After three very long and hard years fighting the good fight against advanced liver cirrhosis, Steve's kidneys began to deteriorate in March. Finally we went to the ER in early April where we discovered that his kidneys were failing. After being told by many doctors that we no longer needed to try to make the trip to Arizona to try and get a liver transplant at the Mayo Clinic, we knew what they really were telling us. So we checked out of the hospital. Kaiser accepted Steve to their hospice program. He was able to spend three weeks saying goodbyes to family and friends. Some of those goodbyes were online, via phone and a few made the trip to see him in person. It was a bittersweet time.
On Thursday May 2 in the wee hours of the morning, my beloved Steve died peacefully at home. He wasn't in pain his final 24 hours and he managed to give me three gifts in those earlier hours of dying. He smiled twice while breathing heavily. The first was when I was playing music on my phone for him. I found What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong (our wedding song!) and then it transitioned to an Aerosmith song. Oops, I ran to change it and the hospice nurse said to wait that he must like it because there was the biggest smile on his face! A few moments later I told him that he was once again surrounded by a bevy of women at his bedside and that made him smile a second time. Then I told him that I loved him and he managed to gurgle back to me that he loved me too. Both the hospice nurse and the social worker understood it and looked at me. All three of us ladies then smiled and laughed. It was such a beautiful moment that my love gave me at the end.
His parents spent the entire day with him and were able to say goodbye to him late at night. In the wee hours it was just me holding his hand, the dogs and this wonderful CNA who woke me up for his last moment. I told him that I loved him, rubbed his shoulders and then told him that it was time, that it was okay to go. He then took two more deep breaths and suddenly was gone.
I was so happy that he didn't have any pain at the end. He held off of using the pain meds for a very long time so that he could make phone calls and have those last visits with special people. After his brother saw him on Sunday he said that it was time to give him some relief. Early on Tuesday morning his hospice nurse said to switch him to Morphine and most of that day he slept. We had one last conversation very late at night before he took his meds at midnight. I watched him fall asleep and then went to sleep myself.
