Ray Hughes

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.


My husband Ray and I have been married 47 years as of  Feb. 7, 2017.  We are blessed with a son and daughter, a daughter-in-love, two granddaughters and two grandsons who all live close to us (some closer than others).   Ray has an older brother and his wife that live in Nashville, an older sister temporarily living in Nashville, and a younger sister living in Nashville.  Plus his brother has five daughters and their spouses and children living the Nashville area, Kentucky and Ohio.   Ray and his siblings are originally from Huntington, West VA.


Ray celebrated his 81st birthday this past March.  Ray has been and still is a good person, and loving husband, father and grandfather.  Over the last number of years Ray has had several health issues, beginning with a six valve bypass heart surgery, a replaced mitral valve, insertion of a pacemaker and defibrillator , a blood clot,  a diagnosis of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Emphysema, A-Fib, hypertension, congestive heart failure, osteoarthritis, obstructive sleep disorder, vascular dementia, and several other things.   


Ray has been accepted into the Hospice program with Gentiva.  His health situation will be reviewed every 90 days by the nurses and medical director to determine if he will still qualify for Hospice services.  At the present, a nurse visits him once a week and checks his vitals.   All of his medicine is now covered under Hospice.  He has been taking off several prescriptions and given others as needed.  There is a nurse on call 24/7 and this has been a big relief for me knowing we can call them anytime.  There is a Hospice Social Worker who comes every couple of weeks to see if there is anything she can do to help us.  Ray's chief complaint now is shortness of breath and headaches and pain in his upper spine going to his neck and  head.  He has been requesting a lot of back/neck rubs.  His appetite is not good at times so he eats less but more often.  He has lost weight (which I seem to have found!) but still gets up and takes a shower, shaves, and dresses himself , which I am thankful for.  He still goes to church service most Sundays and enjoys going out to get a bite to eat.  He rides with me sometimes when I have errands to run and sits in the car and snoozes.  Otherwise, when he stays home, he usually snoozes,  He still has his sense of humor, especially when the nurses come (he's always been a ladies' man).  We have discouraged him driving his truck (Big Green) though he is not ready to give up his Drivers License.  He misplaced his keys to his truck several months ago and is still looking for them.  I've been looking too!


I know there are many who care about Ray and are interested in him and his health situation.  So now I feel it is time to set up a Caring Bridge website for him in order to keep family and friends updated.   I  will try to write something once a week or so, or more often if there is something I think you might be interested in.  Though Ray has short term memory issues, he still remembers things from the past.  So I'm sure he would love hearing from you when you have a minute.  I will print your message out and give them to him to read, and re-read as time goes on.


We send our love to all.  Spence