Notes and Details

According to her wishes Vivian was cremated.  Serge, Sarah, and I all had an opportunity to say our last goodbyes to our wife/mother. Our plans for the memorial service are coming together nicely.  There will be no lack of pictures and memories to share with friends and family.  A lot of people have reached out to us offering a shoulder to lean on, an ear to listen, an arm to help, and many words of encouragement, not to mention all the delicious food people have made. 

I have a couple of notes about the visitations and memorial service. 
1.  There is a kitchen/family room area at the funeral home with toys, couches, a TV with VCR/DVD available for families to use with their children. 
2.  Lory's Place will be at the visitation on Friday evening to provide support and activities for any children and/or students of Vivian's that may need an outlet for their grief. 

If more details come up I will be sure post those as well. 

Visitation and Memorial

We have set some dates and times for visiting with family and friends and a memorial service for Vivian.  Her obituary, visitation times, and an online memory book can be accessed at Starks & Menchinger's web page by clicking here.  The main information is listed below:

Visitations
Friday May 4, 2012:  5pm-8pm
Saturday May 5, 2012:  1:30pm-3:30pm

Memorial Service
Saturday May 5, 2012:  3:30pm-4pm

Memorial donations can be made to Lory's Place of Hospice at Home or to the Michigan Association of Retired School Personnel - Berrien County Chapter (MARSP-BCC).  Vivian and Serge have been long time supporters of Lory's Place as a resource for people (particularly children) to help deal with the grief of losing a loved one.  The MARSP-BCC will be awarding up to a $1000 college scholarship in Vivian's honor to a student studying Speech and Language Pathology.  All donations can be sent care of Starks & Menchinger Funeral Home.

Peace

In the presence of her family Vivian B. Schillio passed away today at 12:50pm EST.  There is a part of us missing, but we take comfort in her peace.  The outpouring of love from her friends and family is a testament to her kindness and generosity.

More information will come as visitation and memorial arrangements are finalized.

Hard To Be Human

While we are able to illicit some basic body language responses as we talk to her or when she hears certain noises, things are fading for Vivian.  She is entering the last stages of her battle with this disease.  Our job has been to keep Vivian as comfortable and pain free as possible, but it is becoming increasingly difficult.  We are stuck in a position where more medication may keep her more comfortable, but will quickly take more of her away.  At the same time, we're not so sure it would be a bad thing if she slipped away sooner than later.  It's proving difficult to be humane and human at the same time.  Fortunately we have been able to be together as a family and we believe she feels our love and takes comfort in our presence.

A Couple Projects

An old stained glass window from a church in Pennsylvania has been in Vivian's family for over 50 years got a new life when Serge finished up a project he'd been working on for a week.  It was cleaned and a new back-lighting box was custom built and wired to show it off.  Vivian was visibly delighted when it was relit for the first time with her father and two sisters present this past Sunday.  Serge is planning on researching its entire history, but Vivian's father believes it may be 150 years old.  It's roughly 4 feet wide and 4 feet tall.  My sister and I remember this particular piece of stained glass as a fixture in our grandparents house when we were young, and we're happy to see it back up and running again.

Vivian was also able to help out with one last craft project for her grandchildren.  With about four of us working together we were able to color Vivian's left hand purple (the color of pancreatic cancer awareness) with tempera paint to make hand prints on a few sheets of linen paper.  Each grandchild will also add his or her hand print to this sheet of paper.  Lastly we will add a photo of Vivian and that specific grandchild to the paper and frame them.  Each grandchild will have this as a personal reminder of their Nanny.

Visiting Vivian

Things continue to swing back and forth with Vivian.  Yesterday she did great with taking in fluids, today not so much again.  Overall, however, she is getting quite weak and completely lucid moments are few and far between.  We are all feeling the painful effects of slowing losing the woman we know.  

The list of family and visitors that have stopped by continues to grow - her father, sisters, brother-in-law, and niece have been here the past three weekends in one combination or another; Serge's parents, sister, nephew, and niece made it in last weekend; another niece stayed for a few days this past week and helped clean up and cooked for everyone; close friends have spent many hours with Vivian which has allowed Serge time to run errands, complete projects, or decompress with a couple buddies at the local FOP.  Sarah, John, and Rowan have been spending a majority of their time each week at the house to support the family while trying to balance their work responsibilities back in Lansing.  My wife, Sara, has done the lions share of house keeping and child rearing (she's still on a maternity leave from our second child, Vivian's granddaughter Lauren) allowing me to support my parents and grieve all at the same time. 

Thank you for all the stories and words of encouragement - they have been helpful for the family.

Back and Forth

Vivian had some of her worst moments in the past couple days and then has rebounded to show some strength.  From an entire day where she ate and drank almost nothing, to drinking 4 glasses of electrolytes and eating a piece of bologna and some fruit.  Yesterday she went over 7 hours without any morphine - something she hasn't been able to do in nearly 3 weeks.  She is still receiving pain medication with trans-dermal patches, but it was nice to have a good part of a day where she was chatting with people (real or imaginary) and wasn't constantly sleeping.  "Good" days like these tend to get your hopes up with thoughts of how she is possibly getting better... it's about all that's left to hold on to right now.  We know and understand the reality, but take comfort in seeing Vivian chuckle or smile when seeing a friend's face.

There have been many friends and family stopping by and helping out here and there, which has allowed Serge some time to run errands, finalize paperwork, and "putz around" as he calls it - things like building a ramp so its easy to get Vivian out on the deck for some sun, designing his own iPad stand so its easier for her to do FaceTime chats with Sarah and John in Lansing, and illuminating a large stained glass window that's been in the family for decades.  Ultimately it's good therapy.

Remember to keep visiting John's Flickr page for Vivian as new photos are constantly being updated.  There are currently over 500 photos! 

The Difference a Day Makes

The last two days have been like night and day.  Monday Vivian truly had a "bad" day - she didn't have much to drink or eat, seemed to be in a lot of pain, and had an extremely difficult time speaking or understanding conversation.  After a monster night of sleep (9 hours straight) and some modification to medication dosage and timing Vivian was able to have a "good" day today.  She was much more alert, participated in conversations, and even scolded Serge here and there.  There is still significant difficulty eating solid food, but she was able to stay much more hydrated today and managed to get some calories sucking down over half of a Frosty.  We were all pleased to see the change today and hope it sticks around for a while.

Pictures of Vivian

My brother-in-law, John, spent the weekend sorting through family archives and digitizing photos of Vivian with friends and family as well as her extensive travels with Serge. He uploaded a collection of images ranging from her old grade school photos to images from just a couple weeks ago when she was swimming with dolphins in Key West. There are hundreds more to upload (so check back frequently), but below is a slideshow that will automatically update as additional images are posted.

You can also view them directly on this Flickr website by clicking here. Right now there is no rhyme or reason to the sequence of the photos, other than it's in the order that they were scanned in. John will eventually be able to sort the photos into categories such as family, friends, etc so people can browse the images in different ways. If you have photos that you would like to contribute, feel free to email them to John at john@LMB.org and he'll get them posted to the site. If you have lots of images, shoot him an email and he'll send his address so you can mail him a disk.

5 Days Later

The goal of the two procedures that Vivian had done at the University of Chicago five days ago was to relieve pain and allow her some more time to be with her family.  Without the stents she likely would have passed away by now.  Her jaundice is hardly noticeable, so we know her liver is back doing what it should.  Her pain, however, has not subsided to the point she was hoping for.  Vivian has been doing a lot of resting the past two days and the moments of being completely present seem to be further apart and shorter in duration.  Solid foods are becoming more difficult to eat.  She clearly enjoys seeing and hearing her three grandchildren, giving Serge kisses, and seeing extended family members, as well as giving us small quips or eye rolls to express herself.  These are the very moments she wanted to have, and because of the procedures she gets to have them.  There are no regrets.  We know the time she has left is short, and we're grateful for every moment.