An update on Roger:

Tuesday, Jan 17th, Hospice gathered Roger’s team of Caregivers for a Pinning Ceremony, which honors a patient who has served in the military.

Most military people are honored during the day of interment with an Honors Ceremony followed by a 21 gun salute and “Taps” are played. The flag is precisely folded and handed to a designated person with a plaque signed by the President of the USA. It is a very emotional service for family members and close friends, as this is their final goodbye with Honors.

Honoring a terminal patient while they are still very much alive is even more of a special honor and extremely emotional for family or friends in attendance. You are looking into the eyes of a once vibrant soldier, a once very healthy man, hard worker, Husband, Father, Friend while listening to “God Bless the USA” sung by Lee Greenwood in the background.

I was so happy that his Daughter was here for this, as she was raised by her Dad while he served in the military. She has many wonderful memories from living in so many places. She is very well traveled and well spoken from her years of service with her Dad. She has a successful career and a beautiful daughter that will be attending College this Fall.

Also in attendance was two of our best friends that we met back in 2013. They are man and wife and both Army Retirees that we met in Key West on a military campground while spending our first winter as snow birds.

David Farrell, Chief Warrant Officer Five Retired- CW5 (Ret), is also the pilot of a Cessna Skylane 182 and took Roger on a Taco run to Arcadia, FL just weeks ago on December 6th. There is no way on God’s green earth that either of these two men knew that Roger would be seeing the Doctor the very next morning for pain in his chest, which has led us to this moment in time.

Cheryl Farrell, Major Retired- MAJ (Ret) is my close friend that I often call my “Sister from another Mother.” She has been my support system thru this process of unbelievable anguish and total frustration. She poignantly took the lead at the ceremony when it came time for someone to place the pin on Roger’s shirt and presented an honorary plaque to him after reading it out loud. Roger was looking down to hold back his tears, when suddenly, Major Cheryl Farrell gave him his final salute. When she realized he couldn’t see her doing it, she eloquently and firmly ordered “Sargent Turner- Look at me” as he slowly lifted his head and raised his tear-filled eyes up to hers, he could see that she was saluting him as the remainder of us quietly sobbed a few more tears.

My friends, what can I tell you? Who gets to witness such dignity and pride? One Soldier giving a Falling Soldier one final honor, one final command and one final salute? I ask anyone reading this- how could anything at a gravesite top this final gift given by a treasured friend and fellow member of the Armed Forces?

I have no words…

Cara and I thank you for giving us this moment to treasure among the many sad moments during her final visit with her Dad. There are no words for the traumatic week we have had.

This is dedicated to anyone struggling with cancer, whether you’re the patient or the family. Everyone suffers…

And no one knows when it will happen.

December 6th 2022, Roger and his good buddy David did a Taco Tuesday fly-in to Arcadia, Florida. He looked forward to the flight after David invited him the day before and Roger said something like “long way to go for a taco.” We laughed a little and I thought “Well, isn’t life about the journey?” That’s how RVers rolled in our ten years of travel.

Roger was an Air Traffic Controller in the Air Force and has always had a passion for airplanes. He often told me he wished he knew how to fly, but as life would have it, it wasn’t on the priority list. On the other hand- owning an RV certainly was.

Oh how he loved talking to the Air Force pilots back in the good old days and now often watches pilots on Flight Tracker and various other sights just for entertainment.

Taco Tuesday rolled around with a little fog in the morning, but clearing skies made it a beautiful day for a taco. LOL! You thought I was going to say a beautiful day for flying, but as it turned out, a little bit bumpy. That never bothers Roger, but if it were me, I might have lost my Taco! I know all of this because every time he flies with David, he comes home and tells me with a touch of excitement in his voice how it went from start to finish. I always listen intently because I fly in little planes vicariously through him. I need a little more plane between me and the ground!

Why am I telling you all of this? Because it marks the calendar for the course of events that followed.

As it turned out, Roger felt some pain in his chest getting in and out of the airplane on Taco Tuesday and never said a word about it until the next morning. He told me he had a bad pain across his chest and that maybe he should go to the emergency room. I started asking the important questions about the pain and he did not appear to be in any coronary distress as he answered them, so I suggested he call our Primary Care Physician to see if he should go to the ER. They asked him some of the very same questions I did and determined if he could get to the office to go in right away (they are across the street from our hospital.)

An X-ray was done and all his vitals were okay. But an X-ray led to a CT scan, which led to a Pulmonologist, followed by a bronchoscopy (Merry Christmas), which confirmed a large inoperable tumor found in his trachea leading to his upper right lung- which was collapsed. A Biopsy confirmed that he had a very aggressive small cell neuroendocrine carcinoma. Cancer of the worst kind. An Oncologist was called in and ordered an MRI and a PET scan, but Roger decided to celebrate a Happy New Year with a ride to the ER after he could hardly breathe with a side of lightheadedness, resulting in a 3 day visit, and I’m not talking about the Ritz. His MRI was conducted in the hospital exactly one month after he flew with David. The PET scan was conducted a couple days after his release at a cancer center.

In this very short amount of time (only on the calendar- but an eternity to us!) my husband’s health had deteriorated to the point of WTH (my cleaned up version of WTF!) If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I would not believe that one day you go for a plane ride for tacos and a month later you need a wheelchair to get in and out of a cancer center. I will probably never get over the shock of it all and I feel like a computer spitting out words when I speak them to family members and friends to try and explain the unexplainable.

How does this happen? Do we explain away our symptoms? “Well I’m not as young as I used to be.” “The heat just kicked my ass out there!” “My back hurts- must have been the way I slept.” “Wow- that pizza didn’t sit too well.” “Something I ate gave me terrible indigestion!” Tums here I come.

Sound familiar? Well that is also what happens when you have a cancerous tumor larger than a golf ball in your chest spreading cancer cells to your bones and liver, as it turns out, at least in Roger’s case. We were advised to get his affairs in order.

We worked out the best plan and the best care for Roger with a team of Doctors and nurses, but we don’t know much more beyond what I have explained. His follow up with the Oncologist is too little, too late. Perhaps a written report or a telephone conference because Roger is too weak for me to get him to an appointment. There will be no falling on my watch. He will remain at home with my help and the kind and caring people of Hospice until whenever comes.

So for now my friends, we appreciate your thoughts and prayers to keep Roger as comfortable as can be, but Hospice is assisting me with his home health care for this new kind of journey.

I wonder if he will fly over or go by way of six wheels down? It’s anyone’s guess, but he got to do both while he lived here. Ten years of exploring this country and seeing things that both of us, as children, could only have imagined- wasn’t so bad. Live with no regrets because we never know when tomorrow’s too late. I still have the signed application for a handicap tag for Roger’s truck that we never had time to get at the BMV. Life changes in an instant…