Around the first of March Jon developed yet another bout of pneumonia in his right lung. Twin Rivers started him on a round of antibiotic but on the third or fourth day he became significantly worse. They called an ambulance to take him over to Defiance Regional and sometime between the time the EMTs got there and the delivery across the street his heart stopped and they administered CPR and intubated him for a breathing problem they saw developing.
Defiance Regional ran some tests and thought they saw something near his heart so made arrangements with Toledo Hospital’s cardiology department. He was life-flighted to the hospital. They ran more tests and by the time we got there they had ruled out heart problems and were concentrating on his pneumonia.
Within days, his right lung was full and the left lung started filling up. In order to help him breathe he had another tracheotomy...which meant he couldn’t talk. He really hates having to repeat things over and over but none of us have gotten very good at lip reading.
Days spread into weeks and the weeks went to a month before he could be taken out of the ICU. He needed to be weened off the respirator, something neither nursing home in Waterville or Defiance could do so he was taken to Advanced Specialty in Toledo. It was there that we learned Jon had developed ESBL, a condition where the antibiotic becomes ineffective. He has only a few antibiotics available for both pneumonias and urinary tract infections.
It took another month to get to the point where he could come back to Twin Rivers. He still could not get out of bed because his bed sores were so bad. By the time his sores would tolerate being in a chair for an hour he was too depressed to try. Toledo Hospital had put him back on tube feedings and he lost all interest in going back to regular food.
He was feeling fairly well toward the end of June and on the 4th of July he went outside to watch the fireworks. His birthday came on the 9th and he had developed another case of pneumonia. Thankfully, that did not develop into a serious condition but it did prevent him from coming to the house for a birthday celebration. He wasn’t even allowed out of his room for fear something would happen that required immediate attention.
August and September came with beautiful weather and we tried to get him to agree to riding in the van to go to Independence Dam. He wouldn’t even go sit outside much less take a short trip!
Late September or early October Jon began talking about wanting to die. It was with a heavy heart we finally agreed to have hospice evaluate him to see if he could be admitted to their program. They could see where the pneumonias and UTIs were not only coming in more rapid progression but were significantly worse so he was admitted to the program.
He was taken off many medications, including the blood thinner for his clots. He had clots backed all the way up his legs and the filter which had been installed several years earlier had become clogged.
When he had his first serious bout with low oxygen in his blood on Nov. 3rd we thought perhaps a blood clot had worked its way around the filter and lodged in his lungs. He was running a fever and the nurses were sure he would not make it through the next 24 hours. I scurried around and got all his paperwork sent in for donating his body to the U of Toledo’s body donation program. Then Carol noticed that Jon’s eyes were open a bit and started talking to him. It wasn’t too long before he was making a recovery which astonished the nurses and us! Soon he was asking about her birthday party and what we were going to eat. He actually intended to eat something with us. We were amazed because earlier he had refused to even come to her party even if we had it at Twin Rivers. He did get dressed, came to the dining room, ate 5 or 6 small bites of KFC chicken and carried on conversations with us. He even was up in his chair visiting people the next few days.
We got past her birthday on the 7th but he had another oxygen level problem on the 13th. Again his nails turned blue and his readings were in the 40s and 50 percent range and again had a fever. He even had some of the mottling of the skin that indicates body functions were shutting down. His breathing became very rough and his sleep apnea was quite obvious. He would take 9 quick breaths and then wait 6-7 seconds before taking his next breath. He did come out of that but it was at this point that Carol had decided that she wasn’t going to leave his side. She ate and slept at the facility. He was a little better but on the “loopy” side. He asked Angelique one day “to comb his arm.” We think that was a combination of blood oxygen deprivation and a reaction to the hourly doses of morphine he was getting.
Wednesday, the 18th, his blood oxygen fell into the 40s again, his breathing looked like what I describe “as a baby elephant kicking him in the ribs.” His nailbeds were blue again and the undersides of the tips of his fingers were quite dark. A breathing treatment seemed to pull him out of it and his oxygen readings were back in the 90s where they should have been. He had a relatively decent night’s sleep.
The next day the aide from hospice came and gave Jon a bath and shaved him. Shortly afterward he had trouble breathing again and that was when he passed on, around 11:15 a.m.
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