Dale Ritz, 1923-2009

Thank you to all, friends, family and acquaintances, your prayers have been wonderful! We serve an awesome nd loving God, and he answers every prayer, maybe not the way we expected, but he answers, and he answered this one by calling grandpa home to be with Him on Wednesday night, just short of midnight.... I will probably not be one here for awhile, but so many of you have prayed for us and there are a couple of you who moved recently and I don't have your new numbers (you kow how your are Nelson's) so I thought I would share this here since I can't call you.

Veiwing will be Sunday October 4th from 1-4pm at Voss and Sons in Seymour.
Furneral will be Monday October 5th at 1:30pm, at Reddington Christian Church, with burial to follow at the Reddington Cemetary.

As you know, I went up to take him to met with the oncologist on Wednesday, and that became the longest day of my life. The cancer had spread and they offered him this one chemo option, it is suppose to be the mildest form, but it works in about 50-60% of the people to slow this type, and so he wanted to do it, and they said they could do it that day, but it would last between 3-5 hours, so we did it, and I sat with him the whole time.
About 1 1/2 hours into it, he had a bad reaction, and his blood pressure spiked and we thought it was over, but they got him calmed down and they resumed. Throughout the day, he was so weak that I would have to lift him out of the chair, drop him into the wheelchair, wheel him to the bathroom and then pick him up and put him on the potty. I had never in my life seen him that week. The nurses wanted him admitted to the hospitaql, but the cancer doctors don't adimt patients, but I have to say, the nurses were the best! The did everything possible and helped me out all day.
They told me to just take him down to ER when the chemo was over and they would probably admit him because of how weak he was, and sure enough I got him down to ER and they rushed him into a room! The dr down there told me it was alright, I did the right thing and they would take care of him. They admitted him to the hospital and put him in a room, and about 9:45 he kicked me out. THey said there was some fluid on the lungs, and so I was expecting to go home, sleep a little and come back in the morning.
About 10pm the nurse called to tell me that they decided they wanted him to have one-on-one nursing care over the night so they were moving him to ICU. Then about 10:30pm, my Aunt Betty called, the hospital had just called her because Grandpa was asking for his brother, saying that it was over. So we all rushed back to the hospital, by the time I got back, just before 11pm, they were getting ready to put him on a ventalitor, and there were 15 people running around his little room, and they said, they would put him on the ventalitor and drain some of the fluid and they would know within mintues if it would work out not. So they sent us to a waiting room, and I called my dad and Brad, and the dr came in and said that they lost his heartbeat for about 30 seconds putting him on the vent, and that he gave him a 2% chance of making it through the night.
While the dr was talking to us they called him ack to grandpas room and he took us with him, and by the time we got back, he was for all purposes goine already. They kept him on the vent, hoping to keep his heart going until my dad could arrive from Seymour, but about five minute before dad got there his heart gave out completely in spite of the vent and he was gone.

Thank you all or listening. It just feels so much better to be able to write it and tell about it. I had no idea until they called us back to the hospital that he would not make it through the night, no idea, he didn't seem that bad, pretty weak but not that bad. Thank you all for your prayers! They mean so much to me!!