Jerry Hawthorne funeral expenses

My name is Danielle Carman. I have been family friend for many years now. Sally and Jerry welcomed me and my family to San Angelo about 6 years ago. Watching this family battle Jerry’s cancer over the last 5 years has been heart wrenching. Many have reached out and ask how they can help in some way. And funds received will go towards Jerry’s funeral expenses, and bills to have ease the family’s expenses during this time.

Jerry’s recent story….

words from Sally Hawthorne

So for the most part I very rarely post anything on facebook about my life and what is going on. But as I type this today I'm asking all my family and friends on here to please say a prayer for my husband Jerry and our family. So back in 2017 Jerry was diagnosed with Metastatic Melanoma it was located in his left axilla. He was started on immunotherapy right away and had all lymph nodes removed. Only one of the 26 lymph nodes had the melanoma markings. He went into remission in April of 2018 and had been in remission for almost 4 years. In January of this year he called me stating that he was having a headache and was unable to drive. He was rushed to the ER where he went through CT's, MRI's, blood work and different test to see what was causing his pain. Come to find out he had a lesion on the left side of his brain that was causing a bleed. He had a craniotomy on the 5th of January to stop the bleed and to remove the lesion. The lesion was sent to pathology to be tested for melanoma. It came back that the melanoma had found its way to the brain and it was considered BRAF positive. He was placed on chemo medication and did 5 rounds of radiation.

All was going well until the week of November 14th only a few days from his 50th birthday. Jerry was not acting as himself we thought maybe he was just tired. We celebrated his 50th birthday on November 18th at home. On the 19th I definitely noticed he was not acting right. To me it seemed as if he had, had a stroke. Our daughter had to call 911 and he was transported to the ER. Once in the ER all the same test that had been run on him at the beginning of the year were ran once again. This time they found another lesion on the right side of his brain that had caused a bleed. Not only did he have that lesion he had multiple lesions that were smaller than the one that had caused the bleed. On November 20th he had another craniotomy to stop the bleed and remove the lesion. They ruled that he did have a stroke and would be in the hospital for a few days and then moved to a rehab to start working with Physical, Occupational and Speech Therapy. Also his oncologist had referred him to MD Anderson. He was discharged from the hospital on November 25th and checked into Encompass Rehab on the same day. On December 8th he was allowed to come home from rehab. On Sunday the 11th it seemed as he had come down with a stomach bug. He was unable to keep anything down and he continued this way until Tuesday morning when he was able to keep water and crackers down. On Wednesday Home Health came to check on him. After getting his vitals and trying to talk to him she decided that he needed to be transported back to the ER. A CT was done again and all test were ran. Dr. Cheruku his oncologist came in to talk to us and he advised me that the lesions that were seen just 3 weeks ago were about 1/2 an inch each. The new CT scan showed that just in 3 weeks they went from 1/2 an inch each to about 1 1/2 inches. He stated that he had never seen melanoma this aggressive and wanted him to start radiation right away. After talking to the radiation/oncology Dr they would do 10 rounds of aggressive external beam radiation. Today was his first day of radiation and all went well. He was up this morning talking and ate all of his breakfast which for the past few days he had been sleeping most of the time. I truly believe the steroids they have been given him for the past 2 days have helped with the swelling in his brain. Even though he was on a liquid diet he was also able to eat all of his lunch. For dinner he was taken off of the liquid diet and was finally able to eat solid foods.

I know this was a bit long but if everyone could just keep us and my husband in your prayers that would be greatly appreciated.

I also want to say thank you to everyone who have gone out of their way to check in on us and ask if we need anything. Dixie, Danielle, Martha, Esmeralda, Ed, Sebastian. I know i wouldn't be able to stay strong through all of this if it wasn't for yall.

These past few months have been some of the hardest days I have endured. As most of you know Jerry fell ill on November 19th a day after his 50th birthday. With him having to get yet another craniotomy due to the Melanoma lesion that caused him to have a stroke and multiple lesion through out his brain. To going to a rehab for two weeks. Just to end up right back in the ER just about a week after due to the lesions having tripled in size. Then back to another rehab which he was only there for 3 days and back to the ER since he had started to decline. About a few days in to his hospital stay he was back to being Jerry. But then he started to have breathing issues which we found out his O2 was at 88 % and SPO2 at 55. They also showed that he had pneumonia in the lower lobes of his lungs. They started him breathing treatments 3 times a day and CPT Well this past Tuesday I noticed he was having agonal breathing. The nurse came in and placed him on 3 liters of oxygen. Had respiratory do another blood gas test and everything looked ok. After the nurse left he continued to watch him and watched his O2 which started to drop. I called for the nurse once again. I looked over at jerry and he had just taken a breath and then nothing. His lips turned blue and he was in respiratory arrest. A code was called and everyone came in and started to work on him and then he went into cardiac arrest. They were able to get his heart to work again but had to bag him all the way to ICU to place him on a ventilator. Yesterday they ran a test on him to see if there was any blood flow to the brain and there was non. The Dr. declared him brain dead at that time and called time of death at 2:35 pm. I was brought into his room and the staff explained to me what all had happened. One of the hardest things as a wife I have ever had to do is say goodbye to the man I love, the most amazing husband, father, grandfather, brother and friend. I stayed with him in the room and cuddled with him until our daughter, his son and family could make it to come and say their goodbyes. He was taken off of the ventilator and at 6:18 his heart stopped. Jerry fought a good fight till the end that is for sure. From everything he had to go through with the cancer he had and the obstacles he went through. Three surgeries two of them being craniotomy's. I guess it's not goodbye it's a "I will see you soon my love".