Dave's medical report

We will be holding an event to celebrate Dave's life at Wymeswold church on Thursday the 1st of November, starting at 2:30 in the afternoon.  We will be sharing some memories of Dave during this non-religious service, and then on in to the evening, at the Three Crowns pub and back at the house for those who want to join us. If you would like to speak at the event, or would like to write something about your time with Dave that we could share with everyone, please e-mail me at hughjnoble@hotmail.com or Jan at info@jbowmandesigns.co.uk.  We will be putting some photos together for everyone to look at too, so please e-mail us if you have any good ones.  Feel free to contact me if you have any questions too, or if you are coming from afar and need a place to stay. Thank you to those of you who have already contacted us to offer support to the family and to share some of your happy memories of my dad.  It is nice for us to know so many people are thinking of us and...

Dave passed away last night.  He had a few visitors over the day stopping in to say their goodbyes and, at the time he died, a small group of us were sitting close by, drinking one of his fancier bottles of wine and listening to his old Desert Island mix tape, which seems like something he would have appreciated. So much about the situation he was in was horrible, but his last day here went about as well as we could have hoped.  With our advocating, and lots of help from the nurses supporting us, it seems like his pain medication was finally where it should be, so he was more restful.  Jan, Sam, Will and I had a nice moment, sitting and sharing a bottle of retsina at the bottom of the garden, in the last of the sunshine on what was a beautiful day, talking a little about the person we all loved so much.  Dave had a chance to say his goodbyes to a lot of the huge number of people who care about him and we know he was ready to go, and really ha...

This is an update from Hugh, Dave's middle son.  I wanted to write because I know lots of people have been following this blog and are anxious to know how Dave is doing. Things have gone downhill quite rapidly over the past few days, especially since Friday, and Dave is now confined to bed.  We had a hospital bed delivered to the house, which has been a help and will be better when the tall-person extension for it arrives today.  There have been lots of nurses and doctors coming in and out and it has been good having this extra help as Jan has been taking on a lot.  The only real goal now is trying to manage things so that he is not in pain and is as comfortable as possible.  He has been very good-natured and extremely brave throughout everything, but he is suffering.  The doctor told us that Dave probably has less than two weeks left, but as his quality of life is so poor at the moment, I know he and the rest of us are hoping it doesn't have to be that l...

I seem to have got myself stuck exactly where I don't want to be. There doesn't really seem to be any change in my overall condition, but there is not enough quality of life for me to want to live like this.. There seems to be no option other than waiting around to get ill enough to die. It is a totally barbaric way for a civilized society to deal with people at the end of their life. Sorry to be so bleak. There are so may people I would like to write to personally, but I'm afraid I have so little energy it's just not possible.

Slept almost permanently for the last 3 days. Still need to get my morphine dose increased, but getting there. LOROS have been very good.