A great loss.

As some of you know, if you are my friend on Facebook, yesterday I lost a great man and a great influence in my life. My mom's older brother, my favorite uncle Kim, lost his battle with Multiple Myloma. A cancer that affected his bone marrow and blood. It attacks the centers in the bone marrow that produce the white blood cells that make antibodies. Much like AIDS, it is treatable, but not curable, and the disease itself isn't what actually kills you. It's the illnesses and infections that your body can't fight off because of its lack of antibodies. People die from the common cold. He had had this cancer for 3 years, and fought it enough that he was pretty much back to his normal, fun-loving, happy-go-lucky self. But when it came back the second time, it came back with a much greater force. He was very sick and his body was essentially attacking itself. He was always in pain, bruises here, swelling there, and the quality of life was very low for him. The doctors decided to put him on dialysis to try to clean out his bad blood because his kidneys and his liver were shutting down. The chemotherapy only did so much. Finally he went in for a dialysis appointment where his blood pressure plummeted. He was delusional and couldn't breathe. He was able to call my mother to be with him and within the day, he had fallen into such a deep sleep, he was essentially comatose. The next day, his lungs failed. His heart was still beating, but he could not breathe on his own. They attached him to a life support respirator to help him breathe until he was able to do so. Yesterday morning at about 5:00 a.m. the doctors called my mother to let her know that they had found massive bleeding in his brain and it was very doubtful he would make it through the day. I got the call at about 6 a.m. to inform me of the situation. At 10:30, my mom called me again to tell me that I needed to come to the hospital and that all of the family was coming. Something inside us all told us it was time. We were all gathered in his room in the ICU. My mom, my Aunt Suanne, her husband, my dad, my grandma, my sister, my cousin, Pete, and finally my cousin Emalie (Kim's daughter) and her boyfriend showed up. We sat in the room together for several hours, hugging, crying, holding, and comforting each other. At around 3:30 we decided it was time for him to go home. We weren't doing him any good keeping him here when his father, family, and Heavenly Father were all waiting for him on the other side of the veil. We pulled out his respirator and let him go peacefully.
At 4:09 p.m. in the Howard Community Hospital, Intensive Care Unit, in Kokomo, Indiana, Kim August Schmidt, the man I admired and looked up to, the man that kept a weak family held together strong, the man that was the cause of so much laughter and happiness, passed to his family and friends in the Kingdom of Heaven. He will be very much missed, but far from forgotten. He will always be there with a can of Mountain Dew and a smile at every moment we think of him. He will always be in our hearts, our minds, and our memory, and I can't wait to see what he's done when I go home as well.