Obituary

David Eric Williams, 68, passed away peacefully on August 22^nd following his courageous battle with scleroderma.  As a husband, father, grandfather, brother, and friend, Dave loved his family passionately.  He enjoyed golf, Cleveland sports, nature, bible study and attending The Chapel.  As a long time Copley resident, he spent his career working in the tire industry, with 38 years at Smithers Scientific Services. Dave is survived by his wife of 31 years, Deborah, children Tracy (Virgil) Whitmyer, Kristin (Nick) Bender, Eric, & Kathryn, granddaughters Eva, Lucy, & Penelope, sisters Susie & Pinky, and brothers James, Teddy, Bob, & Ricky. 

Calling hours will be Thursday, August 25^th at The Chapel-Green campus on

1800 Raber Road

from 5-8 pm with a funeral service on Friday at 5 pm.  In lieu of flowers, donations may be made at www.scleroderma.org.

The past several days were very difficult for my Dad in that he was sleeping most of the day and eating very little. On Saturday, 911 was called because his breathing was extremely shallow. He was taken to Akron General Hospital and once stabilized he was transported to an inpatient Hospice center in Medina. The transport itself was very concerning due to his weakened state. Deborah was with him at the center were they made him comfortable and attended to his needs. He was able to speak a bit, but even that seemed difficult. Dad was calm, quite, and slept. Early this morning, Dad died a very peaceful death with Deborah near him.

Since coming home from the hospital, Dave is doing better than expected.  We know that all the love, concern and good food he has received from many of you is a big part of his current wellbeing.  We want to thank each and everyone one of you for the kindness you’ve extended to our family!  We will remember it always and feel loved when we do. 

We are continuing to learn more and more about the various support offered by hospice and have started to take advantage of many of these services.  Dave’s hospice nurse, Mindy, is quite nice and is currently visiting the house once a week.  She has given us several suggestions on how to make Dave more comfortable.  Dave also had a visit this week from a hospice massage therapist which he thoroughly enjoyed and is looking forward to more of her visits!

Even though short trips out of the house are exhausting to Dave, he did have the strength one day this week to attend his afternoon bible study with the help of his dear friend Dick Carothers.  So as we go forward, we will take things a day at a time and be thankful to God for every moment we have together. 

Deborah 

As many of you know, Dad has scleroderma which is a progressive, noncurable autoimmune disorder that causes an increased production of collagen causing a hardening and tightening of the skin.  He was diagnosed over 15 years ago, but the disease has started to affect his lungs resulting in labored breathing and fluid accumulation.  Last year, he had drainage tubes inserted into the pleural space of his lungs to help alleviate some of the fluid that was building up.  Deborah has been draining them about every other day.  He is now getting supplemental oxygen which brings him some relief.  His appetite is poor and his body is likely not absorbing the nutrients he is able to consume, so he has lost a lot of weight.  This past Friday, he was admitted to the hospital with suspected pneumonia.  He was also anemic, so they gave him some blood and started him on antibiotics for the pneumonia.  While he was in the hospital they ran some tests on the accumulated lung fluid and found that he has an extremely rare bacterial infection called nocardia that is infecting his lungs.  This would not be good news for a healthy individual, so it was really bad news for my Dad since he is so immunocompromised.  Nocardiosis is very difficult to treat and the risk of serious side effects led us to decide not to pursue the long course of antibiotic therapy.  Other aggressive measures were discussed with his physicians and Dad and Deborah decided that these would just decrease his quality of life rather than make anything better in the long run.  The physicians agreed with us and on Monday night he was discharged home. 

All of our immediate family are home in Copley and we decided to proceed with hospice care.  We met with a hospice administrative nurse today and should meet his primary hospice caregiver within a few days. 

Thank you to all of you for your calls, prayers and well wishes.  We will be posting periodic updates on Dad's health.  Please feel free to provide a comment on the blog.  Certainly these will be shared with Dad.

Tracy