"Winding Down"

Dearest friends and family,

The title quote is something that Bob said to his sister Santa when she was here with him Thursday. He also used a car metaphor, talking carburetors and engines, but being dumb girls we couldn't figure that one out. The heart-breaking truth is that Bob is declining rapidly. He went on hospice on Thursday, after having a bad day Wednesday( trouble breathing) and making the decision that he does not want to go to the hospital anymore. The plan was that we continue all meds and try to stay the course, but he's just too tired to carry on. It's taken me until today to completely acknowledge the fact that Bobs' time here is, as he says, "winding down". He's received liquid morphine a few times for his breathing, and of course it makes him comfortable, but sleepy. He's wearing his oxygen continuously now and a hospital bed is being set up as I write this. He's still eating...beef stew last night, courtesy of my cousins John and Connie...and his perennial oatmeal this am...well more like lunchtime, actually. And eating wore him out and now he's sleeping again. We will transfer him to the hospital bed soon and then he'll be more comfortable and I won't have to worry about him falling 3 1/2 ft. to the floor. The hospice staff has been wonderful.

I find it hard to believe that I'm writing this, but when I think back to Bob's first hospital stay, when he failed the induction chemo and the repeat high-dose chemo and he was told to "get his affairs in order", well, how blessed we both were to be given this gift of the past 7 years. It was 2003 that he banged his shin, got a whopper of an infection that never healed, which lead to sepsis, which finally lead to the diagnosis of myelodyplastic syndrome. Then 2 years of more infections, bleeding problems, daily nupogen and epogen injections, thrice weekly platelet and RBC transfusions, before it changed to leukemia. A clinical trial of revlimid, after the failed chemo, lead to a year in and out of remission. Then finally in 2006 Dr. Luger said his marrow was good enough to go for the transplant and the search was on for a donor. He had several very good matches, but of course the single perfect match was found in his donor Mikhail, from Germany and on May 25th, 2007 Bob received the stem cell transplant, very anti-climactically as I recall. It was like getting a blood transfusion and he did beautifully. But the point was, ( I guess I just had a little cathartic moment there), that life is a gift, no matter how much time we're given. And Bob is and always will be the greatest gift I will ever receive.

Please continue to remember us and pray for peace and comfort for Bob and strength for me. I'm not sure how I'm going to make it through this.

As always, with love and thanks,
Bob and Mo

P.S. On a lighter note, I'm crying as I'm writing this and freaking out the poor, young kid who's setting up the bed. I'm sure he's thinking,"why me God, why me??"