Larry Platt of Ponca City, Oklahoma Passed Away This Morning (11-13-09) After A Long Illness
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I wish to thank everyone for their concern and well-wishes during my father’s illness.
It has been exactly one year since we kids learned that he was ill, which was eventually diagnosed as throat cancer in Feb 09 (He was a non-smoker). He had actually been sick for 6 months before we were made aware of it, because he chose to hide it from us. But, when we visited at Thanksgiving last year, it was so obvious and he was unable to hide it anymore.
I have missed an incredible amount of time over the course of the last year. I had made the choice that if my dad needed something from me that I would be there to help him.
Since I am self-employed, I had the best ability of all of us kids to take off when he needed help with something. So, I did take a lot of time off from my work to help him with trips to doctor appointments, etc.
My sister was able to take over a lot of the heavy lifting a couple months back when she was laid off at her job.
I know that my absences and slow responses angered a lot of people and scared off a lot of business.
In fact, a couple weeks ago, someone complained that he expected “more professionalism” from me. I responded that 2009 has been a hard year for my business, with all of my personal issues. I also told him that after my dad passes away and no longer needs me to be there for him, then and only then will I return to the level of professionalism that I had maintained through the end of 2008.
We have known for most of the last six weeks that the clock was running down – we just did not know when it would run out. Two days ago, he had decided to leave the hospital to go home and have Hospice come in to help him. He was supposed to be back home next week.
My sister had seen him the last two days, and I was supposed to see him tomorrow. My sister had said that the last two days that he was lucid and carrying on as if he was going to be with us for quite a while after he went home.
On his original trip to the Cancer Treatment Centers of America, they had managed to reduce his cancer from the size of a golf ball to the size of a pea. They gave him time to recover from his treatments. He was expecting to resume the chemotherapy and radiation treatments in September.
He took one chemotherapy treatment in September and promptly got sick. He ended up being hospitalized with pneumonia. We knew even then that the clock was ticking. His local doctor said that if he did not restart his chemo within six weeks, then the cancer would get him no matter what. He was hospitalized with pneumonia for eight weeks.
Once they finally cleared his pneumonia – two weeks ago – they told him that if he restarts chemo, he would be back in the hospital with pneumonia in only a few days. But if he did not take the chemo, the cancer would kill him, sooner rather than later.
At that point, everyone knew he was terminal.
For the last two weeks, they had been trying to get him into a nursing home close to his home. He had been in a holding pattern for the last two weeks, because there were not any free beds at the good nursing homes. The only nursing homes offering him a bed were ones that we did not want him to go to.
So two days ago, he decided that he would go home. We were in the process of arranging his release to go home, when he passed away this morning.
Services will be held Wednesday morning (11-18) at 10am at North East Baptist Church (2200 North Pecan Road) in Ponca City, OK. The main service will be held in Ponca City, OK and his burial will be at the cemetery in Isabella, Oklahoma (near Fairview, OK), about one-hour southwest of Enid, Oklahoma.
Once again, I want to thank everyone for their concern and the support offered over the last year.
Bill Platt, owner of The Phantom Writers.
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