After 13 years of being married to my wife, Connie, her father died, and she inherited his house in Colorado, just owed her brother half the value. WE officially moved there in 2006, but she moved physically, and I stayed in Arizona for the next 18 months to sell the house and to work. The plan was for me to find a job in Colorado then move up there, but plans change. On her 57th birthday Connie recieved her orders to report for mobilization her from the IRR to go to Iraq. She was a Medical Technologist, one of very few enlisted to hold that license. Between living and working downwind of the burn pits and the high level pathogens she was dealing with, she developed Emphysema and, (as we were to discover latter), had her immune system destroyed. She had gone to Iraq with a CLEAR chest X-ray. She was medevaced out, and into the WTU, another year apart. Then she was returned to duty for CONUS assignments, and was mobilized again 9 months after returning home, to go to Ft. Dix to work in the joint service blood shipping center. Six months later she was back at the WTU for 18 months, two more years apart.
FINALLY she was retired September of last year, and we were making plans about what we were going to be doing with all the time we were going to have together.
Connie had just gotten out of the hospital for an upper respiratory infection, and still had to sleep sitting up to breath, so she was sleeping on the couch in the living room, and i was sleeping half on the loveseat and half hanging off the end. We went to sleep at about 2330, and I woke up at 0015, and noticed that she wasn’t breathing, checked and found she didn’t have a pulse, so I called 911 and started CPR.
The Paramedics brought Connie back enroute to the hospital, then Connie was brought back two more times in the ER. I went back to see Connie, and was there with her the final time her heart stopped. I watched as the code team worked Connie’s code longer than usual. I was told that one of the Pastors from my church had arrived, and I went out to talk to her, and while I was with her the team was still working to bring Connie back. Then the ER Doctor came out and told me that he had gotten the blood gasses back, and that Connie’s pH was so far off that it was not possible to live, so he called the code,
Finally lasted 11 months and 2 days.
She was a Medical Technologist, one of very few enlisted to hold that license. Between living and working downwind of the burn pits and the high level pathogens she was dealing with, she developed Emphysema…

Finally?
After 13 years of being married to my wife, Connie, her father died, and she inherited his house in Colorado, just owed her brother half the value. WE officially moved there in 2006, but she moved physically, and I stayed in Arizona for the next 18 months to sell the house and to work. The plan was for me to find a job in Colorado then move up there, but plans change. On her 57th birthday Connie recieved her orders to report for mobilization her from the IRR to go to Iraq. She was a Medical Technologist, one of very few enlisted to hold that license. Between living and working downwind of the burn pits and the high level pathogens she was dealing with, she developed Emphysema and, (as we were to discover latter), had her immune system destroyed. She had gone to Iraq with a CLEAR chest X-ray. She was medevaced out, and into the WTU, another year apart. Then she was returned to duty for CONUS assignments, and was mobilized again 9 months after returning home, to go to Ft. Dix to work in the joint service blood shipping center. Six months later she was back at the WTU for 18 months, two more years apart.
FINALLY she was retired September of last year, and we were making plans about what we were going to be doing with all the time we were going to have together.
Connie had just gotten out of the hospital for an upper respiratory infection, and still had to sleep sitting up to breath, so she was sleeping on the couch in the living room, and i was sleeping half on the loveseat and half hanging off the end. We went to sleep at about 2330, and I woke up at 0015, and noticed that she wasn’t breathing, checked and found she didn’t have a pulse, so I called 911 and started CPR.
The Paramedics brought Connie back enroute to the hospital, then Connie was brought back two more times in the ER. I went back to see Connie, and was there with her the final time her heart stopped. I watched as the code team worked Connie’s code longer than usual. I was told that one of the Pastors from my church had arrived, and I went out to talk to her, and while I was with her the team was still working to bring Connie back. Then the ER Doctor came out and told me that he had gotten the blood gasses back, and that Connie’s pH was so far off that it was not possible to live, so he called the code,
Finally lasted 11 months and 2 days.