Yesterday (Thursday, July 9th) Gaylene was taken to the hospital when she became unresponsive to touch or sound. She had been feeling unwell starting on Monday and her condition began to deteriorate rapidly in the last couple days. Her symptoms seemed flu-like with a low grade fever, strong headache, nausea and vomiting. In the last day or two she progressively got weaker until she began having trouble communicating and responding to us verbally addressing her. It seemed like she was sleeping and having trouble waking up. On Thursday when my dad (Dale) came home for lunch she was having trouble responding but eventually he got her to sit up and drink some water, after which she seemed a little more perky. At around four thirty in the evening I (Ady) came home from a run and went into her room to try and get her to drink some more water but found that she was significantly worse and completely unresponsive to any verbal cues from me, unable to drink water even when I put the straw in her mouth. I called my dad and he came home and with the help of my boyfriend we were able to carry her into the car and drive her to the emergency room. At the time we assumed she might have COVID-19 and gotten to a state where she was just unresponsive.
When we got word from the doctor a couple hours later we learned that she had tested negative for COVID-19 but that her blood tests came back very unusual, showing extremely high white blood cell count and extremely low platelet count. This meant that her blood was unable to clot making her susceptible to bleeding. The doctor said that this type of blood work is consistent with a case of acute blood cancer and that the severe headache and loss of consciousness was due to hemorrhagic bleeding in the brain. They also found that she had bruising all over her body due to a lack of platelets. She was already in a state of semi-unconsciousness when we brought her to the hospital and they immediately put her into a sedated coma in order to run tests.
We would like to thank you all for your prayers and support. We will try to keep you updated through this site as currently as possible, as we know how much Gaylene is loved by all of you.
This evening our family made our final visit to Gaylene in the hospital. We said goodbye to the most wonderful wife, mother, and friend. It was a time of sorrow, but also of comfort and love. We were able to read a blessing over her body as we anointed her with lavender oil. We shared our love with her through words, kisses, and holding her hand. We were able to spend a good amount of time with her and she passed away peacefully in our presence.
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