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Old 02-17-2017, 03:00 PM   #26
chrisinhouston
Professor
 
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: Houston TX
Posts: 1,857
We are at 16 days now since she stopped eating and is only having a few sips of water the past 2 days. Hospice gave us these little Q-tip like sponges you dip in water and moisten the lips, we put on lip balm as well. She is talking very little today, only whispers faintly and then drifts off. I took her blood pressure today, it was 72/49 with a heart rate of 62

I suggested to my wife that we pick out a nice dress for her to wear after mom passes, I know she never liked to go out of her apartment if she wasn't dressed properly and with a bit of lipstick and makeup on. I also asked her if she wanted to inquire from her sons if they would like to come by to say goodbye before the funeral home is called for service. We are cremating her and there will be no viewing or service other then a party type family get together later on. I think it's good for closure but both boys said they would need to think about that. Their father died of cancer in 1996 and they didn't process through the death very well.

Not sure what to do with the ashes. My wife's father died 8 years ago and was cremated but at that time her brother had a huge catamaran in Newport Beach. It was 65 feet long and 28 feet across so we took out about 25 family members and put his ashes in the Pacific. But her brother sold the boat. He has one in his part time home in Tahiti and that's kind of an expensive trip to go on. I looked into doing it off of Galveston but it would cost $750 and they can only take out 16 people. My wife still has her first husband's ashes in a nice box on a shelf in our family room and we also have an urn with our first dog's ashes. We don't really need anymore!

The kids are coming this weekend to start picking out things, we might get some things moved out. We only have until the end of February so just 2 weekends. We won't get Social Security or her pension from her husband's fund at Xerox so it all needs to go somewhere.

Waiting for someone in the final stages to die is the same as waiting for a baby to be born, no set schedule and they just do it in their own good time.
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