Our friends group lost one of our own last Sunday. John R., who has had legions of serious medical issues for a long time, had gone back to the hospital with sepsis (and numerous symptoms connected to that) in the wee hours of Valentine's Day morning. The hospital managed to get his 103.8F fever down, and get his too-low blood sugar and blood pressure back up into the low end of the normal range.
The infection was coming from a bone in his foot, which has had a longstanding wound on it (due to diabetes and poor circulation in the extremities). Things had reached a point where amputation was being seriously considered. He didn't want this, and none of us wanted it for him, but it had to be discussed and he was at least listening and considering the option.
But then came Sunday morning, and his BP was dropping again. All the alarm bells in my head started going off when JFM posted that to our text group. If they can't keep a person's vital signs stable, that's a serious problem and it could be the fast track to a very unhappy outcome. They were giving him fluid to try and get the BP back up, but when a person's already on dialysis, that treatment brings with it a set of risks, too.
JFM reached out to a priest friend, who drove down to give John an anointing and communion in the early afternoon.
Three hours after that, JFM got a call because John had coded and they were trying to bring him back. He hurried to the hospital to be with John, and arrived just as they called an end to the CPR.
We attended the funeral yesterday morning. We are all devastated, for obvious reasons, and none more athan JFM. John was a person who, despite having a body that rebelled continually and caused suffering every inch of the way, remained a good and kind person throughout it all. It's a gift from God to be able to maintain goodness in the face of all the things he went through over the years. And it's a gift from God to the rest of us, for having known such a person.
We will all miss him immensely.
