Archive for October, 2014
|Drusilla Campbell, 1940-2014
Written by Art Campbell on October 27th, 2014
Drusilla’s Death
(Written by Art on 27 October 2014)
At 3 a.m. on 24 October 2014 Dru peacefully stopped breathing. According to her wishes, she expired at Crickety (her home), without pain, dying in my arms, with her son Rocky beside her. My last words to her were, “I love you, but you must feel free to let go of your riddled body. Wherever you go, I’ll find you.” Also as she wished, I bathed and dressed her body before consigning it for cremation. When her body was carried from Crickety she had one arm curled around her first doll and the other embraced a childhood toy koala. God be with you, my Timeless Bride and Queen of Joy.
Filed under Cancer, Family & Friends, Life Matters | Tags: Drusilla Campbell, Obituary, October 24
Bad News
Written by Drusilla on October 15th, 2014
(Dictated By Dru to Art on Oct. 11)
What do you do when the news is bad? You’re having a day that began in a fairly normal way: Juice, pills, cottage cheese. Then you get into a car and are driven to see your oncologist. Somehow you felt the bad news was coming. It was the prickle of hairs on the back of your neck, a tightness of breathing that you can’t explain. The news is only slightly less difficult to hear when it’s from your favorite doctor.
Filed under Cancer, Life Matters, Uncategorized | Tags: Bad News, cancer, Drusilla Campbell, Hospice, Terminal
Urgent Care
Written by Drusilla on October 13th, 2014
(Dictated by Dru to Art on Oct. 4)
Where am I now at 9 p.m.? In urgent care. Again. Last week it was for a bunch of blood clots that had migrated from my swollen left leg to my heart and lungs. This time it was for acute shortness of breath plus a pulse of 130 beats per minute.
Filed under Cancer | Tags: Breath, cancer, Drusilla Campbell, Oxygen, Urgent Care
Kinship
Written by Drusilla on October 12th, 2014
(Dictated by Dru to Art Oct. 2, 2014)
The other day Art handed me a story about a homeless man called Wilbur who had died of cancer, sitting in a thrown-away chair. He got no memorial, no headstone, just a pauper’s grave. He hadn’t died like that because of being a drunk or a crook or mean-spirited; he’d been a sober, honest, friendly guy. His closest friend said, “He died that way because he’d never married or had children– and kin was how a man like Wilbur made it through the final years of his life.”
The image of Wilbur dying alone with no one at his side is one that will stay with me for a long time.
Filed under Cancer, Family & Friends, Life Matters | Tags: Drusilla Campbell, Friends, Kinship