She was a rare light on the forums and she will be greatly missed.
Christine passed away today, October 17, 2007, 2:00 pm. This is her husband (Chris) posting this for her. She made me promise I would keep all of you updated as she cared very deeply for every one of you.
I want all of you to know how much I appreciate your kind words and support towards her. I really believe these forums helped keep her going at the times things were very difficult for her. She lived life to the fullest right to the end and fought this horrible virus with everything she had.
She started having mild fevers Friday evening, but nothing out of the ordinary. This continued into Sunday night when she had a fever that peak at 103.9 degrees F. However, her spirits were up all through the weekend, she even worked on her crafts Sunday afternoon before the fever hit. Sunday night after her fever broke, she wanted to check her blood pressure. It was 70/35! Monday morning on the advice of her nurse and doctor, we took her to the ER. She was quickly admitted, but they could not stabilize her blood pressure which was even lower at this point, so she was transferred to the intensive care unit. Tuesday morning at 4:30 am she told me she couldn’t fight anymore and want to stop the blood pressure treatment, I told her it was okay.
The hospital (Hershey Medical Center) was fantastic, they let us bring in our dogs (4) one by one so she could say goodbye. As I’m sure some of you know, they were VERY special to her. After that at 2:00 pm on Tuesday they stopped the blood pressure medicine and put her on a morphine drip to help with her chronic pain and make her comfortable. We were told she should pass within a few hours after she fell asleep, but Christine was going to have the last word on that and silently fought on for another 24 hours until she passed today (Wednesday) at 2:00 pm. She passed so peacefully, I couldn’t have wished for more. Through all of my sorrow and grief, I feel great relief that her pain and suffering are finally over. Nothing will hurt her ever again. I will love her with all of my heart forever and I hope I made her time here as happy as it could be.
I will do the best I can to follow this post and answer any questions or concerns you might have.
I am going to try to start some type of donation fund in her name to benefit local animal shelters, since that was so special and dear to her. If any of you have any suggestions or comments on how I should go about that, I would greatly appreciate it. I was think some type of PayPal account would be easy.
Thank you with all of my heart.
I have struggled over the years to figure out why, if there is a higher power, they would put someone through so much pain and suffering. Christine never deserved any of this. But after reading her posts and seeing how many people she has helped, I have to believe that this was her calling and she needed to carry this burden so she could understand and reach out to others. I don't know, but that is what I'm going with to help me make sense of this.
I want all of you to know how much I appreciate your kind words and support towards her. I really believe these forums helped keep her going at the times things were very difficult for her. She lived life to the fullest right to the end.
Thank you with all of my heart.