35 hours left. $498 to go.
It was on this date 5 years ago that Kevin and I were in a hospital room in Johns Hopkins hospital overlooking Baltimore yet again. It was our second time in this hospital, and throughout the day we were anxiously waiting on news from his oncologist about the status of the cancer. Kevin was extremely weak and you could tell things weren’t right despite all of our hoping, wishing and praying. We had attended to visits with family over the past week, and we all needed answers.
The answer would be that Kevin needed to head to hospice care. It was still during this time that we continued to “hope on” – our doctor had said that if Kevin gained back some strength and energy, and if the internal bleeding slowed, we may be able to leave hospice and head back into treatment. But for now, this is what we all needed – time with each other.
We began searching for hospice’s near an ocean, Kev’s favorite place to be, but ultimately we decided it would be best to be in a hospice close to home and started the necessary calls and paperwork.
14 hours later Kevin took his last breath in the quick moments that I left the hospital room to call family that I felt something was wrong. And life was never the same.
This story was incredibly difficult to write – all the happy moments and the sad moments. None of it was easy, but all of it is important, even the details I struggled to share because they were too intimate. It was my hope, and Kevin’s hope, that our story could help someone else. Kevin had a way of finding hope in the most dire situations, and if another person can come out of the darkness of their tragedy and see possibilities, that would mean the world to me and to Kevin’s legacy.
Please consider a $1 pledge – everything helps. There are some wonderful rewards from everything from $1 up to $2500, so please consider skipping a meal and helping this project come to life beyond what I can do on my own. I need your help and your support. If you cannot become a backer, please share the project with your friends and family through social media, email, and word of mouth as much as you think of it over the next 1.5 days.
And thank you.
