Hello:

Many of you have been receiving my newsletters since I first started writing them in 2016. Others signed up along the way. I never buy lists so if you have missed getting one for the past four months, I had a very traumatic experience.

In the past I have written about the type of sarcoma (cancer) my husband had. It remained stable in his upper right arm for 9 years. This past year it started to spread. In April, 2023 he had a lot of radiation. It was terrible. When they did his upper spine, his head dropped forward and he couldn’t stand up straight. He lost a lot of weight. He also developed breathing problems.

I tried to get an appointment with a lung specialist early in May. I was told the first opening was August 30th! I couldn’t believe it!

He also started chemo on May 5th. However, by mid-June the sarcoma was stable. He would have been able to go on a maintenance plan. He also gained weight.

But by June 25th, his breathing got harder. We went over to the local ER at our hospital. They put him on oxygen and said his heart was going into AFIB. An irregular heart beat. He never had that. He was transported to our bigger hospital in Santa Barbara, California. I went home and made arrangements to stay down there. His lung collapsed.  When he arrived down there by ambulance, he had a tube inserted to drain excess fluid which was leaking between his chest wall and the lung. In three days they took out the tube and the lung collapsed for a second time. The tube went back in.  He was in the hospital for 11 days. Three doctors there agreed it was from the radiation. Damage to his lung from radiation! We were furious.

The pulmonary specialist, who I called to get an appointment with, came into Chet’s hospital room, I told him about the long wait for an appointment. Now Chet is now in the hospital. I wasn’t going to believe that something couldn’t have been prevent to this.

When Chet was released he went home with supplemental oxygen. Which worked for a time. But on September 9th, fluid was developing again and he had to have it drained. It was all downhill from there. He didn’t want to eat, lost more weight. By September 29th, he was back into the hospital again, by ambulance. I told the ER doctor that he was so weak and so limited and didn’t want to eat, and I wasn’t comfortable with him being released and come back the following week to have the lung drained. It was a weekend and because our local hospital is so limited having fluid drained would have had to wait until during the week. He was admitted. and we didn’t expect what was going to happen the next day.

I came to the hospital the following day. The nurses told me he ate a good breakfast and wanted more! This was encouraging. He was fine through the morning, talked about things I needed to take of now. By early afternoon, he looked at me and said, “I am getting ready to go home now.” This wasn’t too concerning to me, because he was developing confusion due to a lack of adequate oxygen absorption. But then he drifted into a sleep. I began to wonder what home he was referring to? Did he mean Heaven?  The nurses tried to move him and wake him up. He opened his eyes for a short time, and then closed them. I was a wreck by then.

By dinner time he wasn’t awake to eat. They did give him fluids through an IV injection. The doctor who was on that weekend had ordered medication for him earlier in the afternoon. But by 8:30 pm, he called me and told me that Chet would be passing that night or in a few days. I still need to call him and get better explanations as to why this happened. It wasn’t expected.

By 10:50 pm, the night nurse was in the room with us. I turned around to get a tissue, and the nurse said he just stopped breathing. This put me over the edge with tears and such an awful feeling. The nurse said I can stay for as long as I wanted. I stayed another hour, I didn’t want to leave him, but I kissed him and left around 12:30pm. I was devastating. I will never stop missing him not being here.

I was very distraught for the entire month of October and November. It was so awful. The first cause of death on the death certificate was respiratory failure, second was the sarcoma. The sarcoma was just starting to return.

If you ever experienced a sudden lose, you know it rocks your world like a 9. plus earthquake. The life you knew is over. The most important parts of your life change instantly.

We never wanted a former funeral. Grief is tough! We had hoped that we could be remember for who we were in life. I then planned a Celebration of Life gathering for November 11, 2023.  I put the word out among many friends, neighbors and Chet’s former managers who he worked with, as well as other former co-workers.  Chet’s youngest brother (Jim) and wife (Ruth) came out from Connecticut. I was so happy to have them here for a week.

Chet was a field service engineer for Siemen’s Diagnostics. He repaired and maintained blood analyzer equipment that are in hospitals and labs. He was so well liked. I invited many of the people in labs he worked with. I expected 47 people, 30 people came. It was held at the Mission near to where we live.

On that day, when everyone arrived, I had the priest who prayed for Chet the night he passed, come and do some prayers before we had lunch.

After lunch, I talked about Chet’s background. A lot of people didn’t know his life before joining Siemen’s Diagnostics. My tribute is on my website. After that I invited others to talk. One of his co-workers broke down in sobbing tears. but talked so highly of Chet. Everyone did. Another man was hired because of Chet’s recommendation. Each of Chet’s former supervisors/managers also talked so well of Chet’s work ethics and how he became an expert in the work he did. One supervisor said that Chet taught him how to talk to customers. I have never heard any supervisor talk so highly of any employee. Not that this doesn’t exist. It was wonderful. When on of Chet’s former co-workers got up to talk he broke down in sobbing tears. It was so touching. Darrin and Chet started doing the same type of job at the same time, back in 1973. Others spoke also.

This room was filled with so much love and respect for Chet. He will be greatly missed by so many people. As for me I am still grieving. I will never get over not having him here every day. But my goal now is to take an accredited certification course in meditation and help others who are grieving or struggling.

I invite you to read my part of the tribute to Chet on my site.

I hope all of you will continue to stay with me as I continue to write. Please let me know if there is anything you want to know more about. I do a lot of research and I don’t leave details missed.

Thank you.