Death Becomes Her

So glad I can finally get on here! After a busy we and no time to write, then their servers were down, or something....

Anyway, Easter was good. But the days that followed were rough, very rough. She got to a point to where she could no longer turn her neck. She was looking to the left and that was it. She could not turn her head, lift it, obviously get out of bed.... After a few days we realized that she was in pain, but she just couldn't vocalize it to us. Once we got her on a regular pain medication schedule (Ibuprofen gel on wrist and Oxycodone liquid) she improved. She was still bedridden but was talking again and laughing and telling jokes. A few days later, a nothing turn for the worst. This time she was having trouble taking liquids. And for a few days we had to take her off of liquids, just thick things like applesauce.

This past week she was great. Eating and drinking pretty normally. Being demanding! Being Danielle! She was slowly having more pain, didn't like noise, and wasn't a big fan of having my kids (3 and 4) near her. She was super g. reat with her hospice nurse, very cooperative. And was waiting for a strawberry ice cream from her nurse on Monday.

Thursday morning she good. But by that evening it all changed. My mom, brother and I went out for an hour or so, while my aunt watched the kids and Dani. We got home and my aunt described what sounded like a seizure. So we quickly gave her medicine for the seizure and called hospice. And this is when she slipped into a coma. The nurse was out here for a few hours. When he arrived at 9pm on Thursday, her Osats were in the 40s and her heart rate in the 140s. He ordered oxygen. When the nurse left after few hours later, her sats were up to the 50/60s, heart rate still high in the 140s and her fever was down to 102.1 (after starting at 103).

I stayed up the night with her. I wiped thick white from her nose. Around 5 or 6am I noticed that her legs now appeared molted and her fingers and lips looked more and more blue despite having a fever. Around 9am her fever had spiked to 105.5. The Hospice nurse arrived at 930, we talked a bit and decided that it was time for "constant care"---a nurse that is at the home, nearly around the clock, generally in the last 72hours.

The constant care nurse arrived right around 10. As the two nurses talked through their change over, they said that her Osats were at 33% on 5 liters of oxygen. --This is bad. A few minutes after this, maybe around 1030 Danielle's main nurse told us that it wouldn't be long. Family came as did the Priest of the church. The Priest read her prayers of the dying (I think that is what they are called.) During this time, Danielle was still in a coma, but we were told that she could hear us.

Her breathing was so hard....her whole body was working so hard...she was fighting so hard...at 12:59pm surrounded by her parents and 3 out of 4 siblings, she went home to the Lord.