Richard Hebenstreit Richard Hebenstreit

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.


Four years ago, the Mayo Clinic diagnosed Richard with Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS).  This basically means his bone marrow does not produce healthy blood cells.  He went through treatment, consisting of shots given to help his blood cell count.  When the blood cell count dropped below an accepted level, he received blood transfusions.  In the beginning, he was in need of blood transfusions roughly once every few months.  Recently, he began to require blood transfusions every two weeks.  Richard has been proudly working for 60 years.  He really wanted to work until the end of January.  However, his children were continually urging him to retire earlier to relax.  Around Christmas 2016, he finally decided to stop working.  Richard has lived alone for quite some time and functioned independently until January.  At that time, he began to find it difficult to move, eat, sleep and perform other daily functions alone.  His children took turns visiting him at the home to help him clean, eat, walk, pay bills, etc.  He stayed at their homes for a few days on occasion as well.  On Saturday, February 4, Richard had to dial 911 after experiencing serious abdominal pain.  He was taken to the hospital where they performed emergency surgery to remove an internal infection.  The surgeons removed part of his colon and attached a colostomy bag.  He has been in recovery since Saturday.  Due to his disease, he is a high risk for infection.  Therefore, he will stay in the hospital for a little while longer.