Once a missionary, always a missionary!

Picture:  Our last photo together on 12/30/2009

Yesterday, I woke up to exercise and read my scriptures and the first scripture I read was Alma 29:1 “O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people!” I knew this scripture was speaking of Van.


Today at 2:38 pm, Van passed away. They took a bone marrow biopsy yesterday and the results showed he had only 1% of the cells needed to engraft. The doctors found blood clots blocking the vessels to the liver. He was having kidney failure, heart failure, and his lungs were continually bleeding. He had many bacterial and viral infections and received continuous platelets and red blood transfusions. In the last few days he was put on a pain pump. He has been on life support for the last week and a half except a day and a half when he saw and talked with our children. He was still able to communicate by nodding his head and squeezing our hands until the very last moment.


The Doctor told Van and me that he wouldn’t ever get better and asked Van if he had any questions for him. He used his finger to write one letter at a time, “how long from now?” He wanted to know how much longer before he passed on. The Doctor said he has never in his life seen anyone communicate on a ventilator in the patient’s last hours. Van had told me for the last few days that he was ready to go.


We called our families and they all came and we sang his two favorite hymns: “Where Can I Turn for Peace” and “More Holiness Give Me.” Then just the immediate family came in the room with our Bishop and talked, hugged, and kissed him. They sang, “I’m So Glad When Daddy Comes Home,” a Father’s Day tradition. He squeezed each child’s hand to tell them that he loved them. We all knelt down on the floor around his bed and put one hand on Van’s body and Bishop said an amazing prayer that gave us all peace. Everyone left but me. I held Van’s hand and tickled his arm (his favorite) while the nurses took out his breathing tube. He passed away within 10 minutes at 2:38 pm. It was very peaceful. I had the hymns playing in the background.


As per Van's request, a closed casket viewing for friends and family will be held Friday, June 11th from 6-8:00 pm at Tate Mortuary  (110 South Main Street in Tooele) and from 11-12:45 in the Relief Society room at the Tooele East Stake Center - 751 North 520 East (7th Street) in Tooele, Saturday, June 12th.  The family prayer will be at 12:45 and funeral services will begin at 1:00 pm  The interment will be at the Tooele City Cemetery. 

I have to tell you about one missionary experience. Today we wrapped the two copies of the Book of Mormon that he had purchased in Russian and Spanish for his favorite nurse and favorite house keeper at the hospital. I put his testimony in it and we delivered it to them. It was an emotional day. I was able to see the house keeper and she hugged me and cried with me and thanked me for that wonderful book. Van is the most AMAZING missionary I have ever met. He was doing missionary work up to the hour of his death and will continue the second he gets to the other side.


I love him so much and will miss him. I know the Lord is in charge and whatever happens is right. This is right. I love that everyone shared in our experience together. It was almost six month of ups and downs but I hope we are all better for the journey. I know I am. Thank you for your love and support. We will see you at the funeral or our address is 710 Fox Run Dr., Tooele, UT 84074.

Van's wish was that I make this blog into a hard back book as a journal for his children. This will be my last blog update.

Father's Day Gift List

Today the ventilator is doing most of the work for Van. He’s on a pain drip now. He was able to communicate this morning and then this evening. He is even watching a “Chuck Norris” movie tonight that a nurse loaned to us.

Tomorrow we will get a bone marrow biopsy. In 24-48 hours afterwards we will know if Van is engrafting with the new stem cells. Tomorrow is day 25 since our stem cell transplant. Normally people engraft in between 25-55 days but with a biopsy they can see if things are happening early.

Last night Van’s brother came to sit with him through the night and they talked a lot about the Cabela’s Father’s Day ad. Our kids brought it to him and said he should pick out his Father’s Day gift. With his brother’s help of translating he picked out his top six gifts and numbered them in order. I was so excited when he told me he wanted a BBQ grill for Father’s Day. Ours keeps breaking down and hasn’t worked for a year. Even though he can’t talk he is still thinking of his family.

Thanks for all the fasting and prayers. Our family feels your strength and love.

Where can I turn for peace?

Yesterday, most of our children were able to come and visit us in the ICU. It’s been quite a while since the young ones were able to come. They made an exception and we were all able to be together for an hour. He had a feeding tube, oxygen mask, lots of I.V. lines, and leg huggers (which intermittently squeezes his legs so he doesn’t get blood clots). He was able to talk a little and tell each one of them he loves and misses them.

Just after our beautiful visit, things started going down hill. His respirations were 60-65 per minute (normal is 20), he started coughing up blood (coming from his lungs) and after so many hours, they soon realized his body couldn’t continue doing this on its own. So they had to intubate him again and put the breathing tube down his throat and put him back on a ventilator. We were only off it for 1 ½ days. But this time he realized he truly needed the help, so it was ok.

So this morning when I walked in he said, (or he wrote on a paper because he can’t talk) “What are my goals for today?” I told him the first goal should be to give me at least 10 hugs and kisses. When I hug him he tips his head next to mine to give me a hug. I love it! He can squeeze my hand when I hold his. One squeeze means a certain thing, two squeezes another, etc. Van and I are the only ones that know the code.

His sister came today so I was able to go to church downstairs in the hospital branch. I have never felt such love from complete strangers in my life. Of course, they were only strangers the first Sunday, now they are all my friends and I look forward to seeing them each week. Many couples are called to be missionaries at the LDS Hospital and they visit the sick many times during the week. Then they all attend Sacrament Meeting from 10:30-11:00 and then Priesthood/Relief Society from 11:00-11:30 along with any faculty, visitors or patients. Today we sang Van’s favorite song, “Where can I turn for peace?” It applies to so many times in our lives.


1. Where can I turn for peace?
Where is my solace
When other sources cease to make me whole?
When with a wounded heart, anger, or malice,
I draw myself apart,
Searching my soul?


2. Where, when my aching grows,
Where, when I languish,
Where, in my need to know, where can I run?
Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?
Who, who can understand?
He, only One.


3. He answers privately,
Reaches my reaching
In my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend.
Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching.
Constant he is and kind,
Love without end.


Today, he wasn’t able to partake of the sacrament (because of the tube down his throat) and when I asked if they could give him a spiritual thought they said, “We can read the prayers to him”. My heart was so full as they read those prayers. Prayers are answered, God lives, He knows us and our afflictions and brings peace to our souls.

Good bye Ventilator

The Ventilator has been removed!!! Yeh!!! The first words out of his mouth were “I love you”. And the next were, “I’m so happy, I think I can make it another day”. They say to have a ventilator it’s like breathing through a straw with your nose and mouth closed and trying to suck on a strawberry – super difficult to breathe. He can talk a little but won’t be able to drink anything for a day or two until he learns to swallow again. He still has his feeding tube in so they can crush his pills, syringe them up in some water and push it down the tube.
When you have CML (Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia) in blast phase they treat it like Acute Leukemia. The only way to extend his life is to receive a bone marrow transplant. But when they checked his siblings they weren’t a match, when they tried the 12 million donors in the national bone marrow donor registry there were three maybe’s. But only one was a perfect match and right before the bone marrow transplant they found out this person had low platelets and so they couldn’t use him. We had one 9/10 match and the other one of the three didn’t work out at all. If they used the 9/10 match, Van would have A LOT of “graph vs. host disease”. So the next option was to use umbilical cord stem cells from babies. The stem cells come from the placenta and cord when the baby is born. This is usually thrown away but with a lot of testing weeks prior to birth, with a special company and if the funding is available, they are able to save a few of the cord blood. They test the blood, preserve it and freeze it until it is needed at a later date. When they did the match testing for Van’s type they found one 6/6 match and a 5/6 match. They were two baby girls born in March 2001. They gave both cord blood to him on May 14th. This is day 0. So every day after, they count up – today is day 21.
If you get cord blood it usually takes longer to engraft. The range is 25-55 days. Engrafting means that the stems cells that went into the bone marrow are deciding what they want to be: red blood cells, white blood cells and neutrophils. Neutrophils make up the immune system. So two days ago he had .1 neutrophils and yesterday .0 and today .1. They said it will go up and down but when he decides to engraft his counts will go up for three days in a row and that should be the first sign of engraftment. This is what we want but probably won’t happen for a few more weeks. This will be the beginning of an immune system that can help fight all the bacteria and viral infections he has in his body.
We are on the 6th floor in the intensive care unit of LDS Hospital. We’ve been here for a week and are looking forward to returning back to the 8th floor. They don’t know when that will be but we’ll take one day at a time.
Last night, I spent half of the night with Van (his sister spent the other half) so I could wake him up every time his heart rate went up so we could slow it down with deep breathing. They told him if he did this for 24 hours and not have any forced air breathing, he could get off the ventilator—and it worked! This morning when I came back, after sleeping in our old room on the 8th floor, I brought Van’s scriptures with the intent to play “scripture chase”. I was going to quote him a scripture he had marked and then have him use his fingers to tell me which scripture I quoted. But now we don’t have to use fingers, he can just TALK to me. It’s beautiful!!! Another tender mercy!

Day 19

I received another phone call at 6:00 this morning telling me that my husband was asking for me to go with him on his walk. It takes 3-4 people to go on a walk: a respiratory therapist that pumps a bag that breathes for him, a nurse for his machine with his I.V.’s, and two people to hold on to him as his walks. After our walk, we watched the sunrise together. It was very romantic; at least I kept telling him that.


As of today, he has gained 32 pounds of fluid. It is taking a toll on his kidneys and heart. The kidney Doctor is doing an aggressive lasix drip to help him start to loose this fluid. He has another virus that has surfaced and we are hoping the new experimental drug will work for it also.

But for some good news--we are on Day 19 since the stem cell transplant and our neutrophils are 100! The Doctor’s say we can’t get excited until we have improved each day for three days. But I couldn’t help myself by telling everyone today. This is what we have been waiting for! We could be engraphting within days.


Also, the Pulmonologist said if Van can continue to breath on his own without the ventilator for one more day, he might get the E.T. tube out. It will be so good to hear him talk again. He writes a lot on a clip board right now to get his point across. We can see small miracles happening today. Keep praying, I know you will!

Singing is good for the soul

Van’s brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and parents came to the hospital Sunday evening to sing to him. They sang hymns and songs the family sang when they were little. They sing four part harmony and Van sings bass. We had 18 of us all together in his ICU room. I had to get special permission but they said, anything that will help and inspire the patient is great.

We also received some wonderful visitors that gave him spiritual thoughts and encouraged him to fight. Van’s brother sat with him that night and he said by the next day that he saw DETERMINATION in his eyes.

He is on a ventilator (which is a tube down his throat) and it breathes for him. They have been tapering him off each day and hope to take it out tomorrow. That would be wonderful to have him talk again. Today I brought him a paper that says Pain – 1, Nausea – 2, Breathing – 3, Suction – 4, Write – 5, Call Wendy – 6, Sleep – 7, Hot/Cold – 8, Catheter – 9, Kiss/Hug – 10. Now all he has to do is hold up that many fingers and I know what he wants.

Today they took out his central line (that had three ports) because it was infected with staph infection. They put in a picc line in each arm with two ports a piece. He also has a peripheral line so he has five lines going into him. His body is eating up the platelets like they are candy so now he has one line for continuous platelets. They are trying to match platelets to his blood type so that maybe he might not need as many.

The conference talk from Elder Dallin H. Oaks called “Healing the Sick” talked about--healing the sick by medical science, by prayers of faith, and by priesthood blessings. We have definitely used all the medical science available (even experimental drugs), every one of us are praying in faith and we have received many priesthood blessings. So now it is up to the Lord to do the rest.

Touch and go

Thanks for all your posts on our blog.  I don’t know how to adequately thank you all for you words of encouragement and support.  But just know that each time you post, it automatically comes to my e-mail and I wait until Van wakes up a little bit and I read them to him. 

Yesterday was the hardest day we have had so far.  He was spitting up bright red liquid blood so much that we couldn’t keep an oxygen mask on him so his oxygen level would drop into the 60’s within minutes.  They had him on a c-pap machine with 50% oxygen but he had to take it off when he started coughing so much.  By the afternoon his blood pressure went to 180/100, on as much oxygen as possible, and his heart rate was 145.

They made the decision to incubate him and put him on a venelator to breath for him.  So at 8:30 last night they put it in, along with a feeding tube, a pump to pump out the blood from his lungs, a catheter, and probably a lot more that I don’t know about (because they had me leave the room).  When I got back they put in a sensor of some kind in his arm to automatically check his blood pressure and oxygen level after the blood leaves the heart.  So it is very accurate at all times.  The other arm they put an I.V. because he is getting so many medications at one time they needed a fourth line.

People are worrying about me, but the Lord provided me with a friend (whose husband lost the fight to cancer last January) and my sister who were there for me in the darkest times of the day yesterday.  Van’s sister in Iowa called right at the time when I was taking a walk and trying to calm down from the news and she called his entire family and by 11:00 they were all there with me so I wasn’t alone. 

In the afternoon, the Branch President came to visit us and told us that Van’s name was being put on the Prophet’s personal prayer list (I think it’s because he is in the Stake Presidency) and he was aware of him.  He also told me that when Van needed a blessing he should put his hand on my head and assist in giving me one.  We all went into his room so his brothers could give him a blessing.    Afterwards for my blessing, I put my head on the bed next to Van’s hand and placed it on top of my head (because it is tied down to the bed with an elastic that moves just a little) while his brothers gave me a blessing, with him assisting in that blessing.  There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.  It was so wonderful to feel the priesthood working.

This morning he received an ECO and his heart is at 25% instead of 55%.  They think it could have been from the chemo but not sure.  His kidneys are a little worse today.  And he just got a liver ultra sound and an EKG.  We signed up to be a part of a study to prevent CMV which is a very bad lung virus that accompanies pneumonia.  The Doctor said it was too late for the study because he already has it.  So our doctor called the FDC and got permission to use this drug experimentally.  It doesn’t even have a name yet it’s called CMX001.  But it has been proven a few times to cure.  We start that today and it will be twice a week.  They have to take blood draws every hour to two hours for a few days.

I told you a lot of information but please don’t feel bad because this is so much better than the last four days.  He is finally resting (so that means I can rest).