Christian's cancer story comes to a close

This is the very hardest one to write. I have written so much on this blog over the past year and a half, just trying to share information with everyone, but now this “cancer story” is coming to a close.  

Her story will never come to a close for me. This is not how our story ends. I know her family feels the same way. There was no one like her on this planet, and there never will be. She was a one of a kind, and the love of my life. She was the best person I ever met, and I look forward to seeing her again one day, up in heaven.  
Now I will sit in this empty house that she decorated so well, but I am not alone. God is with me, she is still with me in my heart, and I still have our little terrorist of a dog running around here somewhere, so maybe it won’t be too bad.  
I knew this was coming for a while, and I have said a few times that I felt like I was prepared, but nothing can prepare you for it, when you realize they are gone and won’t be coming back. 12 years is not enough. 

With that said, I am so glad and very grateful that we made so many memories over the years. That is what it is all about. We were fortunate enough to be blessed with decent jobs, and went on some pretty awesome trips over the years... 
All the way back when we were kids at the beach in August of 2008, in “young love”: 

When we got married on a cruise ship in Charleston, SC in September of 2010: 

And just shortly before her passing, here in our dining room: 

All of the memories woven in between those events, over our almost 12 years of marriage, are what I will always remember. She will always be in my heart. And I thought I loved you then. Rest easy with your new body my love. 

 

Ok, well, enough about me, right? This is HER story after all, not mine.  
Let’s finish the last chapter of her cancer story. 

Since the last post (July 19th) she had been getting more tired and sleeping more. Some days she would sleep in the bed all day. Other days she would be on the couch a few hours here and there.  
We had hospice come to the house on Thursday July 21st.  
They discussed a few things, and admitted her into hospice care at home.  
They provided some oxygen to help keep her o2 level up, and a few other little things.  
They were impressed with how well we were able to explain what had been going on, and that we had a system that was working great so far (8hr interval of pain & nausea medication).  

We began checking her o2 levels periodically, both with, and without the oxygen. We found that if she was not using the oxygen, she would hover around 90 with a higher heart rate around 140’s.  
With the oxygen she was upper 90’s with a heart rate around 120.  
For that reason, we tried to keep her on the oxygen as much as possible so she would feel better, and her heart would not have to work too hard. 

We tried to line up visitors as much as we could, without overwhelming her. She got in several visits with her family, and a few close friends over those few days. There were a few days of sleep mixed in as well. I know there were several others that wanted to get the chance to see her, but it is just impossible to accommodate everyone in this kind of situation. I do apologize if you were unable to come out. Things changed rather quickly after those few days of visiting (as you will read below). 

She got more tired on Wednesday July 27th. She had a couple people visit that day. That evening she told me she didn’t want any visitors on Thursday, and that she just wanted to rest. After that point, we basically cut the visiting back to only her immediate family, and only if she was up for it. It was left entirely up to how she felt and what she wanted to do. 

Thursday the 28th she slept in the bed for pretty much 24hrs straight. I would wake her up to give her medicine, and to get her to eat a little something and drink some water. Other than that, pretty much sleep. 

Friday morning (29th), when I went to give her the 6am meds, she was pretty disoriented. This was new. 
I had not seen her out of sorts like that. She took her meds; I laid in the bed with her for a while. She was saying things that did not really make sense. She went back to sleep, and woke up later a little bit clearer head, but still not the same. She was just having a hard time putting her thoughts into words. Her brain was in a fog. It was like a switch got flipped. Her family came over throughout the day, so she got to see her dad, mom, & sister for a while. They laid in the bed with her. She ate a few small bites, and she drank enough water to stay hydrated. 

Saturday the 30th, she slept all day. You could tell her brain was still foggy. She had no real interest in eating or drinking anything until that evening. She had a few chicken nuggets and some water. I let her rest as much as I could, and only woke her up to give her medicine. She said she enjoyed the break from visiting and just being able to rest.  

Sunday the 31st, she was pretty much the same. She had her family come visit off and on throughout the day. She was more awake and active, and was feeling a little hungry. She had a few pieces of Sir Pizza that her mom brought over. She enjoyed them, and drank a decent amount of water. She made her way to the couch for a little while for the first time in several days. She took a little nap there. I think she just wanted a little change of scenery. She then went back to the bed, and went to sleep for the night. 

Monday August 1st, she slept a good part of the day. She wanted a little break from people visiting, so that is what we did and she just rested. Still the same fog. Still disoriented and would say random things sometimes. The hospice nurse did come out that afternoon for her weekly visit. I talked with her about the decline that happened over Thursday night / Friday morning. She said everything we were seeing was normal. She said Christian will probably kind of “stair step down” it appears, so we might see a step of decline (like I did Friday morning), and that would be the new normal for however long (until the next step down). She was very impressed with how “under control” we had the “uncontrollable situation” regarding her pain control, making sure she was comfortable, keeping her oxygen on, etc... I guess she probably sees people that don’t have good caregivers like her sister & I tried our best to be. Christian did start to have a little breakthrough pain close to her afternoon medicine time, so we upped the dosage on her pain medicine. The nurse said we did really good by starting at a low dosage, so we have “somewhere to go” other than changing to a stronger medicine right away. We talked a little bit about the future options regarding better pain medication if needed. The nurse wanted to start checking on her every couple of days instead of every week. She said she would call Wednesday and come by if needed. 

Tuesday August 2nd, she woke up around 10am. Her sister was here, and she helped me get Christian in the shower and all cleaned up. She said she felt a lot nicer being all clean. Jimmy & Penny (Dad & Stepmom) stopped by for a short visit. They talked for a little while, then Christian got tired and wanted to sleep. So, she did, and Jimmy laid in the bed with her for a while just spending time with her. Later in the afternoon Judy (her mom) came by for a little while. Christian slept most of the day, and Judy laid in the bed with her for a little while. That evening she was a little more awake, and decided to watch a little TV, then go to sleep for the evening. 

Wednesday August 3rd, she had a little visit with her mom around lunch time. She watched some TV and slept quite a bit. That evening Jimmy & Penny stopped by for a short visit as well. Christian did not eat anything that day. She started to have some issues with nausea again. It would usually occur when she would take her pain & nausea pills. The hospice nurse called me and we talked for a while. We discussed the nausea, and both agreed it was probably because she was taking the oral meds on an empty stomach. We talked about other options for pain control and anti-nausea. She said there are several other options, and one of them she was going to talk to her NP about (on Thursday morning), was patches for both. The nurse said she wanted to come by on Thursday afternoon to check on Christian as well. For her evening meds (10pm) I tried something a little different. Instead of giving her the pain medication and the anti-nausea medication at the same time, I gave her just the anti-nausea at 9:30pm. Then I gave her the pain meds at 10pm. My hopes were that it would help prevent her from getting sick. It happened to work fine, and she felt fine, and went to sleep for the night. 

Thursday morning at 6am, I did the same thing with her meds. Staggered the nausea meds first, then the pain meds. She did ok and did not get sick. She went back to sleep. She woke up around 10am and wandered out to the living room to relax on the couch. She had a surprise visit from her old boss Dr. Powell (section chief of hematology & oncology at Wake). That put a smile on her face. She worked for him for a long time, and they have a bond. He truly cares for her and he was happy to see her and that she was comfortable. They chatted for a little bit then she got tired, so he took off. She napped on the couch pretty much the rest of the day. She was irritable at 2pm to take her meds and was just pretty much over taking them. The hospice nurse came at 3:30 and we talked for a while. She said Christian was “transitioning”. Not going to get into all the details, but basically her body was working on getting itself ready to go. With that in mind (along with the other issues that came up with oral meds) she switched Christian over to liquid medicine for pain, nausea, and anxiety (to help her relax). It is sublingual, so no need to swallow, and you can use a dropper even while the person is asleep. As long as the medicine goes into the mouth, it gets absorbed into the bloodstream. That was a great change for many reasons. She laid on the couch the rest of the day sleeping. I got her into the bed around 6pm to stay for the night. 

Friday August 5th, she was showing more signs of transitioning and slept pretty much all day. The liquid medicine was working great at keeping the pain / nausea under control. She did not have any. She was very comfortable and just slept. She did not eat anything this day, and that made the 3rd day in a row without anything to eat at all. Days prior were very minimal. She also did not want much of anything to drink. This is normal. She did have a few sips of water or apple juice here or there, but that is all. 

Saturday morning, she got up to use the bathroom, and she was very weak and extremely disoriented. She had been becoming a little more disoriented and incoherent each of few days before, but this was the next step, I think. She didn’t know where the bathroom was (tried walking into the closet) and a few other things that told me she was pretty out of it. I know I touched earlier in this post about her brain being in a fog. In the beginning it was just a little foggy with getting the right words to come out, or saying a random thing every now and then. Over the past week I saw a very significant increase in it. Going from “foggy” to almost completely incoherent at times. That is the natural progression of it. She became a little harder to wake up. She still knew it was me, and she understood I needed to give her medicine, but other than that she was pretty out of it when I did wake her up. 

Sunday morning (Aug 7th) she was showing more signs of being closer to going home. She was more incoherent, harder to wake up, and pretty much completely disoriented. She would mumble things, and most of what she said you could not understand. Every now and then you could get a “love you” response back out of her, but that was about it.  
She slept pretty much all day. She began having pauses in her breathing while sleeping, and a few other signs began showing that she was getting closer. The hospice nurse came out that afternoon for a visit, to check vitals and lay eyes on her. They said she was “active” and pretty close, and that we were more than likely in the 24hr window. Her immediate family came over. They all took turns throughout the afternoon / evening spending time with each other, and her. 

Monday morning, she was still with us. She slept all day. She was comfortable. She showed more signs of being closer to going home. She was ready anytime, and just waiting on her physical body to do what it needed to. She was peaceful, no pain, and no suffering. The hospice nurse stopped by to check her vitals and lay eyes. They said she was real close, and more than likely she would be going home that evening. All of her family was here, all spending time together (which is what she wanted more than anything), and of course taking turns spending time with her. The hospice nurse said that even though she was unconscious, that she could hear what we were saying to her. So making sure she felt that we were near, and she was not alone was important to us all. 

Tuesday morning, at around 4:30am, she took her last breath here on earth, and moved on to heaven. 
She is in a much better place now. I am sure she will be watching over all of us down here on earth. 

I wanted to give a specific shout out to Christian’s sister Jen. She has been a very big help here at the end. I was starting to get a little over done between everything needing done at the house, and giving Christian medication every 6 hours, etc... I don’t need to get into the details, but it was a lot. She helped me out a lot. All of her family helped if I needed it, but she really was a big help and I will always be grateful for that. They were absolutely best friends, and she deserves to be mentioned here. 

I know I was somewhat detailed with this last post, and it was lengthy, but I wanted to do it that way for a few reasons.  

Number one, is she deserves all of it. She has put a lot of her time and energy (which she didn’t have a lot) into helping people with the same disease while fighting it for the past year and half. She deserves for the rest of her story to be told. We have been pretty detailed with these posts from the beginning, so I tried to keep that the same, while also being 100% respectful to her (regarding the end). Also, even though I have done most of the writing here, I never published a post without her first reading the draft. She would then change, add, delete, to make it however she wanted it, and she would then publish it. This is her blog, and her story. I might just write some of it. 

That leads to number two. There were a few reasons I started this blog for her. The main one in the beginning was conveying information. When you have a lot of her friends and family, that want to know how she is doing, along with my acquaintances (friends, work, etc...) it is easy to be inundated with texts and calls from all directions. In the beginning that was happening with her phone and mine. This blog went up and the link went out, so anyone and everyone who wanted to know, can know. That reason still exists, but it really kind of morphed into a more caring reason for her over the past year & a half. She used it (and a few other platforms), to reach out to people who dealt with (or are dealing with) the same disease. She used it to give them a possible idea on what to expect with certain drugs, or procedures. She used it to be a blessing to others that needed to see one of her positive, smiling face, videos in the middle of the mess. Through this whole situation, she met friends battling stage IV colon cancer that passed on before her, and she met friends battling it that went into remission and are still here. She touched all of them. Over time, the information sharing was still important obviously, but she used it to help others and share her story, and that became her drive for it. 

She is no longer fighting this battle, and is no longer in any pain or discomfort. She is cancer free now with a new body.  

There will be a Celebration of Life at 2:00 PM on Saturday August 13th at The Summit Church.  
Address: 4440 High Point Rd, Kernersville, NC 27284 
Anyone is welcome to come. 

Her memorial / online obituary is linked below: 

https://www.forevermissed.com/christian-whitaker-eisenhauer

In lieu of flowers, planting trees, etc... she asked that some money be donated towards research for colorectal cancer at Wake. A GoFundMe was put together for that reason, and to also help with her medical bills, funeral expenses, and a few other things. It is linked below. After expenses, a lump sum check will be donated to Wake, directed towards the specific research she wanted, according to her wishes. 

https://gofund.me/8d303a3f

Wake is where she worked as an administrative assistant in the Hematology & Oncology department for 12 years.   
Wake is also where she was diagnosed, and had all of her treatments & surgeries. We have spent a lot of time there over the past year and a half. Everyone there in the cancer center treated her great and did everything they could for her. We will always be thankful for that. 

I cannot say thank you enough to everyone who has supported us through this journey.  
Having people that we don’t know, that might be half way across the country, reaching out to check on her, or reaching out to say they are praying for us, etc... It all just means so much. Having people, I do not know that sent food for us, gifts, etc. The support has been great. This has been a trying time, but we will all get through it.  

She is in Heaven now, and if you know Jesus like I do, we will see her again up there one day.  
I have not been a great example of a Christian, but that is something I am going to try and work on. 

To close this out, she said, she doesn’t want people to focus on her not being here on earth anymore. 
We are all just here temporarily anyways. She wants people to focus on the fact that she is in a much better place, and that she doesn’t have cancer anymore.