Christmas Wish

Today I got this email from a dear brother-in-law (special friend). A man with the biggest heart I know and I cried.

Phil and Judy,

I wrote an e-mail a couple of days ago to WOKY 920am as part of their 2008 Chrismas Wish program. This morning, Gregory Jon aired this request at 7:30 and I am sure that it will be on several time through the day and week. Maybe, with all the Country Western listners in the Milwaukee area, I will get an e-mail or call and we will put the smile that I am asking for on Phil's Face.

John

Good Morning Greg,

I have a very urgent Christmas Wish for my brother-in-law who is on his way to heaven in the next couple of days/weeks.

He is in the final stages and days with pancreatic cancer, this is his third cancer in his lifetime (each of a different type) and the one that he won't beat this time. His name is Phil Ortiz and his wish for his final day would be that he would walk in to the woods in Door County during the fall, sit down under a tree looking at the beautiful colors that the Lord provided and doze off to meet his maker in heaven. Well, this won't happen since he is in home hospice with only days to weeks left before his final chapter in life comes to an end.

I would like to find an artist to paint this tree/fall mural or someone who could take a digital photo that I would provide and make a print that would cover his bedroom wall behind his bed. This would be the most wonderful final gift to one of the best people that was ever put on this earth.

If the"Wolf" could make a "Holiday Wish" like this one happen, I am sure that Phil would have a smile on his face for the remaining days of his life and for eternity.

John Koss

Life and Death

One of our friends sent us this after a seminar that they went to and Phil and I thought is was a great way to understand what we believe. We want to share it with all of you.

The Professor used the following analogy to describe life after death. "Perhaps the following analogy will make the interpretation more intelligible. If we wish to send a rocket equipped with sensitive data-gathering instruments into outer space, we must join it to a much larger and heavier rocker booster filled with physical fuel. The booster and its fuel enable the delicately equipped rocket to be launched and propelled beyond the tug of the earth's gravitational field. At that critical stage in the rocket's history, its booster is no longer needed and has become an impediment to the attainment of the rocket's "higher" destiny. The rocket, accordingly, has been designed to separate from the booster so that the rocket may soar into outer space and commence its goal of acquiring new information about out vast and awe-inspiring universe."

The rocket booster in this analogy may be compared to our physical body. The detached rocket is comparable to our conscious spiritual center, which, having been "launched" by our physical body and its physical energy, is designed to separate from the physical body and survive its dissolution. We will then be ready to enter into our "higher" destiny of conscious participation in God's eternal Self-exploration. We cannot say what form the spiritual enery of our personal center will then have. We will have to wait and "see"."

December 3, 2008

Phil is home and feeling well. He has had a lot of visitors and it has been nice. He continues to work on his quilts and has gotten some tree pictures, offers of live trees and two large fake trees showed up in our small bedroom when we returned. All have made us smile and laugh. However we still have not completely solved our mural for the bedroom wall, but people are coming up with possible places we could get it done. I anticipate will have it solved by the end of the week.

Here are some more quilt pictures and a picture taken today of Phil with a friend and his new Amvets hat. He is now a member of the Sturgeon Bay group of veterans.

Phil and Rich Woldt

My cousin's quilt

Phil's brother's

A Christmas Quilt

My niece (Friendship Star)

My nephew (pinwheel)

Milky Way for my son-in-law Mark

More quilt pictures

These are some pictures of the queen size quilt that my dad and mom made for me. They gave it to me for my birthday last year. The inscription reads "Door County Wild Flowers will shine on you Forever. Dad + Mom 2007". It is beautiful, and I love it.

The final weeks

Another update from my mom:

They say no news is good news. Well, you are getting news so it is not good.

We have had a wonderful two years. We have fulfilled a lot of dreams. However, we need to accept God's plan as it is.

The CAT scan done on December 1st showed that Phil has a blood clot in the lungs which we are not bothering to treat because it is inconsequential. It also showed that there is fluid built up in his abdomen from the cancer. Again, we are not going to try to remove it at this time because it is not causing him any discomfort. There is a cancer mass in the lower abdomen. Finally, the bowel obstruction is not cleared. It may not be complete any more, but it is not cleared.

They have removed the tube going to his stomach through his nose and he is much more comfortable without it (and he no longer looks like an elephant.) They have taken out all the IV's and he can drink and eat what he wants (which is little or nothing). He is taking no pain medications because he is not uncomfortable at all. He is reading his books and trying to finish some quilting before he goes. Phil is sorry that he will not get to make quilts for all the people he wanted to make them for.

They are delivering some equipment that we need to the house, and we are going home to Wauwatosa. Because he would like to die under a tree in Door County, we are planning on bringing a tree like setting to the bedroom in Wauwatosa. Paint the wall, put up wall paper of a picture of the trees on the land or something like that. We are not sure yet, but I would like to make something like that happen for Phil.

To our relatives, old friends and new friends, thank you all for sharing this journey with us.

God bless you all,
Phil and Judy

Monday night 12/1

No real news yet. Lots of visitors today and that was enjoyable. Tilly even came to visit and we hope that Lady will make it tomorrow. Phil is feeling pretty good now.

No more pain and they have taken out the catheter so he could pee on his own. They also took off the oxygen and he is happy to be connected to less tubes. He is passing some stool but the doctors are not saying that he is totally unblocked. In fact the one xray that they did do this morning shows the blockage to be about the same as last night and his stomach is still distended.

He had the CAT scan at 8 PM tonight. The doctors told us that they will not give us the results of that until tomorrow. He still has the tube in his nose and no one is talking about taking it out anytime soon. In fact if it makes him too uncomfortable to have it out, they are talking about ways to put it in permanently by putting it into his stomach through a hole in his abdomen. This way when he gets sick to his stomach or gets stomach pain we could open it and suck out the bad stuff without going to the hospital. The doctors are also recommending that he start on hospice service when he gets home.

Hopefully we will have more information tomorrow. He is feeling really good now he is quilting again and walking all over the hospital.

My plan is to go home for a while tomorrow and get cleaned up. However, I don't want to miss all the doctors. There was about 15 here today but only three teams. The medical team only has one doctor. The surgical team has 10-13 and the palliative care team has 3. They come in at all times and come back and forth all day.

Monday Morning 12/1

Thank you everyone for your support. We enjoyed reading the emails. A comment made by Karen Orellana under "surgery not an option" and an email sent by Abbe Feidelberg were great and made us laugh out loud. Both of these were memories of Phil. We are so thankful for the wonderful friends we made through the years. All those people praying have really helped.

Phil will be having the CAT scan done about 7PM tonight so we don't expect to know anything until tomorrow.

However, the good news is that he has had somewhat of a bowel movement this morning, so we just may be proving the doctors wrong again. At least there is a glimmer of hope. So many people praying is turning out to have more effect than the doctors and their doom and gloom.

More updates will come as they happen.

Judy