NOTE: THE MAP IS WRONG

The map provided by Google is off-center to the point we will be meeting at. I have removed the link from the previous post. LOOK for LIFEGUARD TOWER 4, less than 1/4 mile from where you will turn left onto Torrey Pines Road North (Off Carmel Valey Road). Free Parking above the beach runs along the right side. Sorry for the confusion.

Memorial Ceremony Site Chosen

The memorial site, where people can say a few words in honor of Marcie and (we hope) to release some of her remains, has been chosen. It will be at Torrey Pines, near the beach access slope at Lifeguard Tower 4. We will gather at 5 P.M. You don't have to dress up, but please bring a coat in case it cools down.

To get there, follow Carmel Valley Road until it ends, turning left onto North Torrey Pines Road. Follow North Torrey Pines Road across the little bridge over the lagoon and park on the right.

All of the parking along the road is free, as long as you do not enter the State Preserve lots.Parking is not too limited, but is somewhat and it is a popular spot. If you know others who will attend and live near you or nearby, please carpool to save parking at both the ceremony and the wake.

The ceremony may last beyond sunset. We will likely have candles. After the ceremony, we will proceed to the wake. It may be sooner than 7 p.m., but those who will only attend the wake can show a little late. It will be informal and gentle, much as our Marcie was.

Small Memorials, Little Mentions and More Details

Some of you may know that I once worked at San Diego City Beat. Well, AnnaMaria Stephens, who used to work with Marcie, wrote a cover story on breast cancer and wanted me to know that Marcie was the unnamed woman she mentioned at the Union-Tribune.

Also, Frances Shani Parker has dedicated her post on hospice volunteer vigils at her blog to Marcie. My sweet girl keeps growing, even as we struggle to deal with her departure.

I am about to contact Jane Steele on finalizing our location for the ceremony at Torrey Pines State Beach. A map and directions will be up later. It's very close to the location for the wake, but we need to pin it down.

A Note of Thanks

Thank you to everyone who has written in with condolences. I appreciate your support immensely. I am sorry I cannot respond to everyone individually right now, but I will catch up in time. I am sure that Marcie would be overwhelmed. I'll see everyone at the ceremony and/or the wake.

Directions to the Wake

The reception/wake location for Marcie's remembrance has been determined. It will take place at the Steele residence in Del Mar, 12968 Caminito Del Pasaje (Map, Click Here). The following directions should help:

Going North on 5: 
-  Exit at Carmel Valley Road heading west (left at the light at top of ramp)
-  Proceed west approximately 1 mile
-  Turn right onto Del Mar Scenic Parkway (there is a traffic light at this intersection.)
-  Proceed to up the hill.  Try to park on Del Mar Scenic as close to the top of the hill/tennis court as possible
-  My address:  12968 Caminito del Pasaje - Pasaje is the last street off Del Mar Scenic.

Coming South on 5:
-  Exit at Carmel Valley Road heading west (right at the light at top of ramp)
-  Proceed west approximately 1 mile
-  Turn right onto Del Mar Scenic Parkway (there is a traffic light at this intersection.)
-  Proceed to up the hill.  Try to park on Del Mar Scenic as close to the top of the hill/tennis court as possible
-  My address:  12968 Caminito del Pasaje - Pasaje is the last street off Del Mar Scenic.

West on Ted Williams (56):
- Merge onto Carmel Valley Road West
- Proceed 1.4 miles
-  Turn right onto Del Mar Scenic Parkway (there is a traffic light at this intersection.)
-  Proceed to up the hill.  Try to park on Del Mar Scenic as close to the top of the hill/tennis court as possible
-  My address:  12968 Caminito del Pasaje - Pasaje is the last street off Del Mar Scenic.
 

Marcie's Ceremony and Wake

The wake and the ceremony will happen on Saturday evening. The location will be the Torrey Pines State Beach area for the ceremony, which will be followed by the wake/reception at a private home nearby.

A specific address, along with directions via google maps, will be posted by tomorrow. The remembrance will commence at 5 PM, with dropping in late allowed. The wake will begin at 7 PM.

A reminder to all who want to bring food for the potluck (or supplies or sodas, or gifts). Please contact Jane Steele (janedsteele-at-yahoo-dot-com, no dashes and no parentheses). Jane will coordinate where, what, how and all things food.

Special thanks go to Tanya, Jane (And her mom, of course!), Bobby (Marcie's big brother), and all of you who are contributing. Another special thanks to Marie Salmon for helping with the obituary, which was lovely, and to the people sending out the word internally at the UT and SignOn.

You can read the obituary in today's paper, or find it here. Please sign the guest book, and upload any pictures of our girl that you might have.

Frank

Update On Details

I still don't have a final location for the proceedings, and I am trying to nail down either Friday or Saturday for the event. Currently, they are running neck-and-neck. Whatever the end result, the celebration of life will begin at 5:30 PM Friday or 5:30 PM Saturday. The wake afterward will begin at 7 PM.

By tomorrow, I will lock in a day. The places for the memorial and wake will be announced and directions posted by Thursday night. Please mention if you are bringing spouses or friends. Children will now be allowed for people who have trouble finding sitters.

Folks, I am working on it. Suggestions of place are fine, but because we are all of differing faiths (and levels of it), church sites won't work out. Focus on places near Sunset Cliffs if you have ideas (Point Loma, Shelter Island, etcetera).

Please write in to me, or contact Melissa Senoff (SignOn), Marsi Bowers or Marie Salmon (Union-Trib) so that I can keep a good tally of who will attend.

Our love to all of you,

F.

Some Details

So, I have nailed down the date to Friday or Saturday, sunset. I am leaning toward Saturday. Please write in and let me know if you would like to attend and what day is best for you. Once I know how many to plan for I will narrow down the locations to have the celebration at. I am still open for suggestions.

Because of many people offering to bring food, I will probably forgo catering. If you would like to bring food, bring casseroles, salads, breads and the like. Some baked dessert goods would be great. Let me know what is coming so I can prepare for hot, cold and the like.

There will likely be a memory book with Marcie's photos and some sayings, poems and the like, completed before the day of the memorial proceedings. Knowing how many will attend can help me determine how many of those to have printed.

Offers of Assistance

Good morning, everyone.

I am overwhelmed with your wonderful offers of assistance. They are welcome, but I am not sure where to start. However, I must ask you to not send personal information or communication to me over the blog, since it does not give a reply address to respond to when you post to the blog, and posting is for sharing thoughts with everyone.

When you would like me to contact you or write back, please e-mail me. My address -replacing the words in parentheses with the symbols sans parentheses- is the following: frank(dot)pruett(at)cox(dot)net. No spaces, no parentheses.

Today I will be rewriting Marcie's obituary to be a more verbose celebration of her life and all the special elements she left out in her own, typically modest, script. It should appear in the Union-Tribune tomorrow and Sunday, as long as I get it in on time (1 o'clock this afternoon).

I do need help with her memorial. I need a place close enough to Sunset Cliffs to be inviting to everyone to come for a drink and a bite to eat. I am hoping Marcie's memorial will take place on Friday or Saturday at sunset. I will eulogize her and hope others will speak to her as well. I believe that she will join us in her own way.

On that note, I need to know how many wish to attend and what days work for whom. I am asking that no children be brought to the wake/reception function, but I am also asking that anyone and everyone who knew and loved our Marcie feel welcome to join us for the memorial.

This memorial will not be the last one for Marcie. I will be planning a much more fitting and longer-lasting tribute to her than a piece of dirt and a tombstone can provide. I will share my plans when the time is right. There are other plans as well.

Once again, I am calling out for people to tell me if they will attend. Ask people for me and send names of those wishing to be there. She had a special place in her huge heart for a lot of people, so I hope to see all of those I heard so much about attending.

Our love to all of you.

F.

Hoping for a Visit

I have spent the day thinking about what to do for Marcie's memorial, submitting papers and getting the hospital bed she was trapped in for weeks out of our house. It might help weaken the more recent memories of her in favor of all the beautiful memories her photos have for me to recall.

Thank you to all of you who have been giving and offering your support. I will announce the memorial (or celebration of life) details when I have them worked out.

Some people reported experiencing a strange "wakeup call" around 2 AM last night. I am hoping that I get such a visitation from Marcie. At any rate, I will be sleeping a lot, just in case. Goodnight, folks.

Marcie Has Gone

My baby is gone. Our world is that much darker. It happened at about midnight. She was in great pain, panting and struggling, so I called the hospice nurse, who upped her medication. When I checked on her, she had slipped the bonds of her flesh. I am thoroughly and utterly crushed.

The Fever

I have been fighting Marcie's fever the whole day. It spiked after I moved her this morning. I got some water down her and tried to get her antibiotics in. I have switched from liquids to apple sauce and yogurt as bases to mix her medicines in, as she cannot swallow well and may soon lose that ability wholly.

Unless she turns a corner, this could be it. She did not have her usual evening wide awake time today, but has been struggling and her breathing is rapid. She also has some discomfort, so I will be trying to give her medication again, which she has been refusing.

A Slow and Busy Morning

Marcie's morning ritual took a little tonger this morning. She needed some extra care and I gave it to her.

I woke her at 7 a.m., first clearing her throat of some phlegm and wiping her face, dabbing mostly, patting it dry. I gave her drops of natural tears and cleaned around her cannula:


After the accumulated moisture and grubbiness of Marcie's sleep was off her face, I changed her bed. I gave her a bath while I did it, slowly shifting her to her left side from her right. She quietly watched or snoozed when it suited her, serene.

After almost an hour, I took her laundry out and got it started. She generates a lot of it. I like to use clean washcloths and towels for her. The latter, at least, are plentiful.

I came back and she was snoozing hard. I finished changing her clothes, carefully giving her a fine coat of her favorite oils, salves, unguents, balms, lotions and emulsified suspensions of every type. She woke and indicated she was quite amused by it all, since the home health aids take about half the time and don't "moisturize."

It was time to grind her medications. I did that, made a mix of it and water in a syringe. She took it with OJ. I got her to take some orange juice and more water, finishing two loads of laundry as I set her up with some gentle classical music to drown out the hum of the air mattress and the oxygen rig.

Her pupils are mismatched. I gave her Ativan and massaged her again. She's warm.

Six Hours Later

It took six hours to get the oxygen concentrator. The medications came shortly after that. On one hand, the gurgling is gone. On the other, there is now a tube on Marcie's nose. It isn't breathing for her, but it's there.

No food for Marcie tonight, but she did have some orange juice with the new antibiotic, which was prescribed to fight off her new fever. It was prescribed as a 10-day course, but arrived with only 7 pills. I will try a late meal.

Heavy Breathing

Marcie is gurgling again, so I have requested oxygen. The nurse got me some antibiotics to crush into her ice cream (or apple sauce). She needed pain medication, but she sounds clearer now. We'll see.

I managed to get out today (thanks to our hospice aide, Shawn Marie). I had a four-hour break and got some exercise, then came home and helped the nurse check Marcie out and diagnose her. Marcie took in some orange juice and some water, but that was about it. I'm just giving her love and waiting for the oxygen tanks and prescriptions to come in.

A Little Dinner

Actually, a tiny one. But it was a dinner! When Jane left, she advised me she had brought a couple of meat (veggie) loaf (frozen) dinners (organic). Marcie was hungry, so the mashed potatoes and peas and corn all lumped together in the brown veggie gravy was the ticket.

She couldn't eat much, but she ate what she did with alacrity. We shared. It was delicious. I took advantage of the whole situation and gave Marcie chicken noodle soup broth instead of water to wash things down with. We'll see if she gets another bounce out of all that effort.

Barbara reports that she got Marcie to take some chicken noodle soup broth earlier as well. I am just glad she can chatter with me a little and enjoy some food.

A New Morning

So, Marcie is fully lucid again this morning. She refused medication and did not grouse overmuch as I moved her onto her left side. She is tired, though. She took two syringes of water before I had to leave for work, we'll see how much more she gets.

I am planning something special to lift her spirits and will post it after I have the details worked out. I'll post it later. F.

Expecting Low Expectations

Hi, folks. A more "me-personal" post for all of you.

I am not at my prime. I am tired. I am awake or on a hair-trigger most of the night so that I can move Marcie, give her pain medication, and soothe her. I will return to work tomorrow, so I will be juggling jobs, so to speak, again. I will only get more tired.

This means my correspondence will be short, I will be shooing people off the phone, and I will probably be pretty cranky if prodded the wrong way. I apologize in advance. It isn't you. I will also be "off" if I am in the 20th hour awake or so...

In short, I am not running at full capacity and wanted to let everyone know that for every miscue, misstep or misunderstanding, I probably spent an hour taking care of our Marcie. Thanks for understanding, folks. F.

Little Drops of Hope

So a change in approach is paying off, but there have been issues. Marcie will take some water from an oral syringe. It's not much, but I think it helps wet her parched throat and she has taken several. We tried chicken soup broth. No dice. I will try again, even if it is late.

On another note, Marcie is also requesting more medication for pain. When I give it to her, she goes out like a light, though it takes a little time because I keep her dose, optimally, at enough to recover lucidity from if the pain fades . Overall, I just want to make sure her breathing stays relaxed and, not pained and rapid and I hope I can keep ahead.

If any of you ever need to care for a loved one who is suffering, remember that staying ahead of pain is better than catching up. The more pain your loved one is in, the more opiates or other painkillers you have to use to get them comfortable. This is how pain drugs work best.

If you have moral or recovery-based objections to or issues with the use of pain medications, many of which are potentially habit-forming, don't be a caretaker. Also remember that a patient need not be on their backs in bed to need pain control.

On the Outside

I spent the night turning Marcie from side to side to keep her from gurgling when she breathes. She has not been swallowing, so some of her food and soup may have gone down the wrong pipe. Later, I am going to make Marcie a little cocktail of honey and a drug we were prescribed to help cut down on the secretion of mucus into her throat.

Marcie is occasionally lucid, but so far has not taken in any water, or has tried but cannot swallow it. According to the hospice nurse, Marcie has two weeks, and that is "at the outside." I am doing what I can to make that not the case, but without some intake of water, death could come at the hands of an infection and a fever.

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayer of support. I share them when she is lucid, though all she can really do is nod in response.