My (Jen's) uncle Thom was taken off life support yesterday at 1:50 pm PST and passed away at 2:40pm PST from non-hodgkins lymphoma. He is survived by his wife, Jane, and his four siblings: George, Don, Nancy, and Jean (my mom).

It all happened rather quickly. In mid August, Thom was having vertigo problems, went to his doctor, and was diagnosed with just an inner ear infection and was given antibiotics to clear it up. When it didn't clear up after 2 weeks, he went back to the doctor and they did a CAT scan and an MRI and saw a that his blood vessals were being pushed up against his brain but they still weren't sure what it was so specialists were called in. On September 2nd he admitted himself into the Bakersfield Memorial Hospital. They found a tumor on his brain and decided to remove it through surgery. It was a smallish tumor but was apparently in a bad place. The surgery was performed and they were able to remove most of the tumor but after surgery he was having problems talking and breathing so they put him on a respirator. He had to go back in for surgery later because the tubes weren't draining properly and they decided to keep him under sedation afterwards. On September 6th they decided to start weaning him off the sedative but everytime they did so his blood pressure shot back up so they put him back under to get his blood pressure under control. This past Tuesday they did an EEG and discovered that his brain activity was slowing but it wasn't until Thursday that they diagnosed the tumor as non-hodgkins lymphoma. That day his left lung collapsed and he developed pneumonia. The doctor said that the treatment he would need for the cancer would be really hard on his body and, in his condition, would probably kill him. On Friday, the decision was made to just make him comfortable and remove life support; he died one hour later.

All of this was very surprising because none of us really knew anything was wrong until he went into the hospital on September 2nd and at that time was still walking on his own (with a cane because of the dizziness) and ten days later he was gone. I'm still stunned and don't know what much else to say. Thom will be greatly missed by family and friends.