DAVID EARL UNDERWOOD, SR.

These last few months have been very difficult. Life has been very busy and I haven't posted much. Back in the beginning of August David, Sr. was told that his lymphoma was not responding to his chemo. His survival rate was 25%. They tried a total of four types of the strongest chemo they could get for this cancer. His cancer would just not give up and kept ravaging his body. On September 24th David was admitted back into the hospital...again...(it was becoming an every other week event)because his blood was too low and he was losing too much weight. By this time, he was down to 130 pounds. He was in terrible pain from an inflamed colon and it was putting pressure on his pancreas, he had a severely enlarged spleen and the lymphoma was swelling up again all over his body. On September 27th, we went to the hospital to spend the afternoon with "Papaw David". He was in pretty good spirits and his color was getting better and he was even sitting up. He decided that he was feeling a little hungry and wanted something to eat besides jello. He asked Dave to go get him 3 cheese Krystals and some fries. He ate 2 of them and his fries and we had a nice visit. Little did we know that would be his last meal. During the night he took a turn for the worse and became very sick. He was throwing up and running a temp again. They took him for some more tests and discovered that he had pneumonia. They hooked him up to 2 of the strongest antibiotics that they could and put him back on the liquid diet. On October 2nd the doctor took him for more tests to see how the pneumonia was doing. Brenda called us and told us that the pneumonia was so bad and the antibiotics were not even touching it. The doctor said that there was nothing more they could do for him and that he only had hours left to live. We immediately started calling people for prayer and we closed the shop, went home to get our families and went up to the hospital. When we got there, he was on 100% oxygen and had his bed half sitting up. He told us he wasn't giving up and not to worry about anything. There was a lot of hugging and crying and "remembering when". A couple hours later the doctor came in and told us that they were moving him to a bigger room so we would all have a place to sit with him and then they would start the morphine drip that would put him to sleep and keep him out of pain until his heart stopped. They said it would only take a matter of minutes for him to go to sleep. He fought this "sleep" until about 2am and then could not keep his eyes open any longer. It was so sad to know that he would not be able to speak to you ever again. We went home to "rest" and get showers and then Dave had to go into work until someone could come cover for him and I packed us a bag and went back to the hospital to sit with Brenda. (Mom came in to help with Kaycee and do whatever else we needed her to do.) Brenda and I just sat there watching David sleep and did a lot of crying. It broke my heart to watch him laying there, struggling to breathe. I can't imagine what it was like for her to watch him. Every time he stopped breathing for a couple seconds we both would jump up and he would take in a very labored breath. He was in excruciating pain and was very agitated. When we would talk to him or touch his hand or Brenda would kiss him and tell him she loves him, he would moan very loudly and just the slightest touch would make him flinch. He would open his eyes for a couple seconds and growl every so often. We had to keep turning him because he was down to less than 120 pounds and his bones were sticking out every where and the nurse said that was part of his pain. By 4 that afternoon he was up to 5mg of morphine every hour with a booster shot of morphine every hour and 2mg of adivan (sp) every 2 hours to keep him from getting so agitated. By the time everyone else got to the hospital around 5 that evening, his heart rate was up to 165, his blood pressure was 77/50 and his breaths per minute was 12. By 7pm his morphine was upped to 6mg/hour with a booster shot and the room was full of people constantly coming and going. A lot more hugging and crying. We had mom bring the girls up to see him one last time because the nurse told us she would be surprised if he made it much longer. Everyone left by 10:30pm and I left Dave and his mom to have some alone time with David and went to the lounge. I was remembering losing my dad and praying that God would take David quickly so that he did not have to suffer like this any more and that God would comfort Dave and Brenda as they sat in that room watching him. I can't put into words how much it hurt to watch all of them. Around midnight Dave and I went down to the cafeteria so he could try to eat something since he hadn't eaten all day and to get Brenda some fruit. When we got back to the room, she had fallen asleep sitting next to him in a chair and holding his hand. That is when we got the picture below. His breathing was worse than it had ever been and his temp was 104. The nurse had come in shortly before everyone had left and given him a supository for his temp so he would not have a seizure, but it had not taken the temp down any. Around 2am I decided to go sit in the lounge since Dave and Brenda were both sleeping. Around 4am I decided to try to get some rest and laid down. The last time I remember looking at the clock was 4:30am. At 5am Dave came running into the lounge yelling my name, telling me to get up and come into the room. The nurse upped his morphine to 7mg and gave him a booster shot. She said she could not count his heart rate because it was way too fast and she was not allowed to up his morphine any more. By now his breathing was literally a gurgling sound and his moaning had turned into nothing I had ever heard before. I called mom and told her that it would be any time and to tell the girls and called Dave's brother, Jimmy and told him he needed to get down to the hospital. Brenda sat on the bed with David and held his hand. Every once in a while she would let go of his hand and he would yell something that sounded like her name. She would hold his hand again and tell him it was ok and he would quiet back down. I believe he knew she was right there with him. Around 7am his fingers starting turning blue and we knew it wouldn't be long. A few minutes later the nurse came in to help us turn him again. As soon as they turned him his mask filled with blood and it was over. He passed away at 7:14am on October 4th. It was amazing how many people came to the funeral home. The family was supposed to have 2 hours to greet people. We stood there for almost 4 hours! I have never seen so many people! He was a good papaw, father and father in-law. He will be greatly missed!