A Loving Farewell For Our Nanny, Brenda Gunter

***Update*** My family and I are asking for financial help with the burial and funeral of my dear grandmother Brenda Gunter. She passed away today June 8th at 1:15 PM. She took her last breath with my mother and I by her side after a long hard week in the hospital ICU. My nanny as long as I can remember has had COPD but in recent years she’s been diagnosed with congestive heart failure and dementia that only got worse over time and with age. As my Nanny’s dementia progressed as she was no longer able to care of herself, my mom put her entire life on hold and had to quit working to be a full time caretaker for my grandma. My grandma’s one wish through this was that we never put her in a nursing home and she fulfilled that. In the beginning, her dementia started out with her forgetting and confusing simple things like counting change, not being able to remember where she placed things. It quickly turned into her not being able to drive because she’d forget what side of the road she was supposed to be on, she’d couldn’t feed herself because she couldn’t remember how to work the stove and when she did she’d likely leave it on. She’d forget to take her medication that was absolutely necessary, wouldn’t put her oxygen on or would take it off and walk out of the house without a word and walk down the road with no direction or idea of where she was going. My mom did everything for her. In the past two years, she had fallen and had partial hip replacement surgery and a heart attack. She slowly lost her mobility and became bedridden after that. My mom changed, fed and bathed her, administered her medication and cared for her around the clock because she couldn’t do it herself anymore. Her condition worsened rapidly in the last two weeks. She stopped eating on May 24th and on Sunday June 1st, she was rushed to the hospital due to low levels of oxygen. She got to the hospital for us to find out she had pneumonia. The drs took her off of all of her home medication and placed her on an antibiotic to see if they could treat the pneumonia. The Dr placed her on a strict no food diet because risk of her choking. The high levels of oxygen caused her to have oxygen toxicity and almost closing her throat up completely. She went from having 3 liters of oxygen per minute at home to up to 50 liters per minute at the hospital. She was starving to death and basically on life support, their suggestion was that a feeding tube was unethical at her age and weight and to start comfort care. They gave us 3 days to see if she improved and wanted to move forward with the end stages of her life if not. They slowly turned her oxygen down and kept her comfortable starting the night of Friday June 6th and she passed this afternoon. She fought so hard with every beat of her heart. She has left behind a daughter and a son, my mother Susan Love and her brother Robbie Gunter. My nanny had 3 grandchildren and was about to have 10 great grandchildren. My sister has 7 and I’m pregnant and due with my 3rd the beginning of July. Their ages between 1 and 12 years old. We have no life insurance or plots in place for my grandmother. My mom hasn’t been able to work at all since caring for her and life has not been kind to us in recent years. My sister and her husband just suffered a financial hardship due to other situations within their families and my husband and I planned to save and work until the very last minute before we have this baby but I’ve had to take off of work. We still have bills to pay and I’m about to go on an unpaid maternity leave so it’s just not enough for us to do it alone. My mother is worrying herself sick over her mom and what we will be able to do for her. If anyone can donate anything or has any contact information for resources to help people in situations like ours we greatly appreciate any and everything. If nothing else, please pray for guidance and peace over our family during this time. This is the hardest thing we’ve ever gone through.