Lorraine Thurber

Welcome to our Caring Bridge website. Lorraine was diagnosed with Lung,  bone, and ovarian cancer in early October 2016 when she became ill with influenza followed by Pneumonia. She had trouble healing from this illness and was admitted into the hospital twice and into Laurel's Peak Rehabilitation wing eventually. On  December 21, 2016 Lorraine traveled to a doctor appointment at Mayo Clinic Health System/ISJ in Mankato. When she sat down to go inside, in the wheelchair, with assistance, she sat down a little extra hard and her leg broke. The reason her leg broke was because she had a tumor from the bone cancer in her femur and it gave away to the pressure of simply sitting down. We had to decide with our mom to have surgery the next day to have a rod put into her bone.  This was a high risk surgery for Lorraine and we were warned that she may not make it through the surgery due to possible, heart failure, breathing problems that could occur with anesthesia, and due to that she could fall into a coma and need to be put on a respirator. We had to make appropriate decisions with mom (and mother-n-law) on what we would do if any of these things happened. To our delight Lorraine made it through the surgery just fine the next day, however her health and ability to breath, eat, drink water, ect. declined. Before her surgery we were also advised that this week with or without the surgery Lorraine was to enter Hospice for the progression of the cancer. Originally the doctors thought they could try chemotherapy with Lorriane but because she never felt better after getting sick in October, which revealed the cancer when she needed a chest x-ray, they lost the hope and ability to put her through the aggressive chemotherapy that would likely make her worse anyway. So, after surgery Lorraine fell more sick over the course of the next week, spent Christmas with her family in the hospital and made it until the following Thursday when she died at 6:40pm. My wife, Niquoia, and I stayed with her constantly and took turns trying to sleep as she needed 24 hour care for about the first 4 or 5 days after surgery due to constant difficulty breathing and helping her with her cares. I won't include the graphic details of what we had to do all day and night. Lorraine had no life insurance or anything that could be put toward her funeral expenses. We did receive some help with the county for most of the big expenses and she did already have a burial plot, but we will still have a bill for all of this close to $2000.00. Any funds/donations would be of great help to put toward her expenses  left over, including money spent ahead to prepare for possible homecare services that we expected may happen had she lived longer. Please do not send hospice. e donations to "help us out" in Lorraine's name as she did not enter hospice yet and recieved no hospice care so she is not in their system. So you want to donate to hopsice you may still donate to the funeral home because I did 24 care for Lorraine in the hospital in place of hospice. The staff at ISJ did not have enough people to stay with Lorraine as she needed so I stayed with her or Barry when I needed a sleep break, we took turns doing most of her care. I was even trained by the staff to do her injections as we did think she was going to make it home to enter into hospice but she did not make it to that day. Then we would have had an hour of help from hospice per day and I still would have done her 24 hour care myself with some family assistance. So it would be greatly appreciated if donations in place of flowers or other donations to help Lorraine and her family would be directed to the funeral home- Prosch-Dennis Funeral Home, 401 W Main St, Waterville, MN 56096 or to us directly so we can put your generosity toward that. During the course of mom's hospital stay in which she requested Niquoia or me to be with her at her side, during overnight hours as well- we did not leave her side, mainly Niquoia, due to Niquoia's nursing experience, worked in hand with the ISJ staff, or rather, they worked with her- and we lost 2 weeks of work, not to mention lots of sleep naturally. We have also taken time off during the week of planning and attending her visitation and funeral services, and taking care of her house. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.