Sad News

This has been a very difficult year. Since January, seven people we know have died. Mom phoned yesterday having just spoken with the daughter of her very best friend Peg. She was now home, on hospice and not expected to survive the week. She was the woman who really helped mom after dad died so suddenly. Peg had lost her husband the year before, offered friendship and comfort but also hope to mom. She taught mom to begin to create a life separate from the one she had with dad. She helped mom through the hardest times. I personally have thanked her twice for doing what we, her children, could not do. Mom will deeply miss her.

Yesterday, I also received an email regarding the death of Lisa. She and I met through this blog. She had written a comment, I replied, we exchanged emails and the friendship grew. I LOVED her irreverent spirit. Here is what she wrote: Hi. I LOVE your blog! THANK YOU! I happened across it over the weekend while researching my own recent diagnosis of ILD. I am 38. My journey began this past Halloween with a rash. Within a week, I was in the hospital with bilateral pneumonia. I was released after 2 nights - too soon - and told to "check in" with my primary. I went home on 2 liters of oxygen and immediately made an appointment. I got sicker and sicker. I saw my primary on 3 separate occassions. My pulse ox was never checked nor was I given a chest X-ray. By late November, I was dying. I developed Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) and spent the next month in a medically induced coma. I woke up with a tracheotomy. Within 10 days of waking, I was off the vent and my trach hole began healing. I was told I would make a full recovery. I didn't. After 2 more hospitilizations I had an open lung biopsy and was given the devastating news in March - the pneumonia and ARDS created scar tissue and permanent damage. 

I looked up ARDS - Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome - and found out that it was rather miraculous that she came out of the coma. A side effect of the syndrome can be an ILD. Yes, she got that, too! But through it all, even when she told me the doctors said she was too ill for transplants, she never was negative, down or depressed. I believe it was because of the loving total support of Valerie and her two children. She felt blessed to have them in her life. She was deeply loved.

I received this email yesterday:
It's Valerie, Lisa's wife. 

I'm so sorry to have to tell you she passed away last Sunday, February 23. She got to be in control all the way. She left on her own terms.  I really, really hope you are doing well.

Love to you and yours,

Through my tears, I laughed at her comment that Lisa was totally in control of how she died. Of course she was. I would have expected no less. She was one heck of a spirit and I so hope that when I see the bright light and the tunnel that her spirit is there to welcome me home.