The Calm Before the Storm, Then the Storm Hits Early

A week ago last Saturday the Stake President and his wife had stopped by Kevin's office on their way home from vacation after learning of his condition to meet with him and see what they could do for him. When President Scott asked what he could do for Kevin, Dale quickly replied, "release him immediately!" President Scott then set out to do just that. That Sunday he had an emergency meeting with his counselors about the situation and to discuss candidates for the new Paso Robles First Ward Bishop. Guided by inspiration they left the meeting knowing who Kevin's successor would be but before anything could be set into motion the decision had to be approved by the First Presidency.

The process normally takes time, often much more than a week but feeling it was absolutely necessary to expedite things President Scott did all he could to get things moving along quickly. In what can only be described (by my limited mind) as an LDS equivalent to a Hail Marry play the new Bishop was approved before the end of the week. So within a weeks time Paso Robles First received a new Bishop and Kevin was released from is post. President Scott and Kunz came up to our place to visit with and release Kevin.




At this point Kevin was not doing well at all. Friday as you have likely already read here, he had a bone marrow biopsy and it is still some time before we will have those results. What you may not know is that upon arriving back home he was too week to go upstairs to his room and spent the next three days sleeping on the family room sofa. He was suffering from continual, nausea that got worse when he moved or got up. He had eaten nothing and had very little to drink having constant dry heaves. He was able to sit up and visit a short while when President Scott and Kunz came by as well as Mark, now Bishop Goforth and his wife Sherri later that evening.

Sunday afternoon Kevin's former counselor Darryl Todd and his wife Manulani came to visit and give him a blessing. Late in the evening he seemed to be doing worse and we once again called upon Michael Blackwell to come and check on how he was doing. He quickly came to the conclusion that we should take him to the hospital and with his help we got him into the car and to the emergency room where he spent much of the night. They had run some new blood-work and found that his anemia was worse but with no known explanation so they ran some additional tests as well. After spending the night there he was moved into the ICU early in the morning as they could not figure out what was causing these new symptoms.

They discovered that his blood had a high calcium content, that it was leaching from his bones, and that he needed immediate treatment to filter out the calcium and clean up his blood-flow. The nearest machine that is capable of doing this is in San Francisco and so he is being flown via helicopter up to the UCSF Medical Center to have that done asap. He's on his way as I type this up. It turns out that his cancer is mutating and multiplying rapidly and this seems to be the direct cause of his current state of health. Hillary and Dale will be driving up shortly to be with him while I (Darrell) hold the fort here and do what I can on the home-front until the time that I may be called to go up there as well, should I be needed.

In the meantime I will be doing my best to keep you all informed as things progress. It is quite possible that I will be updating the blog with additional information as it comes in later today.

*Update*

Because his blood is so thick he is at high risk for heart attack and other circulatory system problems. Before he gets to San Francisco he will be given something to help thin his blood out to reduce the risk of such an occurrence. He will also be starting his chemo treatment today, even before we have the solid test results from his Friday biopsies. This is, as you can imagine a very serious situation and his life is in immediate risk from any number of potential complications. We thank you all so much for your support and prayers.