some Lefse. Now Terry owns the bakery. So, Freddy’s Lefse is a sentimental favorite. 

When I got home, I had to do some grocery shopping. I came home with lots of Michael’s favorite foods.

When I showed him what I had bought, his eyes lit up and finally the question...

“What? Am I dying?”

A joke comment that he has been milking for months. 

“Hey! Do we have any ice cream? After all this might be my last day.”

“I sure would like some grits for breakfast, this might be my last chance!”

“ You wouldn’t want me to die wanting chocolate, would you? You would feel so guilty!”

He always has always had a way of working it!

Well, when I was gone, the hospice nurse made her weekly visit. 

Several weeks ago, we had Michael get the blood test to see how his kidneys were doing. We have learned over our many years of dealing with various rare diseases, to learn what these kinds of test mean. We know what the “numbers” mean.  When I saw the numbers, I called Amanda and told her to come earlier. I knew things were progressing. 

Michael’s nurse said that she thought it was a good idea that Amanda came now.

When I talked to her when I arrived home, she told me that the hospice doctor had looked at Michael’s test results. The doctor’s opinion was that she would be surprised if he made it through Christmas. 

Now, some people may not want to hear news like that. We are not that kind of people. We want to know the honest opinions. 

We know that he has a chance of dying at any time but we also know that he has frequently beaten the odds with his many health challenges. He has come close to death 3 other times. 

But, it was also our sense that it was strong possibility that his time was drawing closer, hence the call to our daughter to come.

Several days ago, Michael jokingly accused me of pushing him out of bed. 

We have always had a smaller Queen sized bed and neither of us are particularly “tiny” people.  We have a decades of bed hogging history between the two of us. I am not saying who is the “hogger” and who is the “hoggee”. 

So it was a bit dicey for him to make this accusation, albeit as a joke. He hesitated but eventually decided to dance in the fire a bit. After all, how could I be too mad? He is dying, after all!

Somehow he had started to slide out of bed, covers and all. When he did, this he hurt his hip/ tail bone. This made walking, even the short distance to the bath room, very painful. Then his opposite knee started to hurt because of weight he was putting on it. 

This started a rolling ball effect of meals being brought to him in our bedroom and his walker had to be brought in so he could navigate the short distance to the bathroom.

His world has just become just a little smaller.

Last night I woke up and realized he was up. It was about 3 am and he had a bloody nose. He told me this was second one he had. These bloody noses are a known symptom of Kidney Failure and he has been having these for over a year. However, this was was far worse and not stopping.

A few months ago, he had some skin tags clipped off, which was quite minor. But the bleeding from that sent him to the ER one night because the bleeding would not stop. It has to do with anti coagulation factors in his blood being disrupted by the Kidney Failure. 

It took us quite some time to get the blood to stop so he could go to sleep. All the normal solutions were not super effective. This morning, I woke up at 8:30 am to the same scenario. 

So today we are also thankful for

Gauze

Wound Seal (a powder in styptic pencils)

A package of frozen blueberries for an ice pack

and the 24 hr Hospice Nurse line. 

Life is short, eat dessert first. Time to go make some pumpkin pie. After all, I would feel guilty if Michael didn’t get some pumpkin pie before he died. 

                                                        Michael Jon’s Lefse Bakery