Good morning! Having read this thread and based upon my experience with Lutheran Hospice care here in South Carolina it is important to remember several things about those who are passing from this life.
1) If they can have and want visitors, it is very useful to them to have them. Even though we many feel pain and upset from their condition, remember they are still there inside their damaged bodies. A smiling face, squeeze of the hand, or the blink of an eye to acknowledge you may be all they can do, but it means a lot to most patients. 2) We all will join Tom. It is hard on those of us living our lives to see a friend or just some one we have known waste away. Just think of them if it were you. It is better to suffer some minor mental discomfort than to leave them totally alone to die. 3) Once a patient has accepted the forthcoming fact of death and enetered into acceptence, then having people they know visit can make their last months and days up lifting and pass with peace. Just my thoughts, Bob McCarthy ________________________________ From: shabbona_rr <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, April 9, 2013 10:01 AM Subject: {S-Scale List} Re: Tom Boldt Thanks for the update on Tom Boldt, Gary. I knew him about as long as you , at least from the early eighties, when we made a trip to his home in Orchard Park, NY, to dismantle his layout and bring it to Cleveland so we could have an operating layout at the NASG convention in 1982. In 1984, at his urging, I was conscripted to fill out the names on the winner certificates of the various model contests because of my "exquisite" penmanship; as Tom put it, it was so "exquisite" he couldn't read it! Ah, yes, fun times with fun friends. I miss those days, and Tom as well. boB Nicholson ____________________________________________________ --- In [email protected], "grchud" <chudgr@...> wrote: > > Group, > Many of you have known Tom Boldt and are aware of his serious condition! > For those that don’t, Tom was a premier painter of brass models some years > back. His main interest was scale S and I became aware of his illness, Lou > Gehrig’s disease about five years ago. He resides at a VA Home in > Sandusky, Ohio, about thirty five miles from my home. I had previously > visited him about nine to twelve months ago and left his bedside in a very > depressed state. I have know Tom since 1985, when I first became interested > in scale S. He painted my first brass purchase, a NYC 19000 series caboose > that I bought from Walt Danylak, and many more items since. As a matter of > fact, Walt introduced me to Tom. We became good friends and shared an > interest in similar roads. Because of his interest in painting, he was very > knowledgeable of various road paint schemes! > In the nineties, Tom had a run of bad luck, holding jobs for only a short > duration for various reasons. At different times, he had been employed by > Omnicon and American Models after moving west from New York. He also had > family/marital problems that weighted heavily on him! Tom began showing > signs of stress and his health began deteriorating, at my best recollection, > about ten years ago. His family was not sure if his condition was a result > of painting so many models, or his exposure to agent orange while serving his > country in Viet Nam during the 1960’s. > At any rate, my visit was not a pleasant experience, but I wanted to find > out if he was still with us. His condition is terminal and it was very > difficult standing near his side for the short period I visited him. The > nurse asked him if he recognized me and the only way she could get and > acknowledgement was to tell him to blink his eyes. He was able to do that, > but communication is impossible! I left the VA more depressed than my > previous visit and doubt I will return. > I can only tell you he is still among the living, but his condition is > ever diminishing. For those of you who knew Tom well, I would not recommend > you visit him, but please keep him in your prayers. > Sincerely, > Gary Chudzinski >
