The last time I wrote about my son-in-law, Carey starting the liver transplant evaluation process to see if he would be a candidate to get on the transplant list. We were about half way through the process when Carey took a turn for the worst and lost his couragious battle. He died on April 23rd.
It was hard for me to come back to this site and continue writing but I needed to finish this blog so I could move forward. My daughter, Erin, took such good care of him during his sickness. She wanted to be with him everyday but had to go to work so he would get great care by having insurance. They experienced about a month without insurance after she got laid off her job in January. The care was very minimal and basically awful. His sister and brothers were able to cover his Cobra premium to get back the care he had and make it possible for him to go to Mayo Clinic. The payments were high but Erin did start a new job and her new benefits would start in May. This way Carey would continue receiving the best care and she now was the only one supporting the family. I had gotten laid off from my job just about the time Erin started her new job so I was able to take my granddaughter, Emily, to school and take care of Carey during the day. I took him to most of his evaluation appointments with his brothers helping when they could. They both worked. I would just stay at their house during the week and come home on weekends. I would usually come back on Sunday evening. On Sunday, April 20th., Erin called me in the morning and told me Carey needed to go to the hospital, that he was in a lot of pain and this was a new pain. He did have a lot of pain during his illness with the ascites and joint pain. He suffered daily. When I arrived, the ambulance had already taken him to the hospital near his house. He had spent a lot of time at this hospital, so they knew him, well. They always rendered excellent care. The plan was to get him transferred to the Mayo hospital so they could continue the transplant evaluation process. They wanted to run tests to make sure that nothing got punctured when he had his last pericentesis (draining fluid from his abdomen). Once he was stable they would coordinate with the Mayo doctors to have him transferred. I was with him on the 21st. and he seemed okay. I guess as well as can be expected. I picked up my granddaughter from school and came back to the hospital so she could spend a little time with her daddy. My daughter was there and everything seemed fine when Emily and I left. Erin stayed and when she came home later that evening she kept telling me she was really worried about this hospital stay. She said he was different. Something was going on with Carey. They had given pain meds which they have done many times before but his eyes would roll back in his head and then he would start talking and then they would roll back again. She knows his exact reaction to his pain meds and this seemed different. He was on lactolose to keep the ammonia levels down in his brain. If he didn’t take the lactolose, he would get very confused and would have trouble speaking. This was just another side effect of liver disease. Erin still felt something was not right. Well, later that night the hospital called and Carey’s heart rate jumped to 200 and they had to move him to CCU. She went to the hospital and was told they were not sure why his heart rate jumped so high. I came in the next day and they had him sedated so he wouldn’t pull off his leads and IV’s. We knew at this point things were not good. We came home to Erin’s to get some rest, and not even an hour past when the hospital called to let Erin know they decided to put him on life support. They said it was better to do it now then wait until it is an emergency. When we were there earlier we all noticed his breathing was starting to become labored. The hospital’s goal was to still transport Carey to Mayo. When we came back it was hard seeing him on the life support and an induced coma. His youngest daughter, Emily did not see him after he was on life support. She was with him earlier that day and whispered in his ear she loved him. Emily, just being 8 years old, had already come to terms with the possibility of his death. We were there when the ambulance came to transport Carey to Mayo. His doctor told Erin if there is any chance of survival the best place to be was at Mayo. At 1:30 am on Wednesday the 23rd. Erin received a call from Mayo stating his kidneys were shutting down. The doctor talked to her for a long time on the phone. She had planned to get there early in the morning spend the whole day there knowing it was going to be his last day. She had whispered in his ear before he was put on life support that it was okay no matter what choice he made. She basically told him it was okay to let go. His body was tired and battered. Just as she was getting ready to leave on the 23rd., Mayo called and told her she needed to be there, now! I grabbed Emily out of bed and through some clothes on her and Erin called Carey’s son, brothers and sisters. We got there at 7:20 and he passed 7:06. There was a curtain between us and Carey’s lifeless body. Erin went in first and I came in. I noticed his eyelids were not completely closed so I reached over an closed them. His body still warm. You would look at his chest and you could almost imagine it moving up and down. We all stayed there for several hours. His oldest son took really hard. They were very close. The funeral was hard on everybody.
Liver disease is a terrible death. Carey did suffer daily but his will to live kept him going. He has two grown children, Justin who is married with a one year old son, and a two month old daughter, and his daughter Jessica who lives in another state but was still close to her father and of course his youngest, Emily. He loved his children very much and was a great father and was a wonderful husband. Carey had a lot of great friends who helped out during his illness. We now have to go down the healing road one day at a time. He will be sadly missed by his family and friends.
