blogger bites the big one

Blogged 15 November 2001 at 13:19

My mom and dad just called. I am now crying. A very very wonderful man died today. He was a officer for the Lander Police Dept.

The summer after my freshman year of high school, my dad took us out to the poker run in sand draw somewhere. Jenn and my mom got to ride ATVs from Lander Marine, and my dad and I rode the old trials bikes. I was very sick that day, it was before I went to the doctor and was treated for my thyroid disease.

To start the day off I got stung by a wasp that flew up my pants. Riding in a dried up riverbed I wrecked the motorcycle and ended up with a cantaloupe size bruise on my leg. I was not having any fun at all that day. I was having trouble breathing because I was crying so much. My face was numb because I wasn't getting enough oxygen. We were the last people to finish the course. Because it was taking us so much longer my mom got worried and Gerry and my uncle came looking for us.

Gerry being the wonderful man that he was let me ride his ATV the last couple miles back to the parking lot. I got off the four-wheeler when I got back to the parking lot gave my mom a hug and passed out.

After that day my mom started calling around to different doctors to find out what could be done to make me better. When she got a hold of a doctor down in Denver, the doctor wanted us down there right away. I was put on a heart monitor and medication for my heart and for my thyroid. My thyroid was so overactive that it had increased my metabolism and heart rate so much, that the doctor freaked out when she heard about the poker run. She was surprised that I hadn't had a heart attack. My resting pulse rate was 90 and just sitting up would raise that to nearly 130.

I was on the heart meds for about a month before it slowed down and started returning to normal. I was on the medicine for my thyroid until the end of high school. The day after I graduated from H.S. I went back to Denver and received a Radioactive Thyroid Ablation (I am not sure if that is spelled right). Since about a month after that I have been on a new medication (which hasn't even been approved by the FDA, but has been used for many many years).

It breaks my heart that such a wonderful man, could have suffered so much before he left earth. My mom said he had had stomach problems for a while but he wouldn't go to the doctor. When he finally couldn't get out of bed anymore he agreed to go in and get checked out. They did some kind of exploratory surgery to see what was wrong. He had cancer and it had spread so much so fast that they closed him up and sent him home telling him he had two weeks to live. He didn't make it the whole two weeks.

He was a wonderful man, and loved by so many people. I know he enjoyed his life and was very happy doing what he did. But, it doesn't make the pain go away. I have known he forever, he was always in my dad's shop. He was always smiling, laughing and teasing Jenn and I.

After I had calmed down a little while I was still on the phone, my mom also told me that one of my grandma's friends died on Monday. There I was crying again. And, my mom was yelling at me that she was 106 years old. I know she was old, and it was her time. But she was the lady that lived in the bright pink house, and we always went over with grandma to visit because she always made us tea and let us put honey in it.

I hate how you don't think about those kinds of things for so long and then all of a sudden the memories come rushing back and it makes you sad. Those memories are all that is left of that person.

When I die I hope that I have touched at least one person in the same way that these two wonderful people touched me.