home & hospice
Mark & ZuZu
I cannot believe it has been four months since the last update. Time with Mark has been so precious, and I'm beyond heartbroken to be posting now. I'll fill in the gaps as I go, but I need to tell you all that Mark entered hospice care on Wednesday, and he is declining quickly.
I'm in bed beside him as I write this, crying and trying not to blow my nose too hard and disturb him. He is sleeping and seems happy and peaceful. He wakes up occasionally and tells me I'm pretty, then he mumbles something about cookies, or cold water, and drifts back off.
Mark hasn't had chemo since January 27. It was too painful for him to ride up to Columbus, so he kept pushing them back until he felt good enough to make the trip. He began to lose strength in his legs, and there was blood in his stool and urine. We had to call the squad to take him to the emergency room on Feb. 10. He couldn't walk at all, and he was extremely pale. He was septic, and tests later showed he had an infection in his blood. The ER doc was concerned that the biliary stents were the source of the infection, and they wanted to transfer him to Riverside. As it happens, Riverside and many central Ohio hospitals were at capacity with flu and RSV patients, so we waited in the O'Bleness ER for a day and a half for a bed to open up in Columbus. A bed eventually became available upstairs, so he was transferred to a patient room to wait it out. Long story short, about twenty minutes after Mark decided to stay at O'Bleness for care, a bed at Riverside opened up.
We made the right call staying in Athens. His doctor (one of our grads) was all over it and ordered a course of treatments that had him moving in the right direction within a day. Although the infection and sepsis were dissapating, the tests and scans he received still showed some worrisome markers. This is when the first mention of hospice came up. Dr.Snyder wanted to know if it had been anything that we had considered and offered to set up an information session for us. He told us in the gentlest way possible that we were looking at maybe only having a few months left together.
He was released on Valentine's Day and had a pretty good week after that. Trying to get him back into the house was a comedy of errors, but I'll leave that story for another time. After he was home, his appetite came back, he was playing with some of his new action figures a bit, and things were looking and feeling normal. After taking the last of his antibiotics, Mark began to feel weak and was having bloody stools again. His appetite began to wane, and he was pretty much bed-bound.
His oncologist called this past Monday (March 3) to check on him and to see what his thoughts were on continuing chemo. After a long discussion of all the options, Mark decided that he wanted to take more control over his situation and decided that he would stop chemo. He was also due for his stent replacement on the 14th, and he also decided to cancel that.
That pretty much brings us to where we are now. The first of his hospice nurses came on Wednesday, and we met our social worker and chaplain on Friday. This is all too real now.
He is having difficulty swallowing now but is still managing to be positive like the typical Mark that we all know and love. Even though Mark is still in there, the comfort drugs are doing their job, despite the jaundice quickly taking over his skin color. We may only have days left now.
Mark intends to donate his body to OU-HCOM. If it doesn't happen (the paperwork is not yet complete, so we don't know if he can be accepted or not), he wants to be cremated without any funeral service. He has agreed to us having a memorial service for him at a future date.
Because of your love, thoughts, prayers, donations, and the parts you have played in Mark's life, you have made this horrible disease a little bit easier for him. For those of you who are our graduates and students, please know he is immensely proud of you. All he ever wanted was for you to go out and become good doctors, and you have done that. He has been honored to play a supporting role in your journey, and his energy will always be cheering you on wherever you go. For those of you who are friends, co-workers, and family, know that Mark loves you all and has appreciated you being there for him in good times and bad.
I cannot imagine what life is going to be like without my best friend of 33 years. We met in 1992 and were married in 1997, and I knew then a lifetime with him would never be enough. There is a line from an episode of WandaVision that keeps going through my mind. It was something along the lines of "What is grief but love persevering?" I know that in time this hurt will dull down, but I will grieve this wonderful man for the rest of my life.
Thank you all for being here and supporting him during the final part of his journey. I will let you know when the inevitable has finally come to pass.
-Jill Harman