Vermont

I know all of you wanted to see pictures of foliage, but it's not
sunny out right now. So instead I took a picture with my parents six
foot nutcracker named Nutten. Not many people can do that :)

Rob's Program

Here's the program we used at Rob's funeral. Isn't it nice! Thanks Kent for the great job.  Click on the picture to load the PDF file of the program.

Game night

Nicole, Devon, Bri and I went to a friends house and played pop 5. It
was fun! Nicole is sitting on a lower chair so that's why she looks
so small. Also, Rob would be proud to see Devon in his puma stuff!

Helper

I am trying to slowly go through things today and decided socks were
what I wanted to do today. Apparently my love of socks made it so rob
had MANY pairs. My cat kari dug all of the socks out for me and is now
sleeping in the small basket. She's a funny one.

Two weeks

I apologize for no updates. I have been trying to keep busy. I went to
visit robbie today and got to see the f1 car mike and Denise left on
his grave. I thought it was so cute! Rob is buried in a cemetary not
far from saint michael. There are only eight people in it so far. It
is a very peaceful place.

I have not left for Vermont yet. Friends and family have been keeping
me busy! I have learned that I cannot have two girl sleepovers in a
row. We stay up too late and I get no sleep! Thank you to shannon and
melissa for coming over!

Thank you to everyone for your support. I will continue to update this
blog and update it more frequently!

Thank you

Isn't this beautiful? Mike just sent me this picture and I thought I should share it with you all. Thank you for all your prayers and support.

Memories of Rob

If you have any memories of Rob that you'd like to share, we'd love to collect them. It's possible that not all memories will be used, however, we'd love to have them to use at Rob's funeral and also potentially to be used in a memory book. The sooner we have the memories the better. Please send to maryduncombe@embarqmail.com. Thank you so much! It would mean a lot to us all.

Viewing & Funeral

Viewing
Friday (Sep 12th) from 6:oo pm to 8:00 pm.
Saint Michael Peterson Chapel (be aware of construction on Hwy 19)

Funeral
Saturday (Sep 13th) at 11:00 am. (viewing from 10:00 am to 10:45 am)
Buffalo Latter-day Saint Chapel


In lieu of flowers Marla has suggested that you might donate to the Loeys-Dietz Syndrome Foundation in memory of Robert Hogan.

Our Special Robbie is not suffering anymore

Robbie passed away at 530 PM today surrounded by his entire family. He had to be revived multiple times and his little body was just giving out from all the accumulated trauma. The nursing and doctor staff were so good at doing all they could until there was no more to do. Marla was by his side through all his struggles and she made all his difficulties softened with her constant tenderness. I could write for pages of the great love and sweetness that Rob and Marla shared. Rob passed away peacefully and is now free from continued pain and difficulties. We thank all of you for your prayers and thoughts - they have been so appreciated.

We will try to post more when we get a chance.

Thank you all again, we love you all.

Rob's Dad

Descending aorta

Rob's descending aorta dissected. The surgeons here do not want to touch him. He is getting blood now. They are also giving him vitamin K to help thicken his blood. He is somewhat alert at times. He smiles (which is difficult to do with a respirator), holds your hand and will signal for different things. He is being kept comfortable with pain medication. His color looks great although his neck and chest are swollen. Please pray for him and the doctor who will do his surgery. They are in the process of contacting both Mayo and Houston. We will let you know where we are headed and when.

Bleeding

Rob's neck is extremely swollen and they ct scanned it to see what is going on. He must have a bleed somewhere because his hemoglobin is down. He is responsive today and knows something is going on. He is squeezing our hands and opening closing his eyes. He is getting pain meds and is resting. His neck is huge though. Please keep Rob in your prayers. We are unsure at this time what is going to happen. I will update as soon as I hear about the ct scan

Go Rob...

In the middle of the night, Rob decided he didn't need the respirator and the man of steel pulled out his tube. He really does need this to breathe, so the poor thing had to have the tube put back down. He is being sedated, so he really doesn't know what's going on when he first wakes up. He is ok now, but they're not letting Mike in the room until a little bit to settle things down.

I want to thank my mom's boss keith and his wife laura for letting my mom come out here. He is a great boss and one of my favorite person right now. =) A stack of ribs will be waiting for you when my mom gets back.

Thank you all for your prayers and comments. We love them!

Stable

Rob has been stable all day. He looks relaxed. He is on one of his favorite drugs. When he got off of it last time, he was all excited to tell us of the wonderful dreams he had. I keep telling myself that he is dreaming right now and somehow enjoying them. He is heavily sedated. I have seen him move his hands a little bit, shoulders and eye brows at times. The nurses are wonderful to him. They make sure he is in a good position that is comfortable and watching him at all times. We are unsure about mayo and when we'll be able to go. That is all up to them to decide when he's stable enough.

My mom is coming in tonight. Rob was asking when she would come and take care of him earlier this week, but I told him that she wasn't going to come unless we were going to mayo or something. He must have really wanted her here after what happened today!=) I am happy to have my mom come.

Thank you to all for your prayers and comments. We are all doing ok and know that Rob is in good hands.

One day at a time

Rob stopped breathing at 8 am this morning. He has been intubated and
heavily sedated. They are thinking this is a lung disease where his
lungs have just broken down and he has been slowly not been able to
breathe as well. That does explain why he has been sleeping a ton the
past month. So he will not be transfered to mayo until he is stable
enough. It is definitely hard to see rob like this. We all know how
Rob is strong. Hopefully strong enough to make it through this.
Please pray for rob. He needs it :(

Mayo

We are being transfered to mayo tomorrow. Rob had a ct scan done of
his neck and the results were exactly as I thought. The aneurysm
measures at 2.2 and it has grown fast since the last test in June that
measured at 1.3. I knew the answer before the results were back. Rob's
neck is noticeably larger on the right side. I just noticed that
today. So it was not a great day of news. On an upside rob slept so
well today. It has probably been the best day of rest the while week.
So at least that was good!

Tests

Rob had tests done today. He had a lung test and an ultrasound of his
neck done. The aneurysm in his neck sounds like it has gotten bigger.
All of rob's tests on his neck are down at mayo so I will be calling
mayo on Monday to have tests done down there. My hope is it has not
grown as much as they are saying. Rob has been complaining about neck
pain, so who knows. He was very sleepy all day. Hopefully tomorrow
will bring better news.
Sent from MiPhone (Marla's iPhone!)

A quiet day

Today went well. Rob has turned down his 02 and at times hasn't had it on. But not for too long. That is an improvement! The computer systems went down for the whole hospital today, so things went slowly. It's amazing at how useful computers are now. Rob did start complaining of his neck hurting where one of his aneurysms is, so he will be ultrasounded tomorrow. Our hopes are that once his blood pressure is controlled, his neck will stop hurting. His blood pressure is too high as of right now. He was moved out of the icu to a normal room. It's closer to the soda machine =) Rob has had the tv show Lost on running constantly. It has helped pass time. Hopefully tonight he'll sleep well.

Funny quote of the day:
Nurse: Rob, how about we go for a walk?
Rob: Nah, I'll just do some push ups here =)

He got us all to laugh when he said that.

Another day

Hello, sorry i haven't been able to update as much, but the hospital is ghetto and doesn't have wifi. I guess I could also say I'm a loser too for not having internet on my iphone. Oh well. Anyway....

Rob is slowly looking better. He was able to have a swallow test today. They wanted to see if he is swallowing correctly. Rob was not a fan of what he had to eat/swallow, but he is swallowing things well. Which is very good. He still needs to wear o2, but is getting around more. We were able to do a circle around the floor. Rob is still in the icu, but possibly will be moved tomorrow to a normal room.

Thank you for all of your prayers and comments. We love them!

Man of Steel

Rob was moved back to the icu today. He is still not breathing right and they wanted to monitor him closely. I am happy about him being back in the icu. The nurses only have one to two patients, so they are very easy to get a hold of if we need it. Rob was able to have a ct scan of his chest. They found fluid in his lungs and are trying to figure out as to why that is. There was also fluid found in his abdomen.

Rob said today, "I may look like the man of steel, but I get scared sometimes." Please remember Rob in your prayers. While I was leaving today he told me to pray for him. He's having a hard time.

Hello hello hello

Rob is stable. He still needing oxygen. He did walk around a little more today. He would go from a chair to the bed to the chair to the bed to the chair. Over and over again. He was getting up more than he did yesterday. So that's good. He was able to take a shower as well. We'll see what tomorrow brings for us. He hasn't been eating all that much. We all hope he will start eating more!

Not much to report

Denise and I are leaving soon to be with rob. Mike slept over last
night and told us rob didn't sleep too well. I was getting rob's bag
ready and his cat Kimi won't get away from it. So I took a picture.