It was Sunday, November 1st. One of those days that you never forget. I had just left church and was concerned that I hadn't talked to my dad yet. I called to see if he had heard anything. You see, that morning at 12:30am, they had taken my mom to do a CT scan and see if they could figure out why she was feeling so terrible. She had been back in the hospital for almost a week and they couldn't seem to get her feeling any better. The day before, they had finally put in a NG Tube to depressurize her stomach and relieve the pressure, it was the first time in weeks that she felt good. But it didn't answer the of question why she was feeling so terrible. The Dr's concern was a bowel blockage. Dad had texted me in the middle of the night that she was done with the test, but that they had no results and he didn't know when he would have them. I had called him on my way to church and he didn't know anything.
This phone call was interrupted by the Dr. and dad told me he would call me back as soon as he was finished. When I hadn't heard from him over an hour later, I was definitely concerned. I finally decided to just call and see what was up. I could tell immediately that something was wrong, dad was upset and the first thing he said was, "Cindy, what do we do?", "what do I tell her?". I said, "Dad, just tell me what's wrong.". He said, "It's a bowel blockage." {At this point I still didn't think it could be that bad and I didn't know what the implications of a bowel blockage really were}. So, I said, "Ok, what do we do now?".
I guess what I didn't realize {and I'm not sure Dad realized it either}, was that having a blockage might mean the end of mom's fight. Dr. Bott had been concerned about a blockage from the very beginning, but I don't think any of us understood what it would mean if she really did have a blockage. So, dad said that we needed to talk to all the doctors and figure out what our options really were. He asked me what I thought we should do and who we should tell and I told him that maybe we should really figure out what it meant before we started telling everyone what was going on....especially since we didn't really even know. My Facebook post the next day said:
Having said all that, we have seen a complete change in mom in the last 48 hours!! She is talking better, she was up walking, wants a hamburger and said she could drink a 32oz Dr. Pepper right now. She is more herself than she has been in months and we know that it's a miracle that she is feeling so much better. She hardly has any ascites fluid draining and is not filling up or uncomfortable from the fluid. I talked to her on the phone this morning, and she was more alert and able to talk to me than she has been for a very long time! We are confident that God CAN work miracles. We know that if it's his will, she can be healed. We trust in His plan and know that He has the power to perform miracles.
We ask that you continue to pray for his grace and mercy to be with us. We ask that you pray for clarity of thought and for peace. We ask that you pray that the bowel blockage will correct itself. Basically, we are asking that you pray for a miracle. WE really need one right now.
Mom was more herself those next few days than she had been for months. She drank as much Dr. Pepper as she wanted and was feeling fantastic. Which made the next part of our journey SO much harder. What it really came down to was there was nothing we could do about the cancer. It was responding to the chemotherapy and we are pretty sure the blockage was caused by the cancer, so there really wasn't anything the GI surgeon could do, he couldn't cut into the cancer, he couldn't cut out her small intestine, he couldn't fix the blockage and she couldn't live with it. So, with very, very heavy hearts, this was our next update.
"Look unto me in every thought, Doubt Not, Fear Not"
This post is the hardest thing I've ever had to write. I want you to know that miracles have NOT ceased, that God IS real, and that Heavenly promises are always kept. Of this we are sure.
We can not operate on the bowel obstruction. Mom is too full of cancer and they probably wouldn't even be able to get through the cancer to the bowels. The chemo has not changed anything. The tumor has changed very little and may even have grown since the last scan. There is also a spot on her liver and pancreas that are probably cancer. As a family, we have made the very difficult decision to stop all treatment and let her rest in the arms of her Lord and Savior.
We will take her home from the hospital under hospice care and spend the remainder of our time with her sharing the sweet peace that we have all felt as a family in the last few months. We are so grateful for this time we have had to share, to laugh and to just be together.
We are so grateful for all of your love, service, prayers, faith, fasting and concern for our family the last few months. We take comfort in the knowledge that we did everything we could. Mom is a warrior and she fought with everything she had, Dad says she is one of the most beautiful woman that God ever created. We are heartbroken, but we know that we will be with her again and we trust that this is God's will. We know we are at the "But if not" point and we still have faith that he has not forsaken us.
We ask that you respect the remaining time we have together as a family. We will update you when we are ready. If you want to share a message with our family, please feel free to mail it, email it to me or comment here and I will make sure our family get it. {cameronjlt at gmail dot com}
His promises are sure!!
"For I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up"
And then we all started making plans to go to Utah to spend the remaining time with our family. Mom wanted two things, a family testimony meeting and Michael McLean to sing at her funeral. {really mom?} We planned the family testimony meeting for Saturday November 7th and we called all her family. We took to the internet and started trying to figure out how we were going to find Michael McLean.
On Thursday of that week, Skylar was able to call mom and dad from his mission in the Dominican Republic. His MTC president let them talk for over an hour and I got to listen to most of it. It was a very humbling and sacred experience. Skylar is an amazing young man. I'm not sure I would have been so composed or full of faith at his young age of 18. He listened, he cried and he taught us. He is a remarkable missionary. He told us that he knew that God had a plan and that he had faith that he was right were he was supposed to be. He told us that he knew mom would want him to stay and that he was willing to put his Faith in God and continue to serve. Mom promised him that she would come to him everyday and help him, that she would help him with his Spanish and that she would even make sure his girlfriend waited for him while he served. {I believe she even told him that she would hold and rock his sweet babies before they came down to earth.} It was an amazing experience to have with your parents and youngest brother.
Friday evening, Ryan, Jason, Tanner and I were all flying into SLC to be with mom and dad. Amber and Dad had a VERY long day getting everything worked out and getting mom home from the hospital. When we got to their house at almost midnight that night the hospice nurse was just leaving from dropping off the medicine. She was still awake, but was exhausted. It was SO good to see her!! I've missed you so much and I can't begin to fathom what we are going to have to go through in the coming weeks, but I was so, so grateful to be in Utah with my whole family.
The first thing she wanted me to do the next morning was wash her hair, and do her nails. So, that is what we did. I painted her nails teal, beautiful long teal nails for the first time in her whole life, she has beautiful long natural nails. She loved them and everyone commented about how pretty they were!!
Mom's friend Dana brought her a Dr. Pepper necklace, she LOVED it and didn't ever take it off. {The morning that she died, I took it off her neck and then Dana got a special one with angel wings for Amber and I. I will never look at a Dr. Pepper and not think of my sweet mamma!!}
We prepared for our special family testimony meeting. We had asked everyone to wear their Team Cindy shirts to support mom. I loved the unity we all felt. It was a very sacred feeling that day in our home as we prepared for a special evening. We were all tense, stressed and afraid of what was to come, but we were all united as a family. We were there together and that was the most important part. We worked out all the details to have Skylar Facetime with mom that evening and we were so blessed that she was awake and coherent and did great through the testimony meeting. Skylar called about 5:00 that evening and we Facetimed for a few minutes, but it wasn't a very good connection, so finally we just had him call on the phone and we put him on speaker phone. He bore a VERY strong testimony of the Gospel and his love for mom and the Plan of Salvation. {honestly, I thought he sounded like an apostle a few times!} Mom bore her testimony to him, it was simple and beautiful. She always just believed and she wasn't afraid to share it. She knows that God is real and that His Gospel is the ONLY way. After mom Skylar asked each one of the siblings to share their testimonies, and then Dad shared his. It was beautiful and amazing and a wonderful spiritual feast. It's one of those nights that we will never forget.
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| Mom's family: Grandma Jenson, Karri, Terrie, Tammie, Kala, Tim, Mom and John |
Towards the end of Skylar's time {he had a little over an hour}, he asked to Facetime with mom again and say good-bye. It was HEART WRENCHING to watch your 18 year old brother say good-bye to his mother for the last time. My heart was broken and I was so sad for him. I am sad for me, but I can't even imagine being 18 and losing her. He is amazing and so strong!!
After we hung up with Skylar everyone else who wanted to share their feelings or stories had a chance to share, it was a fun, emotional, spiritual, uplifting and yet sad and heartbreaking evening. I'm so grateful we had the opportunity to share our feelings and our love for our sweet mother. It was truly a blessing that none of us take for granted. A few people have asked if they thought it was better for someone to just be gone and not have to live through the final days with them, knowing they were going to die and I'm not going to lie, that week was HARD. One of the hardest in my life, BUT, I would NEVER give up that week we had with mom. It was one of the most spiritual and bonding experiences in my life. We were able to tell her what we wanted to, hold her hand, give her hugs, cry with her and we all can be at peace knowing that we have NO REGRETS!! {I'm SO grateful for the tender mercies that made it possible for my family to be with my mom this weekend!}
After the testimony meeting, mom asked each of her kids to stay there because she had our Christmas presents for us. {Of course she did, why am I surprised?}. Mom has always loved Christmas and she had told me when I was at her house in September that she had already purchased our Christmas gifts earlier that year and that she was inspired to get them all because she knew that with her being so sick this year that she wasn't going to have a chance to get Christmas done. Amber and Dad spent the day getting the note written in our books and wrapping the presents, and that evening she presented us with the most appropriate gift I would have ever thought of, a statue of the Christus. Nothing would be more appropriate as a final Christmas gift from our beautiful mother. The Savior meant everything to her. She lived her testimony everyday and I will forever cherish this early reminder of her sweet testimony to me.
She also gave us two books, "One Little Match" and "I will NOT leave you Comfortless".
The next day my boys had to say good-bye to mamma. It was heartbreaking all over again to know that they would never see her again in this life. They did amazing, but man, I don't know how many more REALLY HARD things I can handle. The flew home to Chicago so that Tanner wouldn't miss any school until they needed to come back for the funeral.
LOTS of people sent their love and support to mamma, lots of visitors came, lots of tears were shed, lots of hearts were breaking. At one point mom said to me, "Do I have to keep doing this? I can't keep telling ALL these people good-bye, it's too hard." I told Dad that I thought we needed to limit the visitors and that we needed to let each of us spend some of our own time with her. The hospice nurse that was coming every day said that she was declining rapidly and that she wouldn't be with us for too much longer. (Tuesday morning was the last time we took her to the bathroom, that afternoon they put in a catheter and she didn't get out of the chair again.) I loved watching my sweet brothers take care of her, they were so compassionate and so helpful. I know how hard it was for all of us, but it was such a sweet experience at the same time.
We still hadn't heard anything from Michael McLean....so I took to social media to see what I could do, surely SOMEONE knew how to get in touch with him. I posted on my Facebook page and literally within 5 minutes I had a direct contact and several people working on getting in touch with him. We sent an email to a friend who was going to forward it on to Michael. And then we waited.....and prayed.
Tuesday morning, Michael called my dad. {WHAT?} He scheduled to come sing to mom at our house the next day. Mom was so funny, she woke up at 6am the next day and started asking us when he was going to be here, telling us we needed to clean the house and asking me if I had made cookies for him and if I had them on the tray yet. Well, he said he would be here between 12-1pm, so we have a while mom, we were trying to clean the house, and YES, I made cookies. and I would put them on the tray when they were frosted. I loved that she was still telling us what to do. I loved that she was still worried about all the details, it was so like mom. Finally, about 12:40, he came. The house was all ready, the cookies were on the tray and we were all there waiting for him.
He came right in the house and went straight to mom's bedside, and started talking to her. He was barely aware that we were even in the room, it was so sweet. He was so compassionate, so loving, so aware of our pain. {He has done this 3 times in the last 2 years with his dad and his wife's parents}. He talked to us, sang to us, shared his heart with us and we are forever changed because of his love and willingness to share his talents. His music had always soothed my heart, his songs are some of my favorites and helped me through some very rough times in High School. They still had the same power over me during this difficult time. He sang 4 songs, one of them I had never heard but it has become one of my favorites. He sang, "I don't Understand", "Hold on The Light Will Come", "You're Not Alone" and of course, "Together Forever Someday". It was a very spiritual and emotional day for our family. We love you Michael. We will never be able to thank you enough for the sacrifice you made to make our mamma's last wish come true.
The next few days were full of peace, joy, tears, sorrow, hurt, anger, love, and many prayers. I have never been in a more peaceful setting. Our house felt a little like heaven, the closest thing I can compare it to is the spirit felt in the temple. The veil was so thin. Mom stopped responding and mostly slipped into a coma Wednesday evening. It was mostly like she was just asleep, but every once in a while her hands would move involuntarily and she would get aggravated because she wanted water, but she could barely swallow. I used a syringe for a few times to help her get a little water into her mouth, we used an ice cube and rubbed it on her lips a few times. and then she would settle down.
I rubbed her feet with lotion and we did everything we could to help her stay comfortable. We got really good at giving her all her meds and taking care of her, but I NEVER want to be a nurse!!
I have to tell you a funny story, one morning she was convinced she had another hospital cup. She had these plastic cups that she got from the hospital and she KNEW that she had three of them. {we had been using 2 of them at this point}. SO we search and found the third one and filled it for her. Within a few minutes she decided that there were FOUR cups. {Oh no, is this going to keep going?}. Joanna went to her house and got a cup for her {sorry mamma!} and we filled it up....she KNEW exactly what cups she had always, she knew what was in them, she wanted them all full, ALL the time. She was very specific, Dr. Pepper, water, Mt. Dew and a Squirt, but then the squirt was too fizzy, so we went with 2 waters and a Dr. Pepper and a Mt. Dew. We kept them on the table just how she liked them, even after she was in a coma and couldn't drink. Oh mamma, you and the silly cups.
My sweet husband was so worried about me. He was home in Chicago and contacted a friend in Utah who delivered these beautiful red roses and a dirty diet coke to me. He felt so bad that he couldn't be with me, he really is the sweetest man and I am lucky to have him!!
There was a lot of hand holding, a lot of crying, a lot of laying on the floor by mom's side, a lot of pain and suffering, a lot of love and wonderful spirit of love and harmony in our home. It was a very sacred time.
Thursday night we gave mom a blessing of release. We all gathered around her chair and the boys gave her a blessing that she could leave when she was ready. It was a very humbling and sacred time with her. We knew her time with us was short and she was fading pretty fast. I was not ready to say good-bye or to move to the next phase, but I knew that she couldn't stay here in her physical body. My heart was broken that I had to lose my mamma, but my spirit was comforted and strengthened by my Savior who was walking this journey with me.
Friday night we gathered as a team and took this final picture with mom. We knew her time was close, her breathing had changed and we knew that it would be soon. Jeff had decided to spend the night and he said he would stay on the couch with mom that night. It was the first night that Amber and I slept all night long. Ryan came down about 3am and he said he knew mom was breathing really different, but he didn't want to stay so he just went back to bed. Jeff woke up about 4:30am and he said he felt the entire room was full of people. He said he felt Grandpa Hal come and get mom and when he was fully awake and went to check, she was gone. She left this mortal existence at 5:00am Saturday, November 14th, 2015 and we will never be the same. We have forever been changed by this experience, by her love for each one of us, by her example, by her spirit and by the spirit of the Holy Ghost and the lessons we have learned. We are better. We are more compassionate, more loving, more understanding, more thoughtful, more aware, and more like the Savior. #TeamCindy will forever and always be our name and #DoubtNotFearNot will forever be our motto. WE LOVE YOU MAMMA!!!!!
My Facebook post said:
My sweet celestial mother, Cindy McDonald passed through the veil into eternal life at 5am this morning. She was surrounded by loved ones from the other side of the veil and we each had tender experiences as we felt her presence comforting us early this morning.
She is finally free of the pain and healed from this terrible disease that has wracked her physical body for the last 4 months.
We love her so much and will miss her physically on the earth, but we know she is in heaven with her father and holding her sweet grandbabies. We know that our family WILL be Together Forever someday!!!
"Doubt Not, Fear Not" TEAM CINDY FOR ETERNITY
#teamcindy #doubtnotfearnot #cancersucks #inhishands #tendermercies #mymomismyhero #loveyamamma #miracleshappeneveryday #foreverfamily
