Saying goodbye

Stacy's funeral was yesterday and there is no real way to describe the event effectively through words. We estimate there were around 250 people who were able to come from all sections of Stacy's Australian community.

Family, Frisbee, Starlight, St. Marys, Elle Would fashion, girls weekend crew, medical types, KG teachers and other folks who all felt the gravitational pull of Stacy's orbit were in attendance and emotionally connected. It was a lovely turn out and I think I hugged most people on the way in, and the way out. Phew.

We were keenly aware that whilst there were a lot of people who could make it, there are probably more who couldn't. Like Stacy did, we feel the distance to her family and friends on the other side of the world, and we are keen to do what we can about that.

Yesterday my brother Dave filmed the majority of the service and below are some excerpts that I hope people who couldn't be with us find make them feel a little more involved.

Mike speaking

Parents reading

Father Nigel speaking

Additionally Debi, Dave and I will be returning home to Montana at some point in the next few weeks and we intend to hold a funeral service for Stacy in Great Falls. We don't know exactly when this will be however our intention is to provide 4 weeks notice when we do make arrangements. I know there will be some people who will travel to Great Falls for the service and I hope that 4 weeks will be enough time in advance to make travel arrangements.

I expect the date will be some time in mid to late April, however we haven't been able to put much thought into the details yet. Watch the blog for further information.

Personally I hope to be able to spend some time with as many of Stacy's close people as possible because I know she has been gone for a long time. I have plenty of memories to share and I'm very open to visiting with people and answering questions about the last few years. Again no details yet however my intentions are to make some time to reconnect with Stacy's loved ones in the US.

Thank you to everyone who came yesterday and who sent their best wishes from afar, it was a good feeling to see and be touched by so much love. She was a wonderful person and I hope to swap many more memories in the weeks and months to come.

Funeral details

Hi folks.

Great work on the memories so far, she was wonderful wasn't she?

Here is the plan for the next couple of days.

Thursday Evening.
We will have a viewing at 5:30pm at Alex Gow Funerals.
56 Breakfast Creek Road, Newstead Q 4006

This will be an informal affair with no real structure or presentations. We are all just going to gather and spend some time together and people can choose to visit with Stacy's body which will be in an open coffin. Dave, Debi and I will be there from 5:30pm and we'll hang around until people are done. It might be a nice time to visit as Friday could be busy.

Friday Morning.
The funeral service will be at 11am at St. Williams Catholic Church.
67 Dawson Parade, Keperra QLD 4054

It might be worth coming at little early as it could be busy finding a parking spot in the area. The mass will take about an hour or so. We will have a reception following the service at the same site.

Looking forward to seeing you.

Love.

Mike

Stacy Frey, Stacy Neild

If you encountered her in full flight you experienced the joy of knowing a force of nature and a spectacular person.
If you met her in poor health then you were witness to a mighty display of courage and love.

If we focus on her leaving we will be full of loss.
If we think of our time together we will be in no doubt that we have made nothing but a gain.

She was one of the best of us and we better make sure we honour her and carry her with us.

Stacy left us as she lived, surrounded by love. 

Connections

Hey I'm loving getting Stacy's blog going again, it's nice to feel more connected to you all out there. Regardless of whether you live 10 minutes away or deep in the other hemisphere we haven't been able to spend time with you recently and as limited as it is this weblog is reinvigorating our connections to some degree. Thanks for all the engagement and uplifting responses folks.

It terms of Stacy's health it's been a hard week with her ability to eat and drink heavily impeded. Stacy didn't really have any spare weight to loose and with so little going in calorie wise it feels fairly grim over here at the moment.

As a result of both how hard Stacy is finding it and due to the difficulty on connection Debi has decided that she is going to fly back down to be with Stacy, Dave and I. In one sense this is an easy decision, however it is quite complicated for Debi to extract herself.

For those who don't know Deb was with us here twice during the second half of 2012 and has only been back in Great Falls for five weeks or so after spending an unexpected three months here over the summer. It is not easy for her to leave the house, her jobs, Ottis and the reasonable list of tasks yet to be resolved to return back to Brisbane on such short notice. This trip was not in the plan and while it feels like it has to be done it is another difficult task for a mom in a horribly difficult situation.

If you have ever booked an international flight at short notice it can be pretty steep, fortunately we have the ever generous Joe Eve and his frequent flyer connections on the case. This is a bit rich as Stacy and I have received so much support from our communities (Aussie Frisbee, The Starlight family, and Team Stacy in Great Falls) and their fundraising efforts. I had the thought that if anybody had a spare dollar you could send it Debi's way as it would back the stress off a little when organizing her last minute trip. PayPal at debifreymt@gmail.com is the way forward I guess.

It's all about connections you lot, thanks for the community love and support.

Long nights

As of the last update Stacy had just contracted another upper respiratory infection. After a couple of experiences with this already we have a good idea how to deal with it and within four days it was brought under control. Also this time Stacy was not as hard hit during the infection and was able to continue eating and drinking small amounts in the days fallowing that first really high temperature.

Whist the initial infection symptoms are scary and uncomfortable the lasting affects are the major concern. Stacy's respiration, swallowing and ability to clear mucous are all further impaired following this infection.

Currently there seems to be flem and mucous sitting in Stacy's throat and upper respiratory tract that make her feel like she is perminantly teetering on the edge of chocking. This means that we are kind of on full time chock watch as at any point Stacy may need to quickly sit up and get help to clear her throat. 

It's a pretty scary situation for Stacy as she can't really make noise When she does need help so she doesn't feel comfortable without eyes on her all the time. Fortunately I don't have much on my agenda at the moment, and looking at Stacy has always been one of my preferred activities.

The last two nights have been challenging as Stacy has had to spend long periods of time sitting up trying to clear mucous from her airway in order to feel comfortable enough to drink. This is hard on her as holding her head up while sitting up is really tiring. We haven't be able to get to sleep until deep into the a.m. the last few nights and fluids have been all she is capable of getting down.

It's a rough period however the hope is that with time she will be able to clear her airway more and feel comfortable enough to get some more substantial nutrients happening.

Thanks for all the communication from the community recently, I'm into it. 

Love from us and feel free to do something Stacy would do today, I've always found it to be worth it.

Difficulty

Here is the deal with seriously difficult situations, they can test your ability to cope and your confidence in your competency. The opportunity that exists with a difficult situation is that if you can hold fast and find a way to make it through there is a significant benefit for confidence building available.

For me every difficult day that we get through makes me feel a little more confident that next time things become challenging we'll be able to handle it. These days the next difficult day is pretty much guaranteed to be tomorrow. The lesson of persistence and survival has been well learned by Stacy and I.

This week has been pretty difficult. Six hours after I posted that last update Stacy woke up with a really high temperature and another respiratory infection. It was not a good morning. We are however fairly well prepared now and with an early start on antibiotics and quick additional medical interventions it seems like we will be able to kill the bug quickly this time. The real difficulty is Stacy's respiration is really labored and intermittently blocked by mucous. Stacy describes it as terrifying.

I've said this before, and i imaginge i will again, it's been the most tiring few days. Really tough. The good news is I'm totally confident that no mater how difficult it gets we'll be able to manage it. That is the beauty of a difficult situation.

Hey thanks for the massive response from last week's update. I'm glad so many people were happy to hear some news, hopefully I'll be able to keep some info coming.

Mike

Breaking the inertia

I'm a little shocked to see that it was two years ago that we last wrote on this blog. It is well and truly clear that the world is full of people who care about Stacy and I. Thoughts, prayers, flowers, frisbee tournaments, well wishes and loving sentiment continue to remind us that you are all out there, and in a more figurative way, in here with us.

I know you understand, however I feel the responsibility to reciprocate the communicaton as I'm sure many of you are interested in some information about Stacy and about our life at the moment.

My intention was to write a recap of events since our last post however that task now seems too involved so I guess I'll just dump a bunch of stuff down here and that will do.

Life was cruising along in the middle of 2012. We were spending a lot of time at home however short trips out were possible and worth the significant effort required. Whilst difficult Stacy and I were able to navigate our days indipendantly. Eating, communicating, pain medication, moving around the house, a bit of online shopping and two energetic sausage hounds filled our days but were within our capacity. At the time it was brutally difficult and monotonous however looking back now it seems like an in control and somewhat acceptable time.

In September Stacy contracted a throat infection. Things changed radically. Stacy fought off the infection with the help of antibiotics however all of her systems were heavily affected; eating, talking, breathing, siting up in a chair and even drinking all became either not possible or very hard. Debi flew out on really short notice and with the help of our GP, daily nurse visits and a big effort from the golden girl herself we battled back to close to our version of normal.

Three weeks ago Stacy's inconsistent swallow contributed to an infection of the upper respiratory tract. I expect it's too hard to imagine what that was like and I'm afraid my description will fail in the attempt to make it clear.

Stacy started eating again three days ago and she continues to scrape and claw at the challenges that fill the day. It is a heartening demonstration of the tenacity of life, I'm finding it uplifting as well as exhausting.

That's it for now. Thanks for the love.

Mike