Heavy Hearts Again For Our Family~Prayer Request

Please lift my Uncle Richard's family and our entire family up in your prayers. He is my daddy's brother (looks just like him) and he is 88 years old...they will be taking him home from the hospital within the week or so on Hospice to go to be with his Heavenly Father.

It is so hard to believe this is happening because I just saw him, talked to him and he looked great at my cousin's funeral in October. He has been on dialysis for several years, survived being hit by a tornado...see story here and now, he is going to die within a couple of weeks. That is, without a miracle from God.

He has been on dialysis for several years and that was where he was coming from the day that his truck (with him in it) was hit by the tornado, was thrown into a muddy field and he survived. Granted, he was in bad shape and several times, he was expected to make it through the night, but by the grace of God...he did.

The past couple of months, he has been having problems with the "port, line or whatever it is called" where they give him his dialysis treatment through. It has been developing blood clots at the site, they would move it to another location and it would happen again. The problem is now that there is no where else to move it to. He developed an infection at the last permanent site...the staph has gotten into his bloodstream and spread throughout his body. He is not responding to the antibiotics either. I haven't talked to my cousins but this is the information that was given to me. I hope the specifics listed here are accurate or close to it, I do know the overall plan is correct.

They put the dialysis line in a temporary site that could only stay there a couple of weeks, it has been there a week already. There is not another place to move it to now.

The doctors have told them that there isn't anything else that they can do for him. They are waiting on the Hospice to get set up, medication and anything else needed for him to go home. He will probably have dialysis for up to another week and then...no more.

The doctors have told the family that it would be a very peace death for him. He would sleep more and more, then one day, he will go to sleep and not wake up. Uncle Richard's wishes are to die at home and his family are going to honor those wishes. He will be surrounded by his family...his wife, children, grandchildren and probably his great-grandchildren during his last days.

Please pray for him and for his family during this difficult time. It could be a couple of weeks before he succumbs to death.

Update 12/18/08 - Uncle Richard's daughter has set up a CaringBridge page for him. Visit his page and leave words of encouragement if you would like...type in Richardwood in the website box on their site. The site address is http://www.caringbridge.org

Have a wonderfully blessed day!