Today started off as sad day. Chris, Kensington and I arrived about 8:30 this morning. When we walked in the door, a new volunteer was stationed at the door. We were greeted with alarm. The questions of ‘who are you?’ and ‘where do you think you going?’ were barked in request. While I understand she was just doing her duties, I wanted to inform her that for the past 10 days no one has questioned our intentions and her role at the door was to be a greeter, not a member of the Hospice Gestapo [sorry, just had to get that off of my chest. Plus, I know I’m hypersensitive right now, so I apologize to you, Mrs. Volunteer] As we passed Mazha’s room, Chris asked me where I was headed. I told him that I wanted to check on something… as I got to the door a moment of sorrow hit me. Fredrick was no longer with us. He had passed away during the night. I haven’t seen many visitors in there with him. My fear is that he passed away alone like so many people here do.
Today Mazha had a couple good spells. She looked to be more alert and started kidding with Chris, saying that he was her favorite. She ‘played’ with Kensington for a bit, and clearly recognized everyone that was in the room. It actually made me question (and hope) whether or not Dr. Ferguson could be wrong. Until later we found out that she has started to go into renal failure. Her fever, which has been steadily at 99.3-99.6, has spiked to over 100.
Tonight was the first night that we actually used the family kitchen for what it was intended to be used for, instead of just our coffee depot. The entire group of us, minus Mazha of course, took control of the facility and started telling stories and jokes to help release some of our pain. You could hear us throughout the center. At first I thought we were irritating the nursing staff, but we found out that they actually enjoyed listening to us and they started laughing as well. They said they don’t hear much laughter in the hallways here, so our dinner conversation was actually uplifting for them.
[Papa and Kensi taking a nap with Lois]
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