Heartburn....Who would have known it would lead to this?

Bringing things up-to-date

It all started on May 20th, 2006 in Spokane, Washington. We were there for when I was competing in the Spokane Truck Championship and representing my company Interstate Distributor Company. At first, he was complaining of heartburn and gas. It seemed that he couldn't get enough antacids to work fast enough or long enough. It wasn't really too bad at first.

Then a few days later, Keoni began to have more gas than usual. We figured that things were finally working and his heartburn would soon be relieved. Well, it was, but it was quickly replaced with constipation. Antacids were now replaced with many different kinds of laxatives, stool softeners and enemas. Seemed he just couldn't get any relief at all. Bowel movements were becoming few and far between.

That was then followed with a loss of appetite and sleepless nights. Keoni couldn't seem to get enough sleep at all, or stay asleep for very long. A couple short cat naps in his recliner and maybe an hour or two in bed. He was getting very uncomfortable. Bowel movements were still not relieving any of the pressure or heartburn he was still feeling.

Then on Thursday, June 1st, 2006 at 9pm, after he had made a wonderful Chicken Stroganoff dinner for me for when I came home from work, he was complaining of severe pressure and his stomach on fire. He couldn't take the pain anymore. He figured that his intestines were blocked or something. So, we headed to the hospital. The emergency room was all that was available since it was after normal working hours.

After what seemed an eternity in the waiting room, they finally assigned a bed to Keoni. First orders, to provide a urine sample. It was quite dark and red. Looked much like it does when he doesn't drink much water at all, yet he was downing the water the past several days as though the wells were going to go dry soon.

Another eternity in the emergency room. I was falling asleep in the very uncomfortable chair that was next to the wall. I had my feet propped up on one of the rails under Keoni's bed. My head rested on the wall behind me as I bobbed back and forth in and out of sleep. I was exhausted from a long day at work doing my job as a Trucking Instructor.

The doctor finally shows up and goes through his long list of questions. Health problems....Keoni lists to the doctor, "Cirrhosis of the liver, Hepatitis C, Morphine for his back that he broke several years ago, Diabetes (insulin dependant), a stint in his liver put in there back in 1998, and the list of medication that he is currently on to keep him alive.

The Doc then takes one look at his urine sample and says that it looks like he has kidney stones. They order a CT scan to take a look. It was going to be another 3 hours at least before that was all completed after they get the technicians there, the scan and then the results. By the time the doctor tells us this, it is now 11:30pm and I am truly exhausted and am facing having to go back to work the next morning. I was teaching a class that day and needed to be as close to tip-top shape as possible. There were no subs available to take over my class. It was decided that since we only lived 3 miles from the hospital, that Keoni would stay to have the procedure done and then just take a cab home. We were both okay with that together.

At 5am, a half hour before my alarm was to go off, Keoni returns home. He said that the scan didn't show any kidney stones at all and said the doctor figured that he had already passed them. "No way," Keoni said, "I would have known if I had passed any."

Some medication was prescribed for Keoni to take to dissolve any possible other stones that may have been in his system that the CT scan didn't pick up. He fills the prescription on Friday morning and begins taking the meds. That afternoon, he also goes in and sees his regular doctor. A report was taken and documented and he was basically sent on his way. Nothing really was done since the scans didn't show anything conclusive at all.

Monday, the 5th of June, 2006, I get off work at about 3:30pm. I call home to tell Keoni that I was off work and headed home now. He tells me that he's not there, but that he is back in the emergency room per doctors’ orders. He said that the doc ordered an x-ray to see if that would produce any results as to why he was having such constipation problems and if there was any blockages at all. I meet Keoni at the hospital and stay for about an hour. Again, we decide for me to go home and he could just drive home when things are all done.

He gets home at about 9:30pm, about a 1/2 hour after I have already gone to bed for the night. He told me that they found something in the x-rays. He had an enormous backup of fluids in his abdominal area. He said that, that could be just as bad as a blockage. They gave him two shots of lasix in his legs to try to relieve the fluid in his body. It had also been noted that he had not been taking his Furosimide for the past week. He figured that he didn't need it while he was trying to relieve the constipation at all.

The days go on and things seem to just get worse. He can't sleep, he can barely eat. Just a few bites and he is full. Keoni says that he is starving and exhausted. He no longer sleeps in bed with me because it is too uncomfortable when I roll over and make the bed move. He spends most of his time sleeping in the recliner or just sitting there watching TV all night because he can't sleep. The dog jumps in his lap and Keoni throws a fit because the dogs’ paws touched his stomach that creates extreme pain. Our dog is only a small Min-Pin and weighs about 12 pounds.

Wednesday, June 14th, 2006, Keoni goes back to his doctor. He gets weighed in again. Both Keoni and the doctor are surprised to see what the scale is telling them. He has hardly eaten in the past 3 weeks. He barely goes to the bathroom, except he does urinate a lot. In one week, he put on 12 pounds. It seemed unreal. His blue jeans are becoming uncomfortable to zip up. He constantly undoes his buckle and button when he sits down. His shirts are getting close to being too hard to button up. He is now in unbearable and uncomfortable pain. The doctor says that they need to order up a procedure called Paracentesis. He said that it is something where they use a sonogram and a needle to remove the fluid in his abdomen.

The doctor also said that they will have to get a hold of his liver doctor. That was all on Wednesday. This is now Friday, June 16th, 2006. Nothing has been done or said about this procedure, yet. Keoni is getting desperate and is still in much pain. We went to dinner tonight and he ordered soup. He took about 5 bites of it and took the rest home. He couldn't get any more than that down. He was also falling asleep at the table. We stopped at the local drug store and picked up his meds. He is getting some Spiranolactone, a lasix that he used to take a couple of years ago, but his liver doctor took him off of them.

We used to go fishing in the evenings, go to the mall on the weekends and just window shop, drive around the mountains in the area, take pictures of whatever we desired, go to Seattle to Pikes Market and just stroll around or just sit around the house and watch TV on my days off. Now, it seems that all we do is sit around the house and watch TV on my days off, when I come home from work and any time in between. I hate going places without him, so I have been kind of housebound....cabin fever is setting in a little. So, I will be going out on Sunday, June 18th, 2006 on a photo stroll with some fellow photographers. Keoni won't go with me this time. The first time he hasn't gone with me anywhere. He has opted to stay home and relax, but encouraged me to go on and have fun. I will try, but I know that a part of me will be missing out there in the nature walks and the photo shoots.

At 10:44pm on Friday, June 16th, 2006, Keoni is sleeping in bed now. He has been there for about a 1/2 hour so far. I am going to close this portion of the diary and slip into bed next to him and hope that he gets a nice sound sleep tonight. I can't get comfortable next to him like we used to. He would lie on his side, I'd snuggle up behind him and put one leg on his side. He can't even lay on his side anymore without extreme pain and I can't even lay my arm on him now. A barrier is between us not because we can't get along, but because he is in such pain otherwise.

Well, goodnight for now, as I am getting quite tired myself. It has been a long day at work. Until next post....

Hospitalized

Well, today, Saturday the 17th of June, was going fairly well. Keoni was walking around a little. Then he was getting very sleepy, so he decided to take a nap. He stayed in bed for about an hour and came back out. That is about the way it has been going all month. He just couldn't seem to get comfortable enough to stay asleep.

Then we had some lunch. He nibbled on a little bit of chicken noodle soup that I got for him. Two bites, that was all he could muster into his stomach. He set the bowl of soup down and decided to go outside for a moment. There he stood, leaning forward against a small tree stump we use to anchor down our awning on our house. He was moaning in pain. He was also getting disgusted because he was so exhausted and starving.

"Call the doctor and see if they can do the Paracentisis procedure today," he said. He was quite firm about it too. I went in and called the hospital. They said that no one was there right now to do anything like that. Not until Monday unless his doctor could get someone in.

I called his Doctor. We were connected to the on-call physician. She said that we could go to emergency, but being the weekend, couldn't promise anything. The soonest anything like that could be done would be Monday. I repeated back what she had said and Keoni began to cry and moan in pain again.

"Monday! I can't wait until then. I'm dying now!" He sat back down in his chair, closed his eyes and began crying a little while he was rubbing his rather large stomach. He looked like he was about 9 1/2 months pregnant.

We hung up from the physician and decided to go to the emergency room to try our luck. That was at 9pm when we arrived just 3 miles from our house. The waiting room was full of all kinds of people. Little kids, adults and older folks. We knew we were in for the long haul. I was glad it was on a weekend and not a weekday since I would have been facing going to work extremely tired again.

We checked in and Keoni was given a wheelchair so that he wouldn't have to keep getting up and down when they took him to different people that would take his vitals, collect his paperwork and health history.

Other people that were coming in got first dibs on a bed in the emergency room for one thing or another. One young gal looked like she was having appendix problems. A guy came in holding a blood soaked towel to his head. The ambulance team was busy bringing in party goers that got a bit rambunctious and a few that had too much to drink and decided to drive themselves home. So, needless to say, we were put at the end of the line countless times during the night.

Finally at about 1:30am Sunday morning, he got called in and was given a bed in the emergency room. The ambulance shows up one more time with a guy that fell off a balcony and possibly broke his back. Here we go again. Our foot is in the door, but we still can't quite get in.

I decide that since Keoni is comfortable in bed and in fairly good hands that I'd go home to get some sleep. We only live 3 miles from the hospital, so if he got released during the night, it wouldn't be too hard to jump in the car and pick him up.

I finally find some rest after a warm shower. I fall into a deep sleep. If the neighbors were partying again, I surely didn't hear it that night. I woke up at 7:15 am. I had placed both the house and cell phones next to the bed in case he called one of them saying that he was released. I couldn't believe that neither one of them had rang. I checked them to be sure they didn't have any 'missed calls' registered on them and I had just slept through the rings. Nope, nothing.

I gather myself and head on back to the hospital. Surely, they couldn't have kept him in the emergency room for over 5 hours like that. Something....my mind began to race, but I shook off any possibilities of anything going wrong. I would have been called no matter what.

I arrive at the hospital and ask about Keoni. I am pointed to the emergency room right where I had left him a few hours before. I couldn't believe it, he was still there!

"Did anyone come in here and take care of you yet?" I asked him.

"Yes," he said. "The night has been full of life-threatening emergencies. They have had their hands full all along." he told me. The staff did look a bit shredded at the nerves when I came in.

A nurse came in and told us that Keoni was to be admitted into a room. He was going to insert a line for an IV. Keoni's skin is real thick and the nurse had a difficult time finding a vein. After a couple of painful trys, he finally decided to leave it up to the nurses upstairs. Keoni winced in pain. Which was worse now, the pain in his abdomen or the pain of a vein getting ripped apart in your hand?

A few moments later, we were headed to the 3rd floor of the hospital. He is put into a private room....my goodness...what luck. No roommates. Peace and quite for sure.

His vitals are taken, the attending Doctor shows up and drills us with questions of his health and history. I decide to take out a prepared paper of all the answers to her questions. It had his health history, parents’ health and how they passed away, all the meds he is currently taking and their dosages, all the surgeries and injuries in his past along with his diabetes scores, MELD score and AC1 values for cholesterol levels. The doctor took one look and asked if she could make a copy of it. I gave her permission since that is why I made it in the first place. Really took care of a lot of problems trying to remember all that stuff.

Once things are settled down and the hospital staff began filtering out of the room, I took the moment to give Keoni a kiss and tell him that I was going to go get some breakfast. He agreed that, that was a good idea. "I'll be right back," I told him.

I stopped at a nearby restaurant and had a small breakfast, then headed back to the hospital. I was gone for only about 45 minutes. When I got back to the room, Keoni looked bright and chipper. Wow, what a difference a hospital room makes, I guess.

"Well, look at you," I said. I gave him a little kiss on his cheek.

He pats his stomach, "yeah, look at me. I'm deflated," he said with a smile.

"Really, what happened?"

"They did the para-whatever procedure," he told me.

"Just now?" I asked.

"Yeah, it only took a few minutes and oh my gosh, do I feel a lot better already. When it was draining out of my, my stomach was settling down and then it realized that it was empty....I'm hungry." He was so happy and felt so much better. He stomach no longer looked like it was 9 1/2 months pregnant, but now looked more like a waterbed.

I sat with him for about an hour just watching him. Although he was feeling a bit better from the relief of the pressure, I could see that he wasn't entirely out of the dark. He was slowly slipping back into that very tired, always sleeping state again. I then opted to leave him to rest for a bit and head back to the house. He thought that I had a good idea.

Before I left, though, they brought in his lunch of a very bland mix of soup and vanilla ice cream and coffee. I had the coffee and he just blankly looked at the rest of it. He was starving, but couldn't bring himself to eat just yet. The nurse brought in a cocktail of meds. She asked that I help him eat a little so that he can take the meds not on an empty stomach. I did my best by giving him his apple juice, some water and a couple of spoonfuls of soup. That was all he could muster.

He laid his head back to go back to sleep. I told him that he had to take his meds now as I held the little plastic cup up to his mouth.

"Gosh darn (language cleaned up a bit), what does a person have to do to get some sleep around here," he bolted out.

"Take your meds and I'll leave you alone," I said softly to him.

He looked at me and gave me a baby face snarl with his lower lip out. "I'm sorry darling, I shouldn't snap at you after all you have done for me."

I assured him that I understood that he wasn't mad at me, he was just so exhausted that anything and everything was annoying at this point.

He took his meds and once again I gave him a kiss on his cheek and left to go home for a little while. It seems that he was out of the dark now and on the road to recovery. Maybe he'll be able to come home tomorrow morning.

Until next post....

A diagnosis

Monday, June 19th...I go to work feeling kind of weird because I couldn't kiss my husband goodbye in the morning. I usually get up at 5:30 am and am out of the house by 6am. I give him a couple of kisses while he still lay sleeping in bed before I leave. He tells me to have a good day, be safe and that he loves me. I didn't hear any of that this morning. I didn't get to crawl up on the bed and kiss him. Instead, I just let the dog out, put him on his chain and checked his food and water. I quietly went to my car and proceeded to go to work.

When I arrived to work, I went to my boss’s office and sat down. A short briefing of the weekend to bring him up-to-date on the goings on and he told me that if I needed to leave early that there was no problem with that. I thanked him and went about my usual business.

Being a truck driver instructor, the ability to take my students wherever I wanted to, to get the most out of the training makes it nice sometimes. We were going to go through Tacoma and head over to Port Townsend area to travel the US 101 down to Olympia. After crossing the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and viewing the massive construction going on there and the traffic that lead up to it, I decided that may my idea wasn't such a good one after all. Traveling all that distance, about 200 miles, and in most areas where my cell phone doesn't get a signal would have driven me nuts. What if I get a call and I can't receive it? What if I need to get back to the hospital pronto and I'm 100 miles or more from my car? I opted instead to turn around and head back to Tacoma area where I was at least within a few minutes reach of my personal vehicle.

I called Keoni later in the day. He answered in a very low and gravely voice. He didn't sound good at all. He was almost in tears with the fact that it seemed he was going backwards in his recovery.

"I was feeling so good yesterday," he said. "I don't know what happened. It feels like I'm filling up again and the pain is so intense. I can't take this anymore." he cried out to me.

It was about 1pm when I called him. "Do you want me to get off work and come down?" I asked.

"Yes, could you? I don't no, baby. I don't like this at all." He said. Keoni sounded like he was half asleep also when he was talking to me. His words were slurred and hard to understand.

"I'll do that," I told him. "I have to go back to the yard and drop the truck and trailer off, so it will be about a 1/2 hour before I can leave work."

He was okay with that and then asked if I could go by the house first and pick up his medication before I came to the hospital. I told him that I would.

My student had been doing real well on her training that I felt that I could let her go 2 days before she was slated to leave. I spoke to my boss about it and he told me that it was my call. I felt confident with her driving that I went ahead and finaled her paperwork out and released her so that she and her husband could go out and make some money.

I also told my boss that I needed to leave because Keoni seemed that he was taking a bit of a dive in his recovery. There was no hesitation, I was let loose to leave.

I get home, gather all of his meds and head up to the hospital. Keoni was sleeping when I walked in. He didn't react to the squeaky door to his room or the curtain being opened next to his bed. I set the bags of meds down on the window sill and then stand next to his bed, then kissed him gently on his forehead. He slowly opened his eyes and with a very scratchy voice said, "Hello, honey." He sounded like he had had a tube in his throat or something and they had just removed it.

"What's going on?" I asked him while stroking his thick hair from his forehead.

"I don't know," he was getting a little more comfortable in his bed. "I was fine yesterday after they did the procedure and now I feel like I am filling up again. I don't understand it." He winced in pain as he tried to pull himself up in bed a little.

I rubbed his belly gently and he groaned in pain. "Oh, don't touch there," he said loudly. "It hurts so bad and is so tender."

I apologized and sat in the chair next to his bed. He held my hand and then apologized to me for yelling at me. I understood that he wasn't yelling at me, but instead reacting to his intense pain.

"So, does anybody know what is going on yet?" I asked him.

"Yes", he said. He was waking up a little more, but was still very sleepy and groggy.

"They said that I have peritonitis, but they don't know where it came from." Keoni went on to explain that it was an infection in his abdomen and the liquid that they took out of him was puss, gas and fluids. He was thinking that it was from his liver and that they needed to augment and maybe angioplasty his shunt in his liver. It was also learned that he wouldn't be coming home tomorrow like we had hoped, but instead maybe in a couple of days. He fell back to sleep and went in and out of a sleepy consciousness for about 2 hours while I watched quietly next to him.

A nurse then came in at about 5pm and gave him some pain medication in his IV tube they had hooked into his arm. She also said that she was going to put a bag of antibiotics onto his IV that would help him out and help to fight the infection. I looked at the bag and it was 2000mg of ceftriaxone antibiotics. Wow, that is a lot, but like Keoni told me, they are giving him a shotgun size of the stuff to help him out.

Dinner was served at 5:45pm. The bag of antibiotics was almost completely empty. The smell of the food acted as smelling salts to Keoni as he opened his eyes and looked a bit chipper all of a sudden. I got his tray of food ready for him to eat. It was a simple meal that I had ordered for him from the menu that was given to me to fill out the previous day. He was getting a simple egg sandwich, Jell-O, vanilla ice cream, salad with 1000 island dressing and hot tea. For someone that hasn't eaten in almost a month, I opted not to order him the spaghetti and meatballs that was the other choice for dinner.

He nibbled at his salad and drank a little tea. A few bites of his sandwich and that was all that he could get down. He was still hungry, but his appetite just wasn't there at all. So I removed his tray and cleaned him up a bit with a cool washcloth.

After about another hour of sitting and visiting with him and watching him continue to drift in and out of sleep, I decided to head on home for the night to try to get some sleep for work the next day. Now that we know a little bit more, hopefully I will be able to sleep better. I won't be able to get a full comfortable sleep until I have my baby back in bed with me where he belongs.

Until next post.....

A sonogram ordered

Another day at work and I did sleep a little better last night. After the antibiotics were administered, he really perked up last night. I felt a bit of relief, although we still didn't have a cause for his problems.

I spent the day with one of my former students who needed a little more guidance on backing her trailers into some of the docks at the customers. So, I was designated to be with her. After a wonderful performance by her, we went back to the yard after a long days work. At about 10am, I decided to call Keoni to see how he was doing.

"Hello?" He said, still sounding a bit sleepy.

"Oh, I'm sorry honey, did I wake you?" I felt bad knowing that he needed all the sleep he could get.

"That's okay," he said, "I am still about 3 feet above the bed right now." He had a little smile in his voice. I had forgotten that he told me that the phone in his room has a horribly loud ring to it and it makes him jump every time I call him. I laughed a little at his description of being like a cat stuck to the ceiling briefly only to land back in bed to answer the phone.

"So, how are things going?" I changed the subject.

"They ordered a sonogram to check the flow in the shunt in my liver. That should be done later this evening. Hopefully you will be here when they do that so you can see too." I remember the last time they did something like that back in the year 2000 when he had a bad bought of pneumonia.

I put in a regular day at work staying until my 8 hours were up. Since Keoni was feeling a bit better and we knew a little more today than we did yesterday, I figured that I should stick around work until my job was done. Afterwards, I headed to the hospital. I had forgotten to check the mail on the way like I had wanted to do for the past couple of days. More important things on my mind lately, so I will just check it on my way to work tomorrow morning.

I arrive at the hospital and make a small detour to the gift shop before getting into the elevators. I wanted to get him a balloon that simply said "I love you" on it, but most of them were "Get Well Soon" balloons. That was so typical for a hospital that I couldn't really blame them for not having what I was really after. I decided to get him a Winnie the Pooh balloon with Tigger on it. It said, "Bounce Back Soon." Keoni's mother always loved to collect little Winnie The Pooh stuffed animals. Before she passed away from emphysema on Mothers Day in 2002, she had a full collection neatly pinned to the back of the couch. She sat in a small chair at a desk with her oxygen close by and was able to visit with the family from there. She was quite comfortable since she was also just a few steps from the bathroom when she needed it, too.

Keoni also loves penguins, so I searched for anything in the gift shop like that. There was none to be found, so I settled for a little stuffed panda bear. It was black and white just like a penguin, so I figured that he'd appreciate it anyway. Just something simple, but also something to cheer him up a little.

I went to the third floor and walked to his room. The door was closed again since Keoni was always being disturbed by the noises of the other patients. I opened it quietly and moved the curtains aside. The TV was on and there lay my man watching television. He was awake this time and looking a little better than last night.

"Hello sweetie, look what I found on my way up here." I hold out the balloon and panda for him to see. He smiled a little and said, "Oh how sweet."

He still didn't look to good. His skin was a pale yellow and his hands were cold. I looked at his chart with all the vitals taken over the past few days. Being a diabetic, I noticed that his sugar levels have been wonderful the past few days. All around 110 with only one of them down near 97. That isn't too good to have it that low. His blood pressure was stable, his temperature never got above 97 degrees and his oxygen levels were around 98. So everything there looked good so far.

He told me some more about the sonogram that was ordered and that they should be in any time now. The nurse came in and gave Keoni some pain medication through his IV tube, then hooked him up to his antibiotics again. While the nurse was doing this, a knock was heard at the door. The technician was here to do the sonogram now. A few moments had to be waited until the nurse got her job done with setting the IV monitor up for the antibiotics.

Once the technician came and we rearranged the furniture in the room a bit for her to fit the big machine in there, she sat down and began her tedious task of locating the shunt in Keoni's liver. What she was looking for was to see any blood flowing through it. If there was and it looked good, then we would know that, that wasn't the culprit.

After about 20 minutes of recording different blood flows and volumes, the doctor shows up to see what the sonogram is showing. The technician returns to where the shunt showed up on the screen again. It was clear that no blood was flowing through the shunt, but rather around it. He nodded his head a couple of times. "Yep, it's has a clot in it. Nothing is going through there at all."

He backed away from the screen and began talking to us about what to expect next. He would need to get with his colleagues to see what kind of procedure would need to be done to take care of this. Keoni asked if they were just going to angioplasty it and augment the shunt. The doctor disagreed and told him that it wouldn't help. The shunt isn't doing its job anymore and it has to be removed and replaced. This would require a surgical procedure and would probably have to be done at another hospital since the one we were currently in doesn't have the facilities or equipment to handle such a task.

I asked the doctor what kind of time we are looking at as far as recovery and Keoni's future with his health. The look that he gave me didn't look promising. I didn't like the hesitation that he took before answering my question. In the end, he told me that they will do the best they can for him and hopefully get this shunt replaced so that he can recover.

I just sat back in the chair and fought back a lump in my throat.

Dinner was served and I quietly got his meal put together for him after the technician and doctor had left the room. There was a still silence in the room for a few moments. We didn't speak to each other. Then I asked Keoni about what the doctor was telling us. "What does it mean that they have to change the shunt?" I asked him. "Is it dangerous?"

Keoni reassured me that it is almost common practice now that they do this kind of procedure and that everything will be alright. He said that this is what happened to him back in 1998 when he began bleeding through his nose, bowels and when he urinated. His liver basically blew up then, the told me and they had to augment the shunt by doing the TIPS procedure. He figured that they would do this again, but it seems that this shunt has failed over time.

We quietly ate dinner together of a slice of turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, salad and pudding. Afterwards, I decided to go home for the evening and let him rest.

"I won't call you tomorrow, babe, because I don't want the phone to scare you half to death again, okay?" I said as I gave him a kiss. He agreed and told me to have a great day at work and that he'll see me tomorrow. We exchanged a couple of "I love you's" and I was on my way home for the night. Several new things to think about now with the upcoming procedure to be done and what our future has in store for Keoni's health. We should learn more tomorrow after the doctor gets together with his other colleagues on this matter.

Until next post....

Surgery is Scheduled

Today was a pretty quiet day for me at work. I opted not to call Keoni at all while I was at work because he kept telling me that the ring on the phone would scare the heck out of him every time. So, I decided that since we knew a little more from last nights sonogram and that it would probably be a day or two before anything would happen, I'd just let him sleep.

I rode with one of our other instructors while he trained his student. I didn't have any students at all since I released mine on Monday. We drove around Tacoma and Hawks Prairie, Washington and ate at a cool family restaurant called "Hawks Prairie Restaurant." Okay, so it doesn't sound really original, but it is still a great place to eat and a perfect place to park a big rig.

We got back to our terminal in Tacoma where we had to help out with the road tests of the drivers that were just finishing up orientation for the day. This was the last step of their hiring process before they all get assigned their trucks and hit the big road.

After work, I headed down to Olympia to get a couple of errands done before going to the hospital to see Keoni. It had been several days since I last checked that mail at the Post Office. I was sure that I was going to be greeted with a box that was beyond full. I was right. It was sort of difficult to pull out all the mail from the tiny box that we are renting. Most of it was junk mail, but there were some keepers. Then I headed to the store to get a few things and off to the hospital I went.

When I finally got to the third floor and was headed to Keoni's room, I noticed a new sign on his door. It said, "NPO after midnight." Hmmm....that usually means prep for surgery. I walked into the room and found Keoni resting peacefully in bed. His TV was on and he opened his eyes slowly.

"You don't have to knock before you come in," he said.

"I didn't knock," I told him as I kissed him on the forehead. "I notice a sign on your door that you can't have anything to eat after midnight. Does that mean that they are going to do the surgery?" I sat down in the chair at the foot of his bed and hung my jacket on the back of it.

He explained to me that they are going to go ahead and do the TIPS procedure tomorrow morning at 6:30am. They are also going to transport him to St. Peters Hospital to do the procedure. He wanted me to take him over in the car, but they wouldn't let him. I agreed with the nurses. They need to keep him monitored for the prep of surgery. Afterwards, they would bring him back to Capital Medical Center for observation for a couple of days.

Being that I have never gone through anything like this with him and didn't really know what to expect or what the surgery was about, I asked Keoni what they were going to do. He told me that they would either go through his jugular vein or the large vein in his leg. If they go through the jugular, then the surgery would probably be about 4 hours. If they go through the leg, then it will be about 6 hours.

I listened intently and then realized that this was Wednesday and my job had scheduled a big meeting for all of us to attend tomorrow morning at 7am. Yikes, I need to figure out my priorities now. I can't go to the meeting, or maybe I could and then return to the hospital before he got out of surgery. But if I did that, then I would have to leave for work before he was taken into surgery and I wouldn't be able to kiss him and tell him that I love him. All the thoughts of tomorrow were racing through my head for a moment. I then decided to call my boss and get the day off.

After we played a momentary game of phone tag, I finally got a hold of my boss and he told me not to worry about the meeting at all. He told me to be with Keoni and keep him posted as to how things went. I thanked my boss for everything and agreed to keeping him posted.

Then I called Keoni's daughter to let her know that her father was going into surgery. Before I called, I decided to write the number down to the hospital so that I could give it to her. I knew that she would want to talk to Daddy before tomorrow. She was so thankful that I thought of her and she called her Daddy without hesitation. I did for-warn her that he was going to sound real groggy because of all the pain meds that they have him on. She understood. They spoke for about 5 minutes before Keoni couldn't stay awake any longer. He seemed to be talking gibberish for a little while.

One of the reasons for Keoni being so out of it is because of the levels of morphine that they have him on. He was telling me that he kept seeing people walking around in his room. One time, he thought that someone came in and he asked how they got keys to his motel room. Another time, the thought that a group of people walked by his bed and into the bathroom. Then, he said that he was eating some chocolate with some caramel in it and it kept sticking to his dentures. He woke up to the fact that he was trying to pull his dentures out of his mouth thinking that this caramel was dripping off of them.

I had heard that morphine can cause hallucinations, but didn't really realize to what extent. My sister was in the hospital a few years back and she told me about the hallucinations that she had when they had her on morphine. The nurses had to finally cut back on her dosages until she was completely off of them a few days later.

At about 5:30pm, they were serving dinner and Keoni got a wonderful plate of tuna stroganoff. That made me hungry, so I went down to the first floor to the cafeteria and ordered some dinner for myself. They didn't have what Keoni was having, so I opted for pork ribs, corn, mashed potatoes and gravy and watermelon. The meal was quite cheap, only $3.75 for a decent dinner. Not bad. I took my meal upstairs back to Keoni's room and we enjoyed dinner together. He was able to stay awake long enough to get most of his meal down without any problems.

During his meal, he had to take a break to make a bathroom visit. He unplugged his IV from the wall socket and wheeled his contraption with him into the bathroom. He is still having a lot of trouble getting rid of any gas or having a decent bowel movement. Although I noticed in his chart that he had a rather large one at about 2am earlier in the day. That is a very good sign.

After we finished our meals and visited for a little while longer, I decided to go home so that I could straighten up the house a little. I have severely neglected it since taking Keoni to the emergency room on Saturday. The dust bunnies were breeding and I needed to get control of them.

I kissed Keoni goodnight and told him that I will be back in at about 6am so that I could follow the ambulance to the other hospital. That way I can see just where he is and where he is going and be close in a waiting room somewhere for when he comes out. Then I can follow the ambulance back when they bring him back to his room here at this hospital. We exchanged "I love you's" and I quietly left the room so he could rest peacefully before his busy day tomorrow.

Until next post....

Surgery Day

I was able to get the day off at work. I didn't think that I'd have a problem with that, but it sure was nice to know that I could be with Keoni. I set my alarm at the normal 5:30am so that I could be at the hospital by 6am. We were told the night before that he would be taken into surgery at about 6:30am, so I wanted to be there before he was taken in.

During the night, I had some weird dreams. I had dreamt that the Capitol Forest, which is basically our back yard, was on fire. Everyone in the area was being evacuated and had to get out of the area fast.

My task was a simple one to do since we own a travel trailer and an F250 pickup. All I had to do was hook the two up and move it to a safer area. I did that, then returned to get our boat and utility trailer. I loaded up all the stuff in our shed and the yard stuff into the pick up and trailer and waited for the fire to be put out. The smoke was really filling up the park by the time I went back for the stuff in our shed.

Then, I heard an airplane coming in pretty low. A loud thundering sound was heard in the park and I saw that the plane had dumped a bunch of water on the trees. Steam was coming up from the ground and the trees, so I knew that the fire must have been close. I was kind of scared, but kept my emotions under control.

Sirens could be heard all over the place and then an unusual siren was sounding. It was like in Morse code or something. That is when I realized that it was my alarm going off. I turned it off and rolled out of bed to get ready to head to the hospital. I didn't sleep too well at all during the night. I don't know if it was because of my dream or the anxiety of Keoni going into surgery.

When I went out to my car to head out, I looked up at the trees and saw that there was a thick fog lingering in the tops of them. That looked just like it did in my dreams on it was smoke then. I thought it was kind of odd that things looked pretty close to what I had dreamed of, I was just glad that there wasn't any fire at all.

I arrived at the hospital and had to enter through the Emergency Room section since the front lobby didn't open until 8am. I made my way up to the third floor and entered Keoni's room. I figured that he would have been all ready to leave with people standing around him. There wasn't. In fact, things didn't look any different than it did the night before when I left to go home for the night.

A nurse came in and took his vitals and told us that some people from American Medical Response were going to come in to pick him up and take him over to St. Petes Hospital for surgery. They should be here at about 6:30am. That's odd, I thought the surgery was at that time. Guess that is when everything was to begin rolling towards the big moment.

The crew from the ambulance got Keoni ready and transferred to the gurney. I was able to follow them all the way out to the ambulance and then chose to drive my own vehicle and follow them to the other hospital.

We arrived without incident and he was then taken to the floor where the surgery prep was to begin on the fourth floor of the hospital. Several doctors and nurses made their way in and introduced themselves as to which part of the team they were. Keoni's blood pressure has been unusually low all along, at about 95/54 average. I thought it was dangerously low, but one of the doctors said that he was okay like that. Especially since his pressure has been running in the low numbers all along since he was admitted last Sunday.

He was then taken downstairs by gurney when the time had come to go through the next step of preparation for surgery. I was able to come along with the crew that was taking him there on the lower level of the hospital.

Dr. Lindle came in and introduced himself. He walked with an unusual limp like one of his knees had been rebuilt or the knee-cap removed. He swayed back and forth slightly as he approached our little room separated only by curtains from two other rooms. There was a lady two doors down that was going in for some spinal surgery and she was scared. I could hear her sobbing as the doctor explained to her that after surgery she was going to be on her stomach on the bed and that she was not to sit up at all for 3 days.

Keoni's doctor went on to explain to us about the surgery that he was going to perform on him. He said that he has been doing this kind since 1995, has done about 200 of these procedures and has also taught many other doctors in San Diego and Davis University how to do this. He said that he is going to first go in and try to do an angioplasty on the shunt in Keoni's liver. If that doesn't work, he will try to augment it, but figured that it wouldn't do well at all. So, he has a new styled shunt that he will place around the current one that will make both of them stronger and hold up for years. Normally, this kind of procedure only takes about 45 minutes to perform, but Dr. Lindle said that he will take as long as it needs to complete the surgery. He also gave us all the warnings of possible bleeding, clotting and other risks that are involved. We knew what we were getting in for, but also knew that if we didn't try to fix the problem that Keoni would surely die.

The anesthesiologist came in and introduced himself to us. He assured us that he would be next to Keoni throughout the entire procedure to be sure that what he needs is monitored very closely.

About that time, things seemed to be moving in high gear, so that is when I decided to leave the room. Seemed that I was now in the way of the team that was taking over all around Keoni. I kissed him gently on the forehead and we exchanged "I love you's." I walked out of the room in what seemed like an exhausted daze and looked at the clock so that I could get a good idea on how long the surgery should be. It was noon straight up.

Out in the waiting room, there were a scattering of people also waiting on their loved ones and friends to come out of surgery. I got a small lunch to curb the knot in my stomach. It didn't help much.

There was a couple of small couches in the room, so I curled up on one of them to try to get some sleep. It was fairly difficult to get comfortable, but I managed to find a way to get about an hour. I couldn't believe that I actually slept that long. I sure hope that I wasn't snoring at all.

It was warm and clear outside. The wind was blowing slightly as I went out to get some fresh air. I walked around the grounds a little to shake off the pain in my back from being curled up on that couch for so long. When I returned, one of the volunteer ladies offered me a pillow for comfort. I thanked her for her kindness and curled up again to try to relax once more.

An eternity passed by as the minutes ticked away. Three hours gone and still no word on Keoni's surgery. Most of the faces that were in the waiting room when I first arrived have been replaced by new people. Small conversations were going on within some of the groups of people there. I chose to sit alone since I didn't know any of those people and didn't want to try to exchange stories of surgeries past.

At 4:15, the volunteer lady came out of one of the rooms in the far corner of the room and told me that Keoni's surgery is over and from what she was told things went well. She said that he is on his way back up to the room on the 4th floor where they first took him before surgery.

I met them there and Keoni laid on the bed sleeping. His neck had a large bandage taped to it from where they went in to his jugular vein to do the procedure. IV tubes were coming out from all over him and a catheter was hanging off the foot of the bed. He was happy when I was able to get the doctors to insert the catheter after they put him to sleep for surgery. He dreaded feeling that go in. It kind of made me giggle a little bit to see him so worried about it, but I went ahead and requested that it be put in when he can't feel it. They agreed and Keoni was more than relieved.

Keoni drifted in and out of consciousness as the anesthesia began to wear off. He moaned a little at the pain that he was now beginning to feel. After about an hour of monitoring his vitals, the prep was made to transfer him back to Capital Medical Hospital where he was first admitted.

Another ambulance came and retrieved him. They had to move him from the hospital bed to the gurney by lifting the sheet he was laying on and make it like a hammock around him. It took four people to move him since it was so awkward a move. One guy climbed up on the bed as he helped get Keoni shifted to the gurney. I would have helped, but it looked like the hospital and ambulance crew had everything under control. Not only that, they are used to doing things like this. I'm not and I felt that I would just be in the way if I tried to help.

We made it back to the other hospital and Keoni was taken back to his original room where they had the bed all made up with new bedding and set up for him to be at a 45 degree angle. They wanted him to stay at that level since they didn't want the blood to rush to the opening in his neck and begin to bleed. That would not be a good thing. So, they wanted the new wound to be above his heart to help keep the bleeding down.

A couple of his IV's were removed since they were no longer needed. Dinner had already been served to the other patients in the hospital so the nurses had to call down for one more dinner to be brought up for Keoni. He was still drifting in and out, but seemed a bit more alert than just the hour previous. As soon as dinner was served, I decided to head for home and get some real sleep. I had to return to work the next day and they told me that he would probably not be released until later in the day tomorrow. That would be great to have him home again. I really miss having him there. Not only that, our dog Max is wondering where Dad has been.

Until next post....

Treated and Released

“I think they’re ready to kick me out,” Keoni said when he called me at work on my cell phone. That was at about 12:30pm.

“Okay, honey,” I told him. “I’ll try to get off work early and pick you up. Just hang tight, they can’t kick you out until someone picks you up.” He still sounded a bit weak, but if the hospital felt that he was well enough to come home, then we were happy.

I spoke to the nursing staff at the hospital and they told me that there was no problem holding Keoni there until I got off work. They would just keep him comfortable and have him ready in his room.

I managed to be able to leave work about a ½ hour early. Not as early as I had hoped, but it was something. I left Tacoma at about 2:45pm and headed down to Olympia where he was staying. Traffic was not being kind to me today. I struggled on back roads and detours to get around wrecks on the freeway and unusually slow traffic. Seemed everyone knew that I was in a hurry to rescue my man from the hospital and take him home. I know, they were testing my patience. Well, they weren’t going to win because I knew if I got mad then I’d only be going backwards in my attempt to get there. One wrong turn down a road and I’d be somewhere I’d never been before. I am good at that since I love to investigate areas that I have never been to before. Focus…focus…focus!

I finally arrived at the hospital and entered Keoni’s room. The History Channel was playing some rerun about the Civil War. I am sure that he knows just about every word of that program since he has watched it so many times.

Keoni was sitting up in his bed and smiled a big sleepy smile at me upon my arrival.

“Hi, honey,” he said. His throat was still a bit sore from having a tube in it the day prior in surgery.

“Hi baby,” I kissed him on his forehead. His skin still felt unusually cold. My natural heating blanket was not in him right now.

The nurses got a wheelchair for him and I helped him get dressed since he was still in his hospital gown. We took him down the elevator to our car that I had waiting under the awning at the entrance of the hospital. Keoni carefully got in the Toyota and we were off to home.

A couple of stops had to be made first. The local drug store where he needed to get a prescription filled and he also wanted to stop by the bank to check his balance. I told him that I could find that out on the internet so that we wouldn’t have to spend so much time in town and get him home to relax. He agreed.

We went into the drug store and Keoni had to stop a couple of times to rest. His strength is definitely not there. He leaned up against a display of boxed sodas and was breathing a bit heavily. I waited patiently until he was ready to walk again.

A few more steps and we were at the Pharmacy. I introduced Keoni to them and then had him sit down so that I could finish getting his meds. He was picking up Morphine and I knew that they would not allow me to just take care of everything without seeing him there. They were okay with the fact that Keoni was able to show his ID for the meds and just relax in the waiting room.

Home, finally. It was pretty hot on this Friday afternoon. Upper 70’s and it is predicted that the temps were going to reach in the upper 80’s over the weekend. Yuk!

Keoni sat down in his recliner, turned the TV on and I turned the fan on. Our Air Conditioner took a dump a few days ago, so our box fans are all we have to go on right now. Not good for someone who is sick, but I made it as comfortable as possible for him.

The evening went on quietly until we both went to bed early. Looks like he will be on a long hard road to recovery. No wonder. He was a very sick man and went through hell to get better. All we have to do now is nurse him back to health. He wants to go fishing again soon.

Until next post….

The first weekend home

Saturday, the 24th of June and he seems to be doing okay. He went to the bathroom a few times and had some good gassy bowel movements. He said that he felt relieved when he could pass some gas like that. The pressure in his abdomen would go down.

He drank some water and prune juice, but wasn’t really interested in eating anything. He was comfortable watching Discovery and History channels on TV, so I opted to take a little break and go down to the lake to do some fishing. I took my camera with me just in case and ended up capturing some awesome water skiing photos. No fish, I think the water was too warm for them to eat.

I came back home and fed Keoni some chicken noodle soup and Gatorade. He ate a few bites and drank most of the Gatorade. I felt good about that. At least he seems to be eating a bit more than he has the past several days.

Sunday and the temperatures outside are even hotter. It was hard to get some relief from the heat. I put a cool wet washcloth on Keoni’s face to help cool him down. He wasn’t running a temp at all, but I could see that he was a bit uncomfortable.

I was going to go fishing again, but with the heat the way it was I knew it would be futile to even try. Not only that, Keoni needed me more than me going down and just drowning a few worms.

Evening came and by 9pm we were both in bed. He laid down next to me and I gently put my hand on his chest. He moaned and told me that I couldn’t do that right now because the pain was still too much. We both appologized to each other for the situation, but also understood what was going on.

I moved just a little bit further away from him on the bed so as not to accidentally bump him or anything.

Just when I was about to drift off into a deep sleep, Keoni got up and sat at the end of the bed.

“What’s wrong, honey.” I asked him. I sat up and rubbed his back softly.

He told me that his gut feels like it is filling up again and it was hurting real bad. He also told me that he hasn’t done any insulin at all because his numbers were too low for that. He got up, walked in to the kitchen and leaned over the counter. I laid in bed keeping an eye on him.

A few moments later, again almost into a blissful sleep, Keoni crawls back into bed. I move over to give him more room so we don’t bump his stomach at all. Seems that our queen sized bet got instantly too small for us. I was feeling a little frustrated since I had to be so careful around him, but knew just how fragile he was right now, too.

All through the night, it was off to sleep and then awoken again by Keoni’s restlessness. Out of bed, on the end of the bed sitting, walking around, sitting in his recliner. Finally, he found a comfortable place in his recliner and remained there the rest of the night. I drifted off to sleep and before I knew it, 5:30am came around and reminded me that I had to get up to go to work. Argh, if there was one day I could call in sick, it would be today, but I knew that I couldn’t. I had to show up and do my best to know that Keoni is well enough today to take care of himself.

Until next post….

Re-admitted

I was at work and my student and I were decideing whether we wanted to head up to Mt. Rainier or take the US 101 route around. Either way, each of them would have been about 200 miles of driving. They are absoluteley beautiful areas and perfect roads for training new truck drivers on lane control, mountain driving and speed control.

It was decided that we'd go on US 101, so we headed south on I-5 to do just that. It was a beautiful June morning, so the weather was perfect for us. On our way down from Tacoma, I decided to stop in Hawks Prairie to get some lunch. I didn't want to wait like I usually did to get lunch in Quilcene. That was just too far and I was hungry now since I didn't really have any breakfast this morning.

We pullled into the truckstop and went in to eat. It was a little early, about 11am, but that was okay. One of the waiters in was worth being there a little early. He is a real funny guy and takes good care of his customers.

We sat and ate and talked about driving truck a little while. We also talked about our personal lives, Keoni and other people.

When lunch was over, we went back out to the truck and was ready to head south for the 101 and the long drive around. Just as we were ready to leave the parking lot, my cell phone rang. It was Keoni, hope he's okay.

"Hello, baby, how are you doing?" I said to him. He wasn't doing well last night at all, so I was a little surprised to see that he was awake now. It is about 12:30pm.

"Not good. I think I need to go back to the hospital." He said. Keoni didn't sound good at all. He sounded exhausted and in real pain.

"Hang on, sweetie. I am going to call Mary and have someone there to take you to emergency. I am also going to head back up to Tacoma and get off work right away. I love you." I was shaking in my voice, but knew that I had to keep calm and level headed about everything.

"Okay," Keoni says. "I don't feel good at all. I feel like I'm dying." he groaned out.

I cried a little and felt my heart race. I wanted to snap my fingers and be there right now for him.

"Oh, sweetheart. Hang in there. I love you very much." I said with a small tear in my voice. "I'm going to call Mary now."

We hang up and I immediately call Mary. She is the manager of the RV park that we live in. About 4 years ago, we wanted to buy a travel trailer to live in when we got off of the road from driving truck. Keoni was offered a great job at Interstate to work in the Road Call Department. I knew that he would be good at it, so we both decided that I would also get off the road when he got the job.

We put a little money into the savings account and began our search for a travel trailer to purchase. We knew that we didn't want payments, so we were looking for things that we could pay cash for. When we got $1000 in the savings, we looked at $1000 trailers. They were small, torn apart and looked like they were ready for the dump. Nope, they weren't going to work for us, so we just kept putting more money into the savings and kept looking at trailers in the area of the money we had saved.

Finally, we had about $6500 in the savings, but had just about given up on looking for a trailer. We weren't finding anything that we liked or in any decent shape. So basically we paused on our search.

One afternoon, we were at our terminal in Tacoma doing laundry. We had both picked up one the Little Nickel newspapers to look at while the clothes were getting cleaned. All of a sudden, I said, "hey, here's one right here in Lakewood for only $5900. A 32 foot travel trailer. That's pretty long, don't you think, babe?"

"Yep it is." Keoni said, a big smile on his face. He looked at the washer and dryers to see where we stood in getting our laundry done. "Why don't you call him and get directions, and I'll get the laundry out right now. It's just about done drying." Keoni got up and went to the dryers to check on the clothes. Apparently they were dry enough since he was pulling them out to fold up.

I called the number listed in the ad about the trailer. A man answered and he gave me directions to where he had it parked. Keoni and I loaded up the partially folded laundry into our truck and then went back into the terminal to borrow a company car. We got the keys to it and headed over to where the man had told me to go.

When we rounded the corner of the street where the man had told us to turn, we saw the trailer. It was a beautiful while with Teal wrapped around the middle of it. The colors were perfect and the length was even more perfect. Could this really be the trailer that he was selling. It was the best looking so far out of all the garbage dumps that we had been looking at. It was clean and ready for us to buy.

The man came out of his house and let us in the trailer. Inside was even more wonderful. It had cream colored carpet and teal furniture. The kitchen was at the tail end and the bedroom with a queen sized bed was at the other end. It was perfect. Looked like a mini mobile home.

We began the negotiations. "Will you take $5200 cash for it?" We asked the man.

"I will have to call my wife first," he said. "I'm not sure she will go down that low." He retreated to the house for several moments and then came back and said, "she said that she can't any less than $5600 for the trailer."

Keoni and I looked at each other in agreement and said, "we'll take it. Will you take a cashiers check? We can go to the bank and get it right now."

It was agreed upon that we'd get the check and then take the trailer back to the terminal and put it in the storage area designated for things just like this. Keoni and I were so excited that we not only found a trailer that was affordable, but looked like a mansion compared to the dumps we had been looking at before. The trailer was now ours to keep and no one can take that away from us.

I called Mary and told her that Keoni needed to go back to the emergency room. She said that she'd have Dena take him right away. Mary couldn't leave the park since she was the only manager on sight at the time.

I called Keoni back and told him to get ready since Dena was going to take him up there. I also told him that I was headed back to the yard and going to get off work when I get there. He told me that he was really hurting and that his stomach feels like it was filling up again.

"I love you, sweetie," I said on the phone. I drove back up to the yard since I knew that I could get up there a bit faster than my student could.

"I love you too, baby." Keoni said. You could hear the pain in his voice. Seems that the clogged shunt in his liver must have done some damage or something. Hopefully they will be able to get him some meds to make him feel better. I had also been reading on the internet that some people get the Paracentisis done almost on a weekly basis. I wonder if that is what he is going to have to do, too. That's all he needs, to be in constant pain and always getting the fluid taken off his abdomen.

My student and I made it back to the yard. We quickly dropped the trailer, parked the bobtail truck and I ran upstairs to tell my boss what was going on. He told me to get going down there to be with my husband and call if I need anything at all. My co-workers and bosses are the coolest people I have ever worked with. They are all so supportive of each other.

I drove back down to Olympia to the hospital where Keoni was in the emergency room waiting for me. When I arrived at the hospital, I found out that he had already been taken in to an emergency room to get checked on.

"Hi baby," I said, slightly shaking at the adrenalin that got me down here so quickly. "How are you feeling?" We kissed each other gently. It seemed that my baby was like a fine piece of china and you had to handle him with care.

There was a chair in the room across from the end of the guerney where Keoni was sitting on the edge. He had an IV line into his thumb for some fluids to be put in him. I was staring at Keoni for a little while. He looked wide eyed and awake in the room.

"I love you," Keoni said quietly. "I'm so glad you were able to come down." he shifted himself on the edge of the bed to find a more comfortable position.

"I love you, too, sweetie. What's going on?" I was very concerned about his health since we thought that the TIPS procedure they did last Thursday should have made him feel better. It had done just that in the past, so why should this time be so different?

I looked around the room and focused on a monitor against the wall. "Is that your bloodpressure?" I asked. I was shaking now because I didn't like the numbers I was seeing up there. The screen read 45/33 as his bloodpressure.

"I guess," he said. "Not sure if it is or not, though."

We sat there staring at each other for what seemed an eternity. Just then, Keoni broke the silence with a statement that broke me to tears.

"Babe, if my ticket is up, then my ticket is up." He said in his strong voice. He did sound weak, but I didn't think he sounded that weak. I got up and kissed him on the forehead, lips and hands. I caressed his thick hair and told him that he needed a hair cut. We both laughed about that. He asked me to cut it about 3 weeks previous, but like him, I had procrastinated about doing the job. He always liked the way I cut his hair and kept it nice looking for him. Keoni is a very good looking man and am lucky to have a man like that. True soul mates, that's what I have been told that we are.

I didn't react verbally to his statement, but rather dismissed what he was saying. I figured that he was feeling so bad that he just wanted to die. I didn't want to talk about that at all.

The nurse came into the room and asked Keoni to lay down on the guerney. "We are going to admit you and take you upstairs. We have to find out why your blood pressure is so unstable." She said. A very sweet lady that took wonderful care of my husband as she disconnected the monitor and hung the bag of saline over Keoni's bed.

We walked down the hallways while Keoni was being wheeled on the guerney. Just when we approached the elevators I told Keoni that he needs to watch the lights on the ceiling as they went by. That's what they always did in the movies when someone was being transported in the hospital. He just looked at me and smiled and then drifted off in a light sleep.

"We're going to the second floor," the nurse said. I was closer to the buttons in the elevator, so I pushed the 2 on the panel.

When the doors opened to the second floor, I stepped out so the nurse could get Keoni's bed out of there. I looked around at the walls and noticed some signs that I had not seen before.

"Are we going to ICU?" I asked now trembling slightly.

"Yes, your husband is in critical condition and we are going to take care of him here." She explained in a very thoughtful tone.

I cried a little and moved up closer to Keoni's head as we went down the halls to his new room there. Keoni was able to get off of the guerney himself and crawl into the hospital bed they had ready for him. I held his hand tightly and just watched him as he drifted off to a sleep again. He hasn't had a very good nights sleep at all in the past few weeks.

Before I knew it, there were nurses and doctors all around Keoni. They were asking him all kinds of questions about his health history and current health. He was able to answer a few of them, but I helped out with the dates and procedures that Keoni has had in the past. When the doctor and I were done talking for a moment, Keoni looked at me and said, "boy I sure am glad you are here." he smiled, then closed his eyes again.

The doctor and I stepped out of the room for a moment.

"Why is he so sleepy?" I asked him.

"His amonia levels are extremely high right now and that will make him groggy like that. Also, his sodium levels are high, so we are trying to correct that." The doctor told me. He seemed like a very intelligent man, but at the same time a little on the shy side. I tried to keep very alert as to what was going on so that I could better understand what the doctors were talking about. Research on the internet of all the long foreign words they were feeding me helped me to understand too what was going on.

I walked back in the room and sat in the most uncomfortable recliner in the world. Then it just hit me, over the weekend we had been working on a Will and Power of Attorney, but never did anything with it. I wasn't sure what was going on with Keoni, but something told me that I should get that paperwork together and get it taken care of.

"Baby," I said as I leaned down to kiss him on his lips. I noticed that he was a bit dehydrated, so I got him a little juice to drink. "I'm going to go back to the house real quick and get the Power of Attorney and Will right now just to get it signed. I don't know where we are going with all of this right now and it is scaring me." I was shaking slightly and getting the chills from the stress of the past week.

"Okay," he said. "I love you, sweetie. You are so awesome." he was saying that while his eyes were closed since he was so sleepy. I guess since the amonia levels were so high like the doctor said, then a closed eye 'I love you' would be just about all I would get. That's okay. I know that he loves me no matter what.

I went home and got the paperwork that I had spoke of to Keoni. I also called a Notary Public so that we could have it witnessed and notarized to be legal for sure. On the way out, remembering that the Notary had said that I need two witnesses, I stopped at the main office of the RV park. Donny, one of Mary's sons, was sitting at the picnic table in front of the little store.

"Hey, where's your Mom, Donny." I called out from the car.

"She's inside," he said as he walked towards my car. "You want me to get her for you?" Donny and James have always been Keoni's favorite kids in the RV park. He would take them out to the shooting range once in awhile and just have a great time with the guys type of day. I would go too since I loved to be with Keoni all the time.

I explained to Donny that I needed a couple of witnesses at the hospital around 5pm to sign the paperwork and wanted to know if he could go with me and maybe Mary could meet us there later. Donny dissappeared almost instantly and came back with his Mom in tow. Mary loved Keoni also because he is such a great guy at the park. The kids would climb all over him, put stickers on his shirt and all kinds of other stuff. I enjoyed watching him interact with everyone around him. Keoni is a wonderful man that takes good care of me and puts me on a pedastle so high that I can't even begin to climb up on myself. So when I see him interact with other people like he does, it never bothered me because I get that all the time. He just likes to share his kindness with others.

Mary agreed that Donny could go up and she would meet us at the time when the Notary would show up. So Donny got in the car and we drove back up to the hospital to be back with Keoni, the love of my life.

Until next post....

Till Death Do Us Part

It was about 5pm June 26th, 2006. The weather was beautiful outside with temperatures in the mid 70's. A slight breeze moved the trees slightly back and forth.

I was stroking Keoni's hair and kissing him on the forehead when our moment was interupted by the nurse. "There are some people out here to see you, but we can't have all of them in here at once." She seemed quite disturbed by the small crowd that showed up just outside the door to Keoni's room.

I went out to see who it was and found it to be Mary, Dena, Donny and a lady I didn't recognize. "Are you the Notary?" I asked her.

"Yes, I am," she answered. She was a short lady in her mid 40's with long black curly hair. She looked like she had also been in the sun already in the hot summer days already offered this year.

"Come on in," I invited them into the room. "We can only stay for a few moments because Keoni is pretty tired right now."

"Baby?" I called to him quietly so as not to startle him. "The Notary lady is here that I spoke to you about to get the paperwork signed that I put together." He opened his eyes and focused in on the crowd of people next to his bed. He didn't say anything at all, but looked at me for recognition of who was here. I told him that Mary, Dena and Donny were there and he smiled at them.

The Notary looked at the papers that I had put together. There was the Power of Attorney so that I could take care of Keoni's affairs, then his Will that we agreed upon. Even though it wasn't exactly what Keoni had wanted it to read, I reassured him that I was happy with our decision. He originally wanted me to have the property in Butte Falls, but I told him that I couldn't do anything with it and wouldn't be able to enjoy it at all since he wouldn't be able to be with me. So we agreed that he would give it to his two children, Melody and Adam and let me have $50,000 of the property. That was the amount that he and his father had originally purchased the property for back in the 1980's. I also told him that if Cathy, his ex-wife gave me any guff about the money that I'd walk away from the whole thing and just keep our little life of stuff in Washington. It upset him a little when I told him that, but he knew that I wasn't the kind of person to fight for the small stuff, or even big stuff if it wouldn't benefit our happiness.

The Notary read the papers to Keoni and asked him if he understood and agreed with what was drawn up.

"Yes, Ma'am," Keoni said with a crisp voice.

Then it was time for him to sign her book and then the paperwork. When the book was handed to him, I held it up so that he could see it easier. His hands were shaking a little at the illness taking over his muscles and nerves. It was like he was getting a Parkinsons type tremor in his hands.

The pen was handed to Keoni and I showend him where to sign. He looked up at me just before he signed his name and said, "Till death do us part." He smiled at me and a little twinkle in his eye also told me that he loved me dearly. My baby was laying there and there was nothing I could do at this time to get him out of bed and take him home with me.

All the paperwork was signed by everyone and I left the room with everyone to finish the paperwork and pay the Notary. When that was all done, I returned to Keoni's room so that I could be close to him.

"There's something on the table for you," he told me when I returned. I looked on the table and it was his diamond earring that he bought us. We each wore one in our left ears to show that we belonged to each other. It was his way of showing that we were true soul mates. It didn't matter to me how much he spent on them, it was the thought that he wanted to do something different and special for our relationship that meant the most to me.

When I saw the earring on the table, I stared at it for a moment. Thoughts were racing in my head as to why he took it out. Maybe it was hurting his ear now. He seemed to be hurting all over his body now. Was he bringing our life to a close? Did he think that the end was near and he wanted me to have his earring? All the thoughts swirled in my head and I didn't want to acknowledge any of them, so I just chose to pick it up and set it carefully on the window sill in his room. There it stayed for the rest of the day.

After a while, I sat in the uncomfortable recliner in the room and laid my head on the bed next to Keoni. I held his hand in mine and kissed it gently. I cried a little and Keoni opened his eyes.

"What are you doing, baby girl?" He asked. "Are you crying? Why are you crying?" his voice was beginning to shake a little, but the love in his words were very apparent.

"Yes, honey," I wiped the tears from my eyes. "I love you so much. I'm trying to get you fixed, baby." Everything seemed so foggy as to Keoni's future that I wasn't sure I really believed what I was telling him was true. Were the doctors really going to be able to fix my baby so that I can take him home again? Was he really going to be able to go on photostrolls again? Go to Seattle and down to the dock to fish again?

There was a tornado of thoughts swarming in my head and I just wanted to scoop him up and take him home, but I knew that he needed the care of the hospital right now. To take him home now would be pure selfishness on my part and probably make him worse in his health. Then where would we be? Guilt....that's where we'd be! I couldn't face that the rest of my life for sure, so I opted to just dry my tears a little and let Keoni drift back to sleep while I laid my head on his hand and locked our fingers together.

We laid there like that until dinner was served and our moment was disturbed by the nurse bringing in the tray next to his bed. I looked at what was available and found that he couldn't eat anything there. It was raw vegetables, he couldn't chew. Turkey, I didn't want to give to him because of the triptophan in it. He was sleepy enough, he didn't need any more help. So, I found some pudding and juice in the nurses refrigerator and fed some of that to him. He ate only a few bites and said that he didn't want anymore.

He drifted off to sleep again for the night. I found a fairly comfortable spot on the uncomfortable recliner and drifted off to sleep also. The night slowly crept by.

Until next post.....

In Sickness and In Health

Tuesday morning, June 27th. The fog has settled in near the treetops. The weather was a bit chilly with a bite in the air. I went outside for a moment to check my cell phone. Messages have been piling up since I have been calling all of Keoni's family and friends.

Melody, his daughter, who is attending Seton Hall University in New Jersey was told by the doctor last night to make arrangements to come see her Daddy. Cathy, his ex-wife, was told the same thing.

Did the doctor know something that he wasn't telling me? It seemed that there were suttle hints that Keoni doesn't have much time left, but I didn't want to believe what he was telling me. I know that they can fix him because it has been done before. He gets near death, gets fixed, goes home and we reminise about the near moment of death of him. We were going to do it all over again because Keoni has told me before that the only reason he survived before was because of me. Because I stayed by his side and kept his spirits up. Because I was the only one that cared enough to give him reasons to live on. So, the doctors telling the family to come in I quickly dismissed as anything being different from before. Besides, he hasn't mentioned anything about us having a Will or anything. The last time Keoni got real sick, the doctors first words were, "Do you have a Will?" That was enough to scare both of us and send us into tears thinking that our short time together was quickly coming to an end. It didn't happen then and it won't happen now.

Breakfast was served and I was a bit upset at the choices made by the cafeteria. It was a crumbly coffee cake and oatmeal. Keoni was showing signs of having difficulty swallowing, so I certainly didn't want to put anything in his mouth that would possibly choke him. Not only that, his coughing was becoming more difficult. It was like he couldn't take a deep enough breath to get below what he wanted to cough up. He just did small air like coughs occasionally.

Again, I opted for some pudding and also mixed some cranberry juice with sprite for him to drink. He loved the juice and nibbled at the pudding. Keoni's hands were trembling more today, so I helped him by feeding him breakfast. A few drips of juice on his chin and he winced at me that I was making a mess. I laughed and told him that I would clean it up.

"I'm sorry, baby," I told him. "I guess I should be more careful as to where I aim that straw." I was sort of laughing but crying inside. I couldn't believe that my strong man was laying there in bed and couldn't even feed himself now.

I put the spoon of pudding up to his lips again. In a trembling voice as I touched the spoon to him so he could open his mouth, I said, "In sickness and in health." I cried a little when I said that. I knew that my Keoni was not getting better. He seemed to be getting sicker as each day went by. Will I ever be able to take him home?

I told Keoni that I spoke to Mel earlier and that she was coming out to see him.

"No!" he said loudly. "No, I don't want her to come out." His voice pleaded with me in a trembled tone.

"Why not?" I asked him.

"Because, I don't want her to see me like this." He looked at me briefly. His eyes were slightly glassy and a little yellow. I noticed that his skin on his face was yellowing a bit also. I never really paid much attention to his color since he had been doing so well up until today.

"It's okay, baby. She just wants to see her Daddy is all." I told him as I held his hand. He just moaned a little while he relinquished himself at the fact that she was coming out no matter what he said in protest.

"Baby, I'm going to go outside for a minute to check the messages on my phone, okay?" I told him as I kissed him on his forehead. He hummed an acknowledgment to me.

I stepped out of the room to the front parking lot of the hospital. I stood there and cried thinking of how Keoni was getting worse and not better. When he was in the hospital with the staph infection in his bloodstream a few years ago, it was apparent that everyday he was getting better. This time, things seem to be going backwards and I was getting scared.

There were several messages on the phone from my parents, a couple of my sisters, my boss, Melody and Cathy. I listened to all of them and then decided to call my Dad.

"Hello, Dad?" I said when he answered the phone. "Can you call Becky, Annie and Lisa and let them know what is going on right now? I just don't feel like talking to them right now, but let them know that I promise to call them soon." I filled my Dad in on the past couple of days. He got Mom on the phone too and they all prayed together for me and Keoni. I felt good about that. Dad assured me that he would be my spokesperson during this time until I was ready to call everyone myself. I thanked him for his help and we ended our call.

I decided to call Keoni's brother, Gary, in Hawaii and tell him what was going on. He was surprised to hear that he was in such poor health and was in tears with me since he knew that Keoni had finally found someone that he truly loved. Gary told me about how Keoni would talk in length about our relationship and how he wanted us to be together forever. We cried together on the phone and came to a silent close. I promised that I would call him tomorrow on any news of Keoni's condition.

I went back up to the room and found Keoni sitting up in his bed.

"Hi baby, whatcha doin'?" I asked in an excited voice. It has been a long time since I have seen him sitting up like that and with his eyes open. Could this be the breakthrough that I have wanted all along? Could he be getting better just in the short time I was outside on the phone?

"Could you please give me some privacy? I'm on the bedpan" He said in a curt voice.

I swallowed a little lump in my throat and said, "Sure, baby, I'm sorry." I retreated to a small chair just outside his room so that the nurses could finish cleaning Keoni up when he was done. I thought about what he said and how he said it. Then I realized how selfish I was to think he was mad at me. He snapped like that because he was embarrased at me seeing him like that. He wasn't mad at me at all, he couldn't be. He has never been mad at me like that. It is because he is not feeling well at all that made him snap like that. So I calmed down and remembered a book title I saw years ago. The title was something like "You're not the reason why I'm angry." I didn't read the book at all, but the title sure said a lot to me and life in general. I knew that he wasn't mad at me at all, but instead his illness has made him less tolerant of things.

The nurses assured me that he was done cleaned up and ready for me to come into the room.

"Hello sweetie," I said softly as I entered the room. I wasn't quite sure if he was still a bit upset at me entering the room like I did.

"I am so sorry, baby," he said. "I shouldn't have yelled at you like that. You have done so much for me already. I'm sorry." he pleaded with me in his sleepy tone. His words were becoming more slurred like his tongue was getting a bit swollen or something. It seemed that it took him a lot of energy just to say a few words to me anymore.

"It's okay, baby. I should have checked first." I kissed him on his lips. He kissed me with quivering lips.

Dinner was served and it was some more mashed potatoes, turkey and cooked carrots. I was pretty upset again that the kitchen isn't aware of his condition and gives him food he can't begin to chew. So, I opted to try to feed him some of the potatoes and carrots.

I put a small baby sized portion of mashed potatoes on the end of the spoon. "Here baby, I have some mashed potatoes for you. Are you hungry?" I asked him while I was blowing them to cool them off a bit.

"Yes," he said in a slur.

I touched his lower lip with the spoon until he opened his mouth. I gave him the small amount of potatoes I had on there and he began to swirl it around his mouth with his tongue. I put some more on the spoon for him and was ready to give him some more as I touched it to his lip again.

"Waite a minute, please." he said. He was still swirling the first potatoes in his mouth. I gave him some juice to help him swallow it better. He drank quite a bit that I had to pull the straw away from him so that he didn't drink everything up all at once. He let out a couple of great burps that it made me laugh at what he was doing. Usually I was the one making loud burps like that, not him.

Keoni opened his mouth again and I gave him another baby sized spoonful of potatoes. He swirled that one just like the first one. I followed that with some juice again and he burped once more. Three more bites and he had enough, so I offered a slice of cooked carrots. He said that he wanted that and I put one in his mouth. When I offered him another one, again he got a bit disturbed at my speed of feeding him wanting me to slow down a bit. I appologized and swallowed a lump that was forming in my throat. Why was my Keoni so ill and why can't we make him better?

He told me that he had enough to eat and didn't want anymore. I put the spoon down and wiped his mouth with a wet washcloth that I had run under the warm water. He smiled when I cleaned his face up a little.

"You know what we haven't had at all yet?" he said, changing the subject.

"What?" I answered while holding his hand. I was looking at his rough hands that held me so tenderly these past few years. The rugged hands that knew just how to carress me gently.

"We haven't been able to have any make-up sex." He said. He looked at me and smiled with his eyes. Our lives together has always been happy. Even when we got a bit perterbed with each other, our little tiffs always ended with us laughing at each other and the little things we complained about. There was never a time we were mad at each other long enough to experience a love lost at all. We were extremely happy with each other all the time.

"You're right." I said back to him. I stepped away for a moment and walked to the other side of his bed. I looked around the room that was a drab brown and a small curtain that separated him from the door that lead out of the room. There was a small bathroom in the corner, but the nurses wouldn't let him use in for fear that it would disturb his bloodpressure too much. They still couldn't stabalize it enough to even let him out of his bed. He was way too weak to even begin to try to walk anywhere.

After a few moments of silence, Keoni began grunting real bad and it looked like he was having stomach cramps.

"What are you doing?" I asked him as I looked all around wondering why he was wrenching in pain so bad.

"I'm trying to pee." he told me. His pain seemed unbearable as the muscles were taking over trying to expel what little fluid was in his bladder. Nothing much was coming out of his catheter into the bag that was hung at the end of the bed. He grunted in pain until the muscles finally settled down. I had wondered if the little bit of potatoes was too much for his stomach to handle since he hadn't really eaten anything the past couple of weeks.

One of the nurses came in with a medication that she was going to administer to Keoni.

"What is that you're giving him right now?" I asked. I learned to find out as much as I could about what they were doing to help my baby get better so he could come home with me.

"It is a shot to help him urinate," she said as she injected it into his abdomen. "It is actually used for people that have a pancreas that is shutting down, but one of the side effects is it makes the person urinate a lot. So we are using it for its side effects in your husband." The injection didn't even phase Keoni at all. I guess it wouldn't since the needle she used was about the same size as the ones he used when he would inject his insulin every night.

The nurse left the room after she checked his vitals and the bags of antibiotics and saline hooked to his IV. Everything seemed to be in order and we were back to being alone in the room for the moment.

I looked back at Keoni as he lay there with his eyes closed and snoring a little quiet snore.

"I'm mad at you." I said, breaking the silence.

Keoni looked up at me and his eyes told me that he was confused at my statement that I had just given him.

"You are? Why, baby?" He said. He would do anything to keep me from being upset at anything. Words of encouragment always came from him no matter what the situation was. Whether I was in a competition or my job wasn't going just right for the day. No matter what, Keoni always knew just how to make me happy with his words of wisdom and care.

"I don't know why I'm mad." I returned. "Since we can't have any make-up sex, can I have a make-up kiss instead?" I laughed out in a little cry.

He smiled at me and reached his head up to kiss me. His lips quivered a little as he kissed me.

"Hey mister, that's a pretty chinsy kiss. Pucker up and give me a real kiss." I said trying to chear up our moment together. Keoni put his lips together and kissed me several times on my lips. I cried as I put my hands around his face and held his head kissing him all over.

"Hey, don't write me off just yet," he said.

"I'm not baby, I'm just scared." I told him. We just looked at each other and felt the love flowing between us for the moment. Silence gave in to him drifting back off to sleep since his energy wasn't what it used to be. He settled down in a restful sleep and I settled back down in the uncomfortable recliner next to him. The evening gave in to the night and we were resting peacefully together.

Until next post.....

The Family Arrives

Wednesday morning, June 28th, 2006 was a bit more chilly than the previous morning. Wind and clouds moved in threatening the area with rain. I had heard that north of Seattle, there were thunderstorm warnings for another 4 hours. The sky looked daunting as you could smell rain in the air.

Keoni was not doing any better than yesterday. In fact, it seemed he was getting worse. I called his sister in Medford and told her what was going on. She is a pharmacist at a local grocery store in town. When I was telling her what was going on, she got upset at the doctors through me. Her questions brought up questions in my mind that I had not thought of asking before. When our call was finished and I dried my tears from what we were talking about, I went back up to the 2nd floor where Keoni was and searched out the doctor. He had just shown up for his morning rounds and was making assesments on their progress.

One of the questions that I asked the doctor was about a possible liver transplant. Wouldn't he be eligble for that now? I have heard that a person basically has to be on their death bed before a transplant is considered. Well, it seems that Keoni is there right now and it is getting quite scary.

He told me that we needed to stabalize his blood pressure before anything could really be done. Right now, if anything were to be done, it could do more harm than good. He reassured me that they were doing everything possible to get him better so they could consider the transplant. The other problems were was that his kidneys were in acute failure because the liver is producing an acidic fluid throughout his body.

Breakfast was served. Again it was something that Keoni couldn't eat. Oatmeal and fruit. The doctor had informed me that they weren't very interested in the nutritional part of his recovery, but rather getting him stable enough to go back in and check out the shunt in his liver. So, I just drank the coffee that was brought in to him and left the rest to be picked up by one of the nutritionists later in the morning.

At that time, I had realized that I haven't eaten anything of substance in several days. Gatorade and an occasional small bite of Keoni's food was all I had been eating. I needed to remember to take care of myself, otherwise when Keoni did come home, we'd have a problem with me being too sick to make him better.

I then decided to go to one of our favorite restaurants in town and get my normal breakfast there. The waiter, Mike, came over and asked where my other half was. I filled him in on what was going on and he offered his appologies of what we have been going through. He was always real good at remembering just what we ordered and so he wouldn't even bring us menus anymore.

"Your usual?" Mike asked.

"Yes," I said. I had always ordered the Chicken fried steak breakfast, country fries and cottage cheese. I don't like eggs, so they were more than happy to substitute the cottage cheese for me.

I slowly picked at the breakfast brought to me. It was hard to eat since I had a huge lump in my throat thinking about our future and Keoni's condition. Was he going to be able to come home with me?

I paid for my partially eaten breakfast and headed back to the hospital. It seems that there was some commotion going on between the time I left and when I arrived back there.

"We are transferring him to St. Pete's Hospital" one of the nurses said. He will be able to be stabalized there and get ready to go in for the TIPS Procedure again.

I was concerned about Keoni's blood pressure and was thinking that this transfer was not going to be good for him. But what could I do? If they thought that St. Pete's could do a better job, I was all for that idea.

The medical team and a nurse were getting Keoni transferred from the bed to their guerney so they could put him in the ambulance. The nurse was there to monitor his vitals during the trip.

I drove my car there and met the team at the new hospital. We went through and they took him in to the Critical Care portion of the hospital. I was told to wait in the waiting room and call on a black phone on the wall next to a door that goes into the secured area.

I found the phone and picked it up. It began to ring automatically. A young man's voice came on. "This is Hunter, may I help you?" he said.

"Hello, I'm Jenni. I'm here for Keoni. He just got brought in." My voice was shaking since it seemed that things were not going in our favor.

Hunter pressed a button that released the lock on the door and I entered a long hallway that wound around to the main portion of the Critical Care area. I was pointed to the room where Keoni was being settled in. Just before entering the room, a doctor entered from another door and shoved a rolling chair under a desk and threw a fit. I thought that he was pissed about something that had just gone on with someone else.

It was then realized that he was very upset about Keoni's condition and that they were getting him in a state of repair that was going to be difficult for them.

I entered the room where Keoni was now hooked up to a large monitor that recorded his blood pressure, temperature, heart rate and oxygen levels. Three IV machines that could hold 4 bags each were brought in and bags were hung on almost every hook possible. His oxygen tubes in his nose were replaced with a small mask around his nose and mouth.

One of the doctors brought me out of the room and bluntly told me, "That man is laying there dying." His arms were folded and he looked very concerned about the situation that Keoni was in.

I nodded my head and began to visibly cry at what he was telling me.

"What about a transplant?" I asked him, my voice shaking through my tears.

"He won't do well with that at all. He has too many strikes against him. He's a smoker, right?" He asked.

"Yes." I told him.

"Not only that, he has to be off of narcotics for over a year." he informed me.

I looked at him surprisingly because to me, narcotics meant to me as something illegal. I was taken back by that statement and sternly said, "You mean prescribed like morphine, right?" I got a little defensive knowing that Keoni did not do recreational drugs all the time we were together. He was firmly against that and alcohol. Like he has said many times before, his poor health is because of his misspent youth.

The doctor nodded his head and told me that a transplant wouldn't do him any good since he had all those strikes against him. Seemed that we were just going along for a ride at this point and didn't know where it was taking us. Blackness overcame me as I tried to make sense out of what I was seeing Keoni go through and all the staff that was scurrying around him. The room was filled with people.

"Another thing," he continued, "this man is going into the history books, because when he got that shunt put in back in 1996, he was only given 6 months to a year to survive. He survived 10 years with that in there. The only way he could have done that was because of you. He had a reason to live, but now it seems that it has failed him this time."

Another doctor, a young man, the same one that shoved the chair under the table came up to me while I was crying just outside of Keoni's room. He explained to me that what they were going to do was insert an IV line in a vein in his groin so that they could administer meds and fluids to him in a faster fashion. He wanted me to also be in the room so that I could see how they were taking care of him.

"Are you easily effected by blood and the moving of needles under the skin?" The young doctor asked me. He was a very good looking young man in his late 30's. His demeanor was that of a very kind and thoughtful doctor that knew just how to caress family members in the time of stress.

"No," I told him. "I watch a lot of movies on TLC on television about different surgeries and stuff. I watched a knee replacement one time that did kind of turn my stomach a little, but was able to watch the whole thing purely because of the technology that was being used." I explained this thinking that I was now rambling on since my thoughts and nerves were being horribly rattled by all the commotion going on.

Keoni was laying in bed with the mask on his face. I held his hand and leaned over to kiss him. He hummed a little again at the touch of my kiss on his cheek.

The doctor began to insert a very large needle in Keoni's groin area and poked and moved the needle around like he was doing some sort of liposuction or something. He worked really fast and then found the vein that he was looking for.

"His blood is very thick here. It is not flowing very well at all." he informed me.

I could see that his blood was a dark red and dripped a few thick drops out of the needle end before the doctor inserted the long thin tube into the vein.

Everything was set and the IV tube that was in Keoni's thumb was quickly replaced with the IV's that were now in his leg. He didn't really complain at all since they had increased his morphine levels. His breathing also seemed to be a bit more labored also, so a team was brought in to take chest x-rays.

When the films were brought in, the young doctor held them up and I could easily see that Keoni was only working with half of the upper half of his lungs. The rest was being overtaken with fluids. No wonder he didn't take very deep breaths at all. They were quick and shallow. The doctor confirmed my suspisions that Keoni's lungs were filling up with fluid. A sort of pnemonia from the fluid from the liver.

I went outside for a bit to check my cell phone again. There were several more messages on the phone. The one that caught my attention the most was one from my boss at work. I called him and shakingly told him that I didn't think that Keoni was coming home. This was the first time that things were really hitting me that he might not make it at all.

"Do you want me to come down there?" He asked.

I paused for a moment thinking that what kind of boss has ever done that for any of their employees. I accepted his thoughtfulness and he made the arrangements to get off work right away and drive the 40 miles to sit with me for however long I wanted.

When he arrived, he gave me a hug and offered his appologies of what I was going through. We sat on the cement planter edge that doubled as a hard bench. I cried as he sat there rubbing my shoulder trying to offer some comfort.

"He's not coming home." I cried, tears streaming down my face. I filled him in on everything that had been going on the past several days since I haven't been to work since Monday.

After things settled down a bit, I began to reminise about some of the things that attracted me the most about Keoni. His hobbies, mostly his gun collection. I told my Don that Keoni was a gun enthusiast.

"Really?" he said, his eyes perked up. "I am a member of a mens club and we go shooting in Capitol Forest a lot on Sundays."

"You do?" I laughed out, the tears beginning to dissapear. I was remembering all the times we went up there to shoot, but never saw him up there.

"You know what," I continued, "Keoni would tell me that we were going to go shooting on the weekend. I would agree with a little hesitation in my voice. I'd grunt silently and hoped that when Saturday came, he'd forget about what he wanted to do. But when I'd see him begin to load up the guns and ammo in the car, I knew that we were going to go shooting. I'd help him load things up, too. Then when we'd get to the range that we liked and began to get things ready, we had a blast because we were out having fun together."

I continued on with my story of how Keoni and I shared each others hobbies. "Then I'd tell him that we were going to go on a photo shoot with the other photographers on some weekend. He'd agree with not much enthusiasm in his voice. I'm sure that inside he was saying, 'I hope she forgets.' But when I began to get our equipment together, he'd help out, we'd go out for breakfast, get to the place that was pre-arranged to meet the other photographers and we'd have a blast together because we were enjoying my hobby together. Even though it wasn't an interest we had deep inside, we honored each others hobbies because we were able to enjoy our time together no matter what it was."

Don told me that we were true soul mates because neither one of us wanted to be apart from each other. I agreed with him and that this now is crushing me inside because I don't know what to do. What if I lose him? What will I do with my life? He has been my life for the past 7 years and has been the only man in my life that I could actually be myself with. He has taught me so much about who I am and who I could be if I only gave myself the chance to do what I wanted to do.

After about an hour of us visiting in front of the hospital, I looked at my watch and realized that I needed to get over to the other hospital to meet up with Cathy. She didn't know that a transfer had been made since she didn't have a cell phone with her.

Don and I finished our visit with a short prayer and then a hug. I dried my tears and headed for the car. I felt uneasy about not checking in with Keoni before I left, but new that he was in good hands for now. Besides, I had written my cell phone number and name on their whiteboard in the room. If anything was going on that I needed to know about, they wouldn't hesitate to call me.

I got to Capital Hospital and waited a short time when I saw Cathy drive up in their pick-up. I followed her into the parking lot and brought her up to speed about the transfer. I wanted to keep the information down to a minimum about Keoni's condition since she still had to drive another 100 miles round trip to pick up Melody at the airport in Seattle.

"How is he doing?" She asked me as she was taking their little Yorkie out of the truck to releave himself.

"He is comfortable," I lied to her. I didn't want to startle her and have her all upset during her drive. I gave her Keoni's cell phone so that she could call Melody when she arrived at the airport. Then they could call me when they arrived at St. Petes so that I could escort them to Keoni's room.

We parted our ways after I gave her directions to the airport and then to the other hospital. I retuned to the hospital where Keoni now laid with a full face mask forcing oxygen into his system. It had already been asked if we would concent to life support for him. I declined that since he didn't want to be sustained in that manner. Keoni was also able to tell the doctors that recucitaion could be done to an extent. I explained that he didn't want anyone to wear themselves out if there was no hope of bringing him back should his heart fail him.

I noticed a tube coming out from under the mask. "What is this?" I asked the RN in attendance. I was a little upset at seeing a tube coming from under Keoni's mask and didn't know what it was hooked to.

"We had to insert a tube into his stomach since the air is being forced into him, it will cause him to swallow some of the air. So, this will help to remove some of that plus anything that is in his stomach that doesn't need to be there. It is okay, he is not on life support. We don't have an air tube in him at all." He explained in the most calming and reassuring tone. It was already discussed earlier that we weren't going to go in that direction at all.

It was getting dark outside and the wind was calming down a bit. It was another scorching day of temperatures in the upper 80's. Since moving to Washington 3 1/2 years ago from Medford, Oregon where it was in the 100's during the summer, we had gotten used to the cooler temperatures. Now, with the summer creeping up in heat, it was almost getting unbearable during the day. The humidity levels were making the heat index rise a bit more also. That didn't help much.

I went to the head of Keoni's bed. I had to be careful where I stepped since there were cords and tubes all over the place. I also had to be careful where I touched him since I didn't know where he was and wasn't in pain.

"Hi baby," I said loudly since the oxygen in the mask was so loud. "Open your eyes, sweetie and look at me." Keoni opened his eyes and rolled them around a bit to find where I was standing above him.

"Can you see me, sweetie?" I said in a broken voice. I was fighting back the tears. "Give me a kiss, baby." I was noticebly crying now as I pressed my lips on the mask. We couldn't make contact with each other at all. Keoni pressed his lips together as if he were giving me a kiss. Then he said something that I couldn't understand at first.

"What baby? I didn't hear you." I said and pressed my ear on the edge of the mask. I looked at the velcro straps that were around his head holding the mask on and wished that I could undo them so that I could hear what he was saying. Keoni got frustrated and said the words again. "Let me go." I cried almost uncontrollably by now. I remember him saying those words once before when he was in the hospital with his staph infection. He told me to let him go then and I didn't. I wasn't going to let him go this time either.

The young doctor came into the room with a concerned look on his face. He asked me to sit down with him at the other end of the room. Since the oxygen was forcing air into Keoni and it was a fairly loud machine, he wouldn't be able to hear our conversation.

"Your husband is a house of cards right now," he said quietly. It was almost hard for me to hear him since there was a lot of distractions around with all the beeps and squeels of the machines in the room. I found some comfort in cupping my hand around my ear to direct his words right into my hearing range.

He went on to explain that his kidneys have completely shut down. They had already pumped in about 50 pounds of fluid in him, but nothing was coming out.

"Can we do a kidney dialysis?" I asked him. I was grasping at straws by now.

"Yes we can," he said. He continued by saying, "being that his blood pressure is so unstable and a dialysis would make it more unstable, that move could make the house of cards come crashing down." He told me of going in and trying to fix the shunt in his liver and of a couple of other things that could be done.

I waved my hand at him a little to stop all the confusion of procedures he was telling me about. I asked him, "if we do what you are talking about, to what end do we do this? Will he ever come out of that bed and come home with me to go fishing, boating, will he ever walk the malls with me like we used to or go on photostrolls? Will he be able to live a life with me like he used to?"

I was crying slightly by now while also trying to keep my composure so that I could soak in all what I was being told. The whole time Keoni had been in the hospital, I forced myself to contain my emotions so that the doctors and nurses wouldn't toss me out of the room for being a blubbering idiot that caused them to be concerned about two patients instead of just the one. I also wanted to win the trust of the doctors and nurses so that they wouldn't hesitate to inform me about anything that was going on. I studied all the words that they were saying to me on the internet when I had a chance to go home and look them up. I was doing a crash course on Keoni's condition to try to keep up with the doctors descriptions.

The doctor told me that Keoni would not have the same quality of life that we have been used to. He actually needed to be on life support now, meaning an air tube to be put in so that the machine could breathe for him. He also told me that he would never be the same and our lives together wouldn't be close to what we have enjoyed in the past. His care would need constant attention.

I shook my head and cried some more as I looked up at Keoni in his bed. He was lifting his head a bit as though to look for someone. I assured him to relax his head back on his pillow. He did and laid there calmly. Every once in awhile he would reach down to his leg where the IV's were inserted. I got up and held his hand and told him that he couldn't pull on those at all. I explained to him what they were, but I wasn't sure if he actually understood.

I returned to where the doctor and I were having our conversation. He smiled at me and told me that he could see that we truly loved each other and that we obviously have a special bond here. I nodded in agreement at what he was saying. Soul mates. That is what we are.

"We can't do this. He doesn't want to continue on life support if life means that I will be laboring over him all his days and he can't enjoy life with me like we have in the past. He won't go for that at all. That is not what he wants." I felt like I kept repeating myself, knowing that he had told me those same words after he survived the staph infection a few years previous.

"What do we do now?" I asked the doctor. "Is there anything we can do to help him now?"

"No, if we don't put him on life support, and it is a decision that was made by both of you, then we disconnect all his IV's except for his morphine. We also disconnect his oxygen and we just let him go peacefully." He looked over at Keoni a few times when he was explaining this to me. His words were so calm.

"Well, I am going to go against his wishes right now for about 2 hours if we can, because his family is due to be here by then. Can we do that?" I asked, thinking about how I was going to break the news to Cathy, Mel and Adam about the news of Keoni. How was I going to tell him that he was dying?

The doctor agreed and also told me that he would be off of his shift by then, but when we were ready, the RN would call him and he'd talk to whomever I designated as a spokesperson if I didn't want to do that job.

I nodded my head and went to stand next to Keoni's bed. I took a hold of his hand and intertwined my fingers in his.

"Squeeze my hand baby and take me for a walk in the mall." tears streamed down my face when he squeezed so strongly to my fingers. How could a man so strong be so close to death? How could he still look at me and talk to me and be dying? I didn't understand why we couldn't save him.

"I love you baby," I was visibly crying now. I leaned down to his ear and cried out, "I'm so sorry baby. I am trying to fix you. I love you very much." I buried my head in his pillow next to his head.

Keoni used what little breaths he could muster and with each word he said, "I am....so.....sorry......baby girl. You....are......awesome."

After holding his hand for several moments, I pulled my fingers out from his. I noticed the time and realized that Cathy should be here at any time.

"I'll be right back, baby. I love you." I kissed the back of his hand and laid it back down on the bed.

I went outside just in time to see Cathy pull up in the pickup. Everyone got out and I gave Mel a big hug. She has really grown up since last summer when she and Adam came up for a 2 week visit. We had a blast on the lake in our boat going skiing and tubing. I even tried it, but found that I was more of a beached whale and opted to be just a flag holder and picture taker on our boating trips.

Cathy said that Adam needed to go potty real bad, so we headed into the hospital where the restrooms were near the doors. Mel stayed outside with me.

"How's Daddy?" She asked?

I figited with my cell phone in my hands. I was twisting the antenna back and forth nervously. Then Cathy came out of the bathroom with Adam. Before we headed down the hall, I had everyone stop for a moment.

Tears were streaming down my face by now. "Daddy's not going to make it." I shook out the words.

"I was thinking that's what you meant when I saw you today," Cathy said. I could see tears welling up in her eyes, even though they had not spoken civily in the past 10 years, she still found it in her heart to know what I was going through.

"Cathy," I was drying off my tears to become a bit more serious, "I didn't tell you anything at the hospital earlier because you still had all those miles to drive to pick up Mel and come back. I didn't want to cause you any problems by telling you about Keoni's condition." I was hoping she would understand why I basically lied to her.

"I know," she said. "Thank you for that, but I figured that you were keeping it from me for that reason and I appreciate it." She gave me a hug and I was wondering if this was a breakthrough in our relationship? The entire time that Keoni and I have been together, we have only tolerated each other for the childrens sake. I never trusted Cathy when she was nice to me because inside was a venemous snake hiding and waiting to strike. I wanted to be extremely cordial at this particular time of Keoni's life, but still had my feelers on for Cathy's personality. Keoni always told me not to trust her, and now is one of those times that I need to really watch what is going on. Keoni can't defend me this time.

After we all hugged and cried a bit and I explained to them what happened today with him, we all took hands and walked the hallways to where Keoni was waiting for us. I had warned them that he wasn't going to look good with all the wires, tubes and face mask on. He could talk to you and hold your hand, but couldn't hold a conversation at all.

We got to the door where the phone was that I had to use to call in for permission to enter the Critical Care area. I told the gentleman on the evening shift that I was back and also had his family here. He told me to hold for a moment while he checked if it was okay we came back. My heart sunk as I looked at the door and just wanted to barge in there no matter what anyone said. They can't keep me from being with Keoni and I will bring the children and Cathy in with me!

My thoughts were interupted with, "okay, you can come in." The door clicked a little and I pushed on it. It opened. Oh my nerves, can I handle much more of this?

I opened the door and we proceeded to Keoni's room. I held tightly to Adams hand since he is only 9 years old and I was concerned about how he would react. Melody held my other hand. She is 19 and very mature, yet this is her father laying in bed dying. Will she be able to understand why I couldn't save him this time? Will she blame me for not getting him in the hospital sooner?

Cathy held Melody's other hand. She works in hospice, so scenes like this are commonplace with her. The only difference is, this is her ex-husband lying here. The father of their children. Not like a person that she has cared for over several months and moving on to the next person.

When we entered the area near Keoni's room, I motioned to the RN that this is the family I had spoken about earlier. She smiled and escorted us into his room. There didn't seem to be much change from when I left his side about a half our previous. Everything seemed to be moving so fast with his condition that now it all seems to be going in slow motion.

I stood next to Keoni and kissed him on his hand. I couldn't kiss him on his cheek or forehead at all since the oxygen mask was robbing us of that connection. "Hi baby," a huge lump was forming in my throat and my nerves were all bundled up. My stomach has had a huge knot in it for the past couple of days and food has not been a real priority with me. No matter how hungry I was, all the food I looked at in the cafeteria just didn't seem satisfying and so I found myself just walking back to Keoni's room content with being by his side. Hunger pains were replaced with a little sleep and just being by his side.

"I have Melody and Adam here, babe." I felt like I was yelling over the oxygen so that he could hear me. Keoni opened his eyes and smiled. He also moaned an approval of them being there. "Cathy is also here, baby." I stepped aside so that they could all be close to their father and so that Cathy could see him too.

"Sorry," Cathy said after I told Keoni that she was here also. Keoni smiled and was glad to see everyone there.

Melody and Cathy stood next to him for several minutes and then they began singing a beautiful Hawaiian song to him. It was partially in the native Hawaiian tongue and a chorus in english. It was a song about going to see Jesus. Cathy and Mel have always been excellent singers and this was a time that they were in perfect form again. A few tears choked them up, but they managed to make it through beautifully.

When they were done with the song, Keoni said, "That was beautiful." That was the best sound from his voice I had heard in a couple of days and I burst into tears when I heard the strength in his voice. I was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room with Adam on my lap.

After the song was over, I went up to Keoni and held his hand again. I kissed his fingers and rubbed his hand on my cheek. I was noticably crying at this point as I couldn't believe that my knight in shining armor was leaving me soon. The man that I had been searching for all my life was going to be gone. Was I ready to make it on my own? Keoni always told me that I was very strong and when the day came that he would leave me because of his health, he knew that I would find someone better than him to take care of me. I didn't want anyone better. No one could even come close to being as kind, generous, caring and gentle with me such as Keoni has these past 7 years. What was my life going to be like without him now?

I sobbed quietly as Mel, Adam and Cathy stood by Keoni's side. I continued to caress his hand and fingers gently in mine.

Until next post....