Funeral and medical expenses for Renee Griffith

My name is Jeremiah, I am Renee's oldest son. Mom had a host of medical issues in her life, and here in the last few months she had sprained her neck, and had some pretty serious neck and shoulder pain that she was trying to resolve. Last week we went for an MRI and I noticed she was very weak and had difficulty staying upright and walking on her own... at the time she was attributing that to the fact that she was in a lot of pain. I advised her that she needed to probably go to the ER and just get checked out, but she really didn't want to as she'd gone to the ER several times before and "they don't really ever do anything but tell me to rest and it will get better". The next day I checked in on her and she was even weaker, so I made her go to the ER. This was Friday, February 17th.

When we got to the ER we discovered that the likely reason she was so weak is that she had critically high calcium, a condition called hypercalcemia. What we didn't know at the time is that critically high calcium is a strong indicator for one specific diagnosis... cancer.

The ER admitted her to the hospital, and we thought - well good she'll get some food, some fluids and this will be great. Sadly, that didn't happen. The hospital worked tirelessly to try and get the calcium levels down, and in the meantime asked the head of oncology to come down and consult. After a battery of tests, MRIs, CT's, Ultrasounds, blood draws... and after watching mom start to progressively fade into a cloud, the chief oncologist came down and delivered the news we were never prepared for... mom had cancer... the imaging showed "severe heterogeneity" which means a lot small tumors, in her liver, both lobes of her lungs, and her left breast. They also found "increased signally" in her bones in her shoulder, which is an indicator of multiple myeloma. He also went on to say that based on his experience there was likely a larger tumor probably somewhere that they hadn't found that likely started the process. He told us that at that point the only way forward to be for sure would be to do a liver biopsy... after some discussion with us he said that based on what we knew at that time, she was what is considered Stage 4, metastatic cancer. He went on to say, she wasn't a surgical candidate due to the presentation of the metastisis (how it's spread so quickly) and that in her current condition she likely wouldn't survive chemo and radiation which would at best buy a small amount of time.

We decided to wait a day to see how her calcium levels progressed, and see if she became more awake and alert... sadly that never happened. She was still not eating, barely drinking... and her breathing continued to be more and more labored... and she continued to need more and more oxygen... Late sunday evening we made the difficult decision to bring in hospice/palliative care and make her as comfortable as possible... the palliative team had planned to come in first thing monday morning to make the arrangements...but in true mom fashion, she decided she didn't want to wait. She started to fade more quickly, and at about 1am Monday February 20th her heart rate started to slow and her breathing became critically labored. They put her on a bypass ventilator (non invasive ventilator), at about 2:45am she began to decline again, and the charge nurse and nurse practitioner checked on her, and offered to increase her medication to make her more comfortable.

At 3:28 AM on February 20th, mom drew her last breath, with both my wife and I at her side holding her hard. She passed peacefully and quickly, and we so very thankful for that. Her heart and lungs just couldn't fight the fight anymore... and it would have been selfish and unfair to try to hold on to her... that isn't what she wanted...

Those that knew my mom, knew that she was a vibrant, funny and loving person. She lived life fully and loved those around her fiercely. If you knew her, you most likely loved her and she most likely loved you... because thats the type of person she was.

Sadly, because she had been off work with the other injuries and had struggled throughout life... she didn't have much in the way of savings (about 40 dollars truth be told) and because of the host of medical issues she's suffered from most of her life, she had no life insurance...

Anything you can give to help will go towards her final expenses, taking care of her animals, and to help us figure out the next steps.

Thank you in advance for being good friends to my mother, I truly feel grateful knowing that in the final years of her life she was surrounded by people who she loved and enjoyed being around.