The Longest Journey...

Dear Ones,
As many of you know, my darlin’ wife has been in failing health over the past year. She had several falls, one with a nasty concussion, & her ability to walk has deteriorated. Her Post-Polio Syndrome was proceeding rapidly, & it was difficult for her to pass on the mundane tasks of life & care to me as they became increasingly more difficult.

Through it all, her faith was unstoppable, & she refused to allow me to get her medical treatment. She had had enough of doctors, she said, after the polio, heart issues, rheumatic & scarlet fevers, 6 pregnancies, gall bladder: you get the picture. So, it was left to me & Doctor God to care for her, & I tried everything that I could think of to maximize her comfort & functionality.

On the evening of Friday April 25th, several family members visited for the evening. After they left, we spent 3 agonizing hours trying to get my beloved out of her chair, finally succeeding at 1:30am, exhilarated that we had discovered how to do it with a minimum of pain & discomfort for her. A few hours later, we tried again & she could not get up. Again we tried a couple of hours later, & she was unable to stand.

At this point, I sat down & told her that I could not do what she needed anymore, & she agreed to allow me to call 911. The paramedics were wonderful & took her to the local hospital, where she underwent several hours of intensely painful tests. They determined that she had advanced breast cancer & a mass on her liver, which was causing many of her problems. They transported her to an Austin hospital, expecting to take her to ICU. She spent most of the night in ER, & got to Intermediate Care early Saturday morning. She endured more tortuous pain as they staff evaluated her, & we got the results mid week that she indeed had an unfixable breast cancer & a mass on her liver. She did not want to undergo surgery, so we signed the Advanced Directive, her Do Not Resuscitate orders were in place, & we began the process to get her into Hospice care.

Throughout the week, as innumerable doctors came & went, poked, prodded, injected, tested, & manhandled her precious body, her spirits stayed strong. She enjoyed watching the pigeon family on the balcony, with one just learning to fly, 2 eggs, a doting mother & strutting father. True to form she was more worried for me than for herself. She told me, “I may have robbed you of a few years with a wife, but I hope you understand…” I did.

We witnessed love & cruelty, compassion & indifference, kindness & anger, as the parade of staff & volunteers seemed unending. The chaplains & social workers were of great comfort, especially when a particularly cold-hearted oncologist threatened our Hospice plan if we would not consent to yet another intensely painful test. By this time, my darlin’ was so distraught that she was unable to speak, & motioned for me to step in. I confronted this furious, hate-filled testmonger, who had deliberately misled us as to the nature of this test: (“It’s just a little needle, just a little needle…”) when in reality it entailed deflating her air bed & putting her on a flat table, which had been so painful to try earlier in the week that the nurse halted the test prep fearing a cardiac arrest due to her “howling in pain”. As she had a DNR on file, he would have had to let her die, all for a TEST! Upon my refusal to allow the test, Dr. TestMonger repeatedly threatened our Hospice plan. However, we are Wolf, & after a long, despairing night which caused my darlin’ to have severe chest pains, we rallied the troops of nurses, Drs, patient reps, social workers, chaplains, & Hospice nurses & accelerated the move to in-patient Hospice that Friday afternoon.

Despite a particularly rough & unconcerned (read 20 yrs Navy) ambulance crew chief, my darlin’ settled in, happy to be in such a comforting, loving, & beautiful setting. The intake nurse evaluated her, & filled me in on what I could expect, She said that there could be a significant & rapid decline in her condition within a couple of days, due to how she was presenting. I waved that off, telling her that my darlin’ had a really bad 24 hours before getting there, & that she would perk up once she rested & recovered from the trauma. I told her that I needed to visit with the social worker on Monday to begin evaluating skilled nursing facilities & making final arrangements, as I knew we could not stay there for long, just until her pain was under control. I was charging ahead at a full gallop when the nurse stopped me, put her hand on my knee, & said, “Mr. Hritz, at this point, we will take it 1 day at a time.”

They gave me a small booklet entitled “Gone From My Sight”, which compared death to a sailing ship nearing the horizon. As it passes out of view, we on the shore say “There she goes”: at the same time, folks on the other shore see the ship come into view & say, “Here she comes!” The booklet detailed the stages of death, & I began to check them off. She was on a morphine pump, & hallucinated all night; at one point she called to me, asking if all those people were really in the room: I told her that she & I were the only ones really there, but I knew she was in the company of loved ones that had gone before. By morning she had settled into a deep & snory sleep.

Blond Bombshell Daughter #3 visited along with her daughter & grandson. I took the opportunity to run home, tend our animals, grab some laundry & an Indian blanket she wanted. While I was gone, she had a surge of energy, telling BBD#3 that she did not know what was real & what was not, & that she thought she saw her granddaughter, who she indeed did see at her bedside. By the time I returned, she was asleep again. Family left, & I spent hours talking to my darlin’, playing my river cane Kiowa & our son’s cedar wolf Kiowa flute, playing Virgie Ravenhawk’s music, praying, thanking her for everything I could recall, praying & drumming in the Serenity Room, brushing her hair, warming her always-cold hands, & timing her breaths.

I called Blond Bombshell Daughter #4 late that night, driven by the Creator to contact her after 17 years of estrangement. She was very kind to me, & got to hear her mother’s voice. My darlin’s eyes were open almost constantly, but there was no recollection in them. I begged her to see me one last time – she could not. She did rally, taking 3 quick, deep breaths, & said “I love you, I love you, I love you…” I fell asleep at 12:30am, & again as staff tended to her comfort & showed me what to do for her. I rose at 6, grabbed a coffee, & settled in at her side again, timing breaths & watching her pulse. I asked the nurse how much of what she was doing was the morphine, which had been steadily increasing in dosage, & how much was her condition. She said very little was the morphine, that she was actively dying. I returned to her side, talking to her & watching her pulse & her breathing. I called Blond Bombshell Daughter #3 later that morning, & as I was holding her mother’s hand, I saw the pulse go away. I told BBD#3 what was going on, hung up & called the nurse. I noticed that her breathing had also stopped, & in the few moments before the nurse & doctor arrived, her face color changed, & I knew that my darlin’, my beloved pretty girl, my lady, my queen without a king, was gone. The nurse knew it as soon as she opened the door, & looked at me knowingly. I nodded, she checked for a pulse as the doctor distracted me, & they called her time of death at 10:49am, May 4, 2008.

The nurse hugged me, I cried with her for a while, & pointed to my beloved, saying, “That woman lying there is an amazing woman: she sang for a President at the White House, at Carnegie Hall, the ryman Auditorium, as backup for Hank Williams Sr., & she loved me for 36 years, which is the most amazing thing she did!” I closed her beautiful baby blue eyes & kissed her. They left me alone & I began to call our loved ones. They said we could keep her for up to 12 hours, the chaplain called & prayed with me, the social worker helped me contact funeral homes, & friends & family gathered to honor her & lift me up.

Praise the Creator that she is no longer in pain, or discomfort: she is a bright shining light in the presence of God: she does not need to walk now, for she can fly. She will live forever in glory, & I pray that I can live my life well enough to join her for eternity.

There were many moments of joy through this journey: I will detail them in a later post. Please forgive that I have not posted sooner.

Blessings & Light,
Michael