I've asked the doctors to make sure Jeanne is comfortable and not in pain but not to take any heroic measures to extend her life. They are not to discontinue anything they are doing right now, fluids and food and breathing support and pain medications, but no kidney dialysis, no CPR or cardiac electro thereapy.

She's stil conscious now and then and sometimes responds to what people say but her body is beginning to shut down. The doctors do not think she will survive the weekend. Her blood pressure is 80 over 40 and I've said no blood pressure medications to bring that up; those would just hasten her kidney failure anyway, just as dialysis would likely hasten other failures. There are no good tradeoffs left.

I may not be back on the site until sometime next week, or I might be on and off nearly normally. I can't say.

My friends, people I've know for 20 years or more here, Jeanne's friends, too, have been with me all day. I went to the hospital and stroked her face and I cried. I'm crying now. Sometime soon, hours maybe, she will say goodbye to the world and the world will be a little lonelier without her.

She had a beautiful singing voice that will nevermore be heard; she had a quirky sense of black humor that made people laugh when they were hurting; she had a joy in the good things of living that added joy to everyone around her. She had a gaptooth grin that can never be replaced.

As you love your own dear ones, please, help me say goodbye to Billie Jeanne Gerrib, my love, my Babe, my other half. She lived, she loved and she cared for others, parent, nurse, lover, partner, friend.

God bless you all and your loved ones, too,
Joyce Elaine Melton