Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Estate Sale
We set a date today for the estate sale. It will be February 11th & 12th, the second Friday and Saturday in February. We have a lot of work to do before the estate company comes in, but things are going faster than we thought they would.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Service Slide Show
Thank you all that made it to Mom's service, we appreciated having you there. And those that weren't able to make it, don't worry about it, Mom knows you were there in spirit, and so do we.
I'm not sure what was going on with the slideshow when it was showing on the walls, it didn't glitch like that when we tested it, so here it is on YouTube.
I'll work on keeping up on this blog, letting you know what's going on with Brooke and I. Things are probably going to be a bit hectic over the next few months, with taking care of legal and financial stuff, as well as the house, but it'll just be a different kind of hectic. =)
Love y'all.
I'm not sure what was going on with the slideshow when it was showing on the walls, it didn't glitch like that when we tested it, so here it is on YouTube.
I'll work on keeping up on this blog, letting you know what's going on with Brooke and I. Things are probably going to be a bit hectic over the next few months, with taking care of legal and financial stuff, as well as the house, but it'll just be a different kind of hectic. =)
Love y'all.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Obituary
Mom's obituary has been printed in the Tri-Valley Herald and the other papers in their news group. It has also been posted online: Pat's Obituary.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Memorial Service
Mom's memorial service is being held on Saturday, 12/11/10, at 11am PST. She's also having a simultaneous one held in Iowa at 11am CST
Mom wanted donations to go to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, and flowers are being provided by Bloomies on Main here in Pleasanton. Their number is 925-931-1290, and we're working with Sarah. Just let her know it's for the Mensing memorial, and she'll put together a beautiful coordinating arrangement.
Sorry folks, this is all the energy I have right now. I haven't slept much in the last couple months, and REALLY haven't slept much in the last couple weeks, so I'm running on average three to four hours a night... I'm an eight hour girl. I'm doing my best to just not get a cold. Love you all, love your support, we appreciate you more than you could know, and we look forward to seeing you next Saturday, even if it had to be under these circumstances.
Mom wanted donations to go to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, and flowers are being provided by Bloomies on Main here in Pleasanton. Their number is 925-931-1290, and we're working with Sarah. Just let her know it's for the Mensing memorial, and she'll put together a beautiful coordinating arrangement.
Sorry folks, this is all the energy I have right now. I haven't slept much in the last couple months, and REALLY haven't slept much in the last couple weeks, so I'm running on average three to four hours a night... I'm an eight hour girl. I'm doing my best to just not get a cold. Love you all, love your support, we appreciate you more than you could know, and we look forward to seeing you next Saturday, even if it had to be under these circumstances.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Stories and Pictures
I'll elaborate on this post after I finish a few things that need to be done during business hours.
We're working on a slide show of pictures of Mom, and we're looking for your help. If you have digital pictures, email them to the celebrate_pat@yahoo.com email address, or if there's too many photos (absolutely nothing wrong with that, we'd love to have them), you can drop off a CD here at the house, I'll send you the address. If you have hard copy photos, and can't get them scanned, just drop them off here, and I'll scan them. I'll make sure they get returned to you in the same condition, I know just how precious hard copy photos can be.
Please make sure all hard copy photos are dropped off by Sunday, and all digital photos are in to me by Tuesday. This will give me time to go through them, edit, put them in a good order for the music they'll be going to. This meant a LOT LOT LOT to Mom, so it means a lot to Brooke and I. Please help us.
The second thing Mom REALLY wanted was stories. Memories you have of her, with her, etc. There may be an opportunity to say these at the service, there may not, we're not sure yet, but Brooke and I would love to have the memories of Mom for us, and to pass on to future generations. Again, please send those to the celebrate_pat@yahoo.com email.
Thank you.
We're working on a slide show of pictures of Mom, and we're looking for your help. If you have digital pictures, email them to the celebrate_pat@yahoo.com email address, or if there's too many photos (absolutely nothing wrong with that, we'd love to have them), you can drop off a CD here at the house, I'll send you the address. If you have hard copy photos, and can't get them scanned, just drop them off here, and I'll scan them. I'll make sure they get returned to you in the same condition, I know just how precious hard copy photos can be.
Please make sure all hard copy photos are dropped off by Sunday, and all digital photos are in to me by Tuesday. This will give me time to go through them, edit, put them in a good order for the music they'll be going to. This meant a LOT LOT LOT to Mom, so it means a lot to Brooke and I. Please help us.
The second thing Mom REALLY wanted was stories. Memories you have of her, with her, etc. There may be an opportunity to say these at the service, there may not, we're not sure yet, but Brooke and I would love to have the memories of Mom for us, and to pass on to future generations. Again, please send those to the celebrate_pat@yahoo.com email.
Thank you.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Gone, but Never Forgotten
On Monday, November 29, 2010, at 9:08pm PST, Mom passed away.
She'd been having a hard time, and even though she was getting as much hydration as she was, she was dehydrated. She had just started on another 500mL of TPN to help counter balance that. Saturday morning at 5:30am, her ostomy bag was emptied (she started leaking the day before), and that was the last time she had output. We changed her bag that night, and I was concerned that there hadn't been anything out of the bag, so I called her doctor and one of her nurses from the infusion center to try and figure out what could be going on. They both said it sounded like a complete bowel obstruction.
I called the home health nurse, because I wanted someone to physically look at Mom, so the next morning (Sunday) the nurse came out. She confirmed that it was a complete obstruction, and said to just make Mom as comfortable as possible. All three of them, when asked how this would affect Mom's longevity of life, they all gave her a week or less. There is only one thing more heartbreaking than hearing that your mom only has about a week to live.
Monday morning, Mom's regular home health nurse came in, took labs, and checked Mom out for things like edema, bed sores, temp, BP, and pulse... the usual. Mom was in excruciating pain, probably from the obstruction. When she wasn't sleeping, she was throwing up. I'd change her bed linens, comforters and pillows (not just their cases) three times a night sometimes. Liquid morphine under her tongue was her only saving grace. The nurse took Mom off the TPN because all the nutrients were making her body work to process them, and that was putting too much of a strain on her system.
We made plans to get their hospice in, which was different than the other hospice organization we had been talking to. This one that does home health will use IVs in their hospice care, including a 24-hour morphine drip, so I just had to talk to the pharmacist Monday evening to figure out what dose of morphine to give her, based on what she'd been taking under her tongue. She'd also have a bolus for breakthrough pain, and she could have a piggyback of saline, just in case she needed a little bit of hydration. The nurse was scheduled to arrive 9am Tuesday morning.
I was sitting downstairs, talking to my cousin and listening to Mom on the baby monitor. Brooke got this brilliant idea that, since Mom tends to get a little wobbly sometimes when she walks, to get a baby monitor so she can just say our names and we'd hear her so we could help her do whatever it was she needed. This particular model has one baby unit (in Mom's room), and two parent units (we kept one in the family room and one upstairs in whatever bedroom we were sleeping in). Mom was sounding a bit congested in her breathing, like she'd been all night, and morphine slows you down to about 8 breaths per minute (try doing that... it's not easy), so things were status quo. Then her breathing sped up a bit... not fast for a normal person, but fast for her. By the time I got upstairs, she was quiet. I checked to see if she was breathing, tried waking her up, nothing worked. I was crying, screaming, shaking her with all my might, trying to get her to open her eyes, to no avail. My cousin came up, pulled me off of her, and told me that she's gone. THAT is the most heartbreaking thing a person can hear.
The fire department came, confirmed things medically. The police came, because they have to investigate every in-home death just to check for foul play, and later on, the crematorium came to pick her up. We went to bed around 4am. Is it creepy that I slept in Mom's bed, on her side?
So the memorial service in California will be on Saturday, 12/11/10 at 11am. It will be held at Trinity Lutheran Church, 1225 Hopyard Road, Pleasanton. And yes, we'd love for you to come, even if we don't know you, you care enough about Mom to keep up with her status.
I'll update this post with the info for the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation that donations can be made to. I also have a Facebook page that I update (Olivia Mensing), I maintain Mom's Facebook page (Pat Mensing), and there's an event on Facebook for the memorial, not that an RSVP is needed. =)
She'd been having a hard time, and even though she was getting as much hydration as she was, she was dehydrated. She had just started on another 500mL of TPN to help counter balance that. Saturday morning at 5:30am, her ostomy bag was emptied (she started leaking the day before), and that was the last time she had output. We changed her bag that night, and I was concerned that there hadn't been anything out of the bag, so I called her doctor and one of her nurses from the infusion center to try and figure out what could be going on. They both said it sounded like a complete bowel obstruction.
I called the home health nurse, because I wanted someone to physically look at Mom, so the next morning (Sunday) the nurse came out. She confirmed that it was a complete obstruction, and said to just make Mom as comfortable as possible. All three of them, when asked how this would affect Mom's longevity of life, they all gave her a week or less. There is only one thing more heartbreaking than hearing that your mom only has about a week to live.
Monday morning, Mom's regular home health nurse came in, took labs, and checked Mom out for things like edema, bed sores, temp, BP, and pulse... the usual. Mom was in excruciating pain, probably from the obstruction. When she wasn't sleeping, she was throwing up. I'd change her bed linens, comforters and pillows (not just their cases) three times a night sometimes. Liquid morphine under her tongue was her only saving grace. The nurse took Mom off the TPN because all the nutrients were making her body work to process them, and that was putting too much of a strain on her system.
We made plans to get their hospice in, which was different than the other hospice organization we had been talking to. This one that does home health will use IVs in their hospice care, including a 24-hour morphine drip, so I just had to talk to the pharmacist Monday evening to figure out what dose of morphine to give her, based on what she'd been taking under her tongue. She'd also have a bolus for breakthrough pain, and she could have a piggyback of saline, just in case she needed a little bit of hydration. The nurse was scheduled to arrive 9am Tuesday morning.
I was sitting downstairs, talking to my cousin and listening to Mom on the baby monitor. Brooke got this brilliant idea that, since Mom tends to get a little wobbly sometimes when she walks, to get a baby monitor so she can just say our names and we'd hear her so we could help her do whatever it was she needed. This particular model has one baby unit (in Mom's room), and two parent units (we kept one in the family room and one upstairs in whatever bedroom we were sleeping in). Mom was sounding a bit congested in her breathing, like she'd been all night, and morphine slows you down to about 8 breaths per minute (try doing that... it's not easy), so things were status quo. Then her breathing sped up a bit... not fast for a normal person, but fast for her. By the time I got upstairs, she was quiet. I checked to see if she was breathing, tried waking her up, nothing worked. I was crying, screaming, shaking her with all my might, trying to get her to open her eyes, to no avail. My cousin came up, pulled me off of her, and told me that she's gone. THAT is the most heartbreaking thing a person can hear.
The fire department came, confirmed things medically. The police came, because they have to investigate every in-home death just to check for foul play, and later on, the crematorium came to pick her up. We went to bed around 4am. Is it creepy that I slept in Mom's bed, on her side?
So the memorial service in California will be on Saturday, 12/11/10 at 11am. It will be held at Trinity Lutheran Church, 1225 Hopyard Road, Pleasanton. And yes, we'd love for you to come, even if we don't know you, you care enough about Mom to keep up with her status.
I'll update this post with the info for the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation that donations can be made to. I also have a Facebook page that I update (Olivia Mensing), I maintain Mom's Facebook page (Pat Mensing), and there's an event on Facebook for the memorial, not that an RSVP is needed. =)
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