June started out with a lot of trips. Kayla headed over to Italy for her study abroad. Meigan went to the East coast to explore some colleges so Don and I decided to go camping at our Camping Resort in the Black Hills. We all had a great time.
July came and we were going to head to another camping trip to make a final look at a few schools and to catch up with Kayla since she will be back from Italy.
We went to visit University of Wisconsin, Illinois and Purdue. We camped at another one of our camping resorts and had a fun time with Kayla. Called my brother to see if he wanted to come down and camp and no return call. I did not head up to visit him.
We were coming home and half way across Nebraska in the middle of nowhere and I get a call that something is wrong with my brother and can I come and try to get him to go to the Doctor. I am not near anywhere so I give the cousins a call. Julie said she would be on her way she lives about an hour from Tom. No hesitation she was on it. Time she got there he was on his way to the ER. She got there and they had to transfer him to a bigger hospital as they would have to remove his leg. So as he flew down to Grand Rapids another Cousin Deb met him at the hospital and he had the first of 7 surgeries. I could get a plane out on Sunday and so I flew out. He was in ICU and the cousins were all there waiting for me. I had a place to stay. I was there for 10 days and just thought we would have to find him a new place to live, then the dreaded words his liver is not very happy.
He had 3 more surgeries before I went home for a bit but the following week I was back and it did not look very good. His liver was not doing well (he drank a lot in High School and College and the infection took a bigger toll). He was orange and retaining fluid. I got back ind did some more things with his house and knew he wouldn't be back to it. One Dr. thought if he did dialysis that maybe would give his liver a break to get better. But that was not so. I left n Monday after they said there was no real way he would go through dialysis for 6 months. I thought he would still have dialysis for a few more times so I went back home on Monday and was called back Monday night as his infection was worse and they could do no more surgeries as he had no clotting factors so again I left Wyoming and headed to Michigan this time my husband came with me and we drove. We got there on Wednesday to say good bye. His boys spend Wednesday and Thursday night with him and then the cousins came in on Friday and we told stories and laughed and had a good time and around 1 AM he went home.
Had the funeral the next week and and cleaned out his house and got everything done that we could. One of his sons went to his first day of college and the other is now living with his mother. I will miss my little brother. I love you Tom.
Yup if you would have told me I would have spent 6 weeks in the hospital and planning a funeral by the end of the summer I would have said no way.
I am sorry that I have not been updating my videos and blog for the past 3 - 4 weeks. But I think you would understand.
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