This is for all the peeps and pups that are asking how we are doing.

Hi, every buddy! Since we lost our dad, on Friday, we have been very, very sad. Penny goes and lays her head on his chair and Poppy, Penny and I (Patches)keep sniffing his chair and his hospital bed. We know it makes our mom even sadder, but we can't help it. We are going to turn our bloggy over to our mom now.

Hi, everyone. It's me, Lana. It hasn't yet been 3 days since I lost my husband and I am NOT okay. Yes, he was ill for a long time and I should feel some sense of relief. Well, I had about 4 hours of some relief when the ambulance took him to the hospice unit at the hospital. When they called to tell me he was gone, all the relief ended.

He actually stopped breathing at about 4:50 a.m. here, at home. I shook him, called his name and tried to sit him up. All that was in vain. I grabbed the phone and called hospice. They said a nurse would be right over. I went back to Stan and raised the head of his bed and he started breathing. The nurse arrived at 5:30 and gave him nebulizer treatments until the ambulance arrived at 10:00. She thought she was going to have to convince me to let him become an in-patient, but in light of the events of the previous day and night, I was happy to have him go to the hospital. He had turned into a 2 year old and I couldn't handle him anymore. I couldn't make him stay in the bed and somehow, he had forgotten that he was sick. He was walking all around the kitchen without his walker and I was afraid he was going to fall and hit his head on the wood floor. At 2:30 in the morning, I heard him rattling dishes in the kitchen, so I got up to find a large container of ice cream melting on the counter, pills in the refrigerator and water ALL over the floor. (At least I'm assuming it was water). I finally got him into the bed and put ABH cream on his arm. It's mixture of Ativan, Benadryl and Haldol that has a very quick calming effect. I sat in the kitchen and watched him until 3:30 and then went back to bed, once he had fallen asleep. I never went back to sleep because I was listening to him breathe through the baby monitor. At 4:45 a.m., I decided I might as well get up. The dogs always bark, like crazy, when I get up because they want to go outside and mostly, they want to EAT. When we got to the back door, Stan tried to get out of the bed and I told him to stay there and I would help him as soon as I got the dogs fed. I fed the dogs and turned around to help him and that's when I found out he wasn't breathing.

I do take some comfort in the fact that he wasn't in any pain because that was his biggest fear. He never became bed-ridden, but his mind reverted back to when he was doing a lot of woodworking. (He kept asking me for screwdrivers and such). Before that happened (a little over 24 hours before he died), he was extremely worried about ME. He knew that once he was gone, I won't get his Social Security check anymore and I, obviously, don't have a job, so I will probably lose the house eventually. Some people have given me names of agencies to contact for help, but right now, I am incapable of making those calls.

I guess the hardest part is knowing that my family is a couple thousand miles away and the only real friend I have, here, is Wendy (Ezzy Rider and Jagger's mom). I have talked to her, on the phone, about 1000 times a day and she is going to the funeral home, with me, this morning. Since Friday, I have just wanted to be alone and I have been force-feeding myself enough to keep going. Even though I knew this was coming, it has been a major shock. Just a week ago, he was doing really well for a man with his illness. I expected to have some time with him being bed-ridden and non-responsive leading up to his death and that didn't happen.

Yes, this is the hardest thing I have ever had to go through and it's the first time in my life that I have lived alone. We had been together for 32 years and I went from living with my parents to living with my husband. Now, if it wasn't for my 3 Aire-girls and Wendy, I would probably REALLY lose it! It does help to know that all of you are praying for us and thinking of us. If you pray, I would ask that you pray for me to have the strength to get through this.

Thank you all for your prayers and comments and a special THANK YOU to Lulu (Bogart Handsome Devil's mama).

Aire-hugs,
Lana (and Poppy, Penny & Patches too)