Slim's Obituary and Posting from Ryan

James (Slim) Albert Cooper 1941 ~ 2011 Our beloved husband, father,
grandfather and friend to all who knew him passed away on Feb. 14, 2011 due to
complications following bypass surgery.

Jim was born on Jan. 7, 1941 to Lola Vernell Draper and Albert Vivian Cooper in
Genola, Utah. He was the seventh of eleven children, six of whom survive him.
He graduated from Payson High School, after which he served an LDS mission to
the East Central States Mission. He married Judy Penrod in the Manti Temple on
6 Sept. 1963. Jim spent his life touching the lives of many people over the
course of his 33 years as a teacher, assistant principal, and administrator
with the Murray School District. In retirement Jim found joy in serving
others, and was often found knee-deep in a remodeling project somewhere. A man
who spurned attention and limelight, he most-often served in quiet and often
unknown ways, and was an example of Christ-like service. He will be loved and
missed by all who knew him.

Jim is survived by his wife, Judy; four children, Jaren (Angie), Dori (Luis)
Ribeiro, Ryan, and Braden (Angie); and seven grandchildren; Kyleigh, Emma,
Hannah, Brie, Daniel, Kate and Taylor. A viewing will be held on Sat. Feb 19
from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Stake Center located on 6180 So. Glenoaks
Street (855 East). Following the viewing, family and friends may join us at a
graveside service at the Murray City Cemetery (5490 So. Vine Street).

Please no flowers. If you would like to make a donation in his name please
consider the Kennecott Nature Center in Murray via Murray School District or
the LDS Humanitarian Fund.

 

Thanks.

Of all the trips I have made home from abroad, this was by far the longest and most difficult journey I have made, knowing what awaited once I landed.  Until I actually landed, I could still pretend that Slim would be there to pick me up at the airport as he has every time I have visited all these years I have been away.  One of the few constants in my life has been that Slim will pick me up at the airport, and we will probably have a project to do together once we got home.  We always thought ourselves handy, and believed we could give Bob Villa and Norm Abrams a run for their money.  We will never get the chance to find out now…lucky for them!   

I know that many of you have spoken with Jaren, Dori and/or Braden over the course of the past several weeks and have expressed your support and shared your thoughts.  I wanted to take this occasion to share the gratitude I feel in my heart for the love and support, and for each and every one of your prayers.  I know, having had to deal with much of this from abroad, that all of it has helped immensely, and our family is stronger today because of it.   We know the impact Slim has had in our lives, but it has been uplifting to hear of the impact he has had in the lives of others.  He really did not like any kind of limelight or attention, preferring instead to quietly serve where he could.  His request for a simple graveside service is a reflection of this; he always believed life should be celebrated while living.

My thanks and gratitude go out to each of you.  The world, or at least our little corner of it, is a better place because he has been in our lives.

Ryan

Saturday Services

We are beginning to make the arrangements for Slim's memorial service.  Many of you may have heard Slim say that when he died all he really wanted was a grave side service.  We are trying to respect his wishes as much as we can. Because of this, we will not be having a formal funeral. We will have a viewing on Saturday, February 19th from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Stake Center located on 6180 So. Glenoaks Street (855 East). Following the viewing, family and friends may join us at the graveside service at the Murray City Cemetery (5490 So. Vine Street).

Please no flowers. If you would like to make a donation in his name please consider LDS Humanitarian Fund or Kennecott Nature Center in Murray.

The end of a long battle... The beginning of a new day

I have been wondering just what to say about this all night. Now that the sun is beginning to rise again, I thought it best to simply state what happened.  So here are the events of last night.  At about 8:30 p.m. the doctor came out and said that they had placed another stint in one of the arteries of his heart. This seemed to help his heart work better.  They were working on some issues with getting his blood pressure regulated.  They had given him some medication to help this out.  From this point the hope and plan was to let him stay sedated and progress as I had previously posted.

We came home to rest as we would not be able to see him for a while.  I called the hospital around 10 pm to get an update.  They said that we needed to come in at the doctors request.  We met as a family with the doctor who said that he was losing the battle.  Every time his BP would drop they would up the medication to help stabilize it.  And even when they were able to stabilize the BP it was at an extremely low level.  There was nothing more that they could do for him....... The infection had gone septic and Slim could no longer fight it.

Slim was put under anesthesia for the initial surgery yesterday some time around 2 PM. From that time on he was sedated.  He never woke up.....At 10:45 pm we turned off life support and let him quietly return home to his Heaven Family..... We will miss him dearly and the house already feels emptier without him....


Judy was grateful to have the last few days with him.  That one on one time was priceless to her. 

As a family we would like to thank you for all your love, support and prayers.


The James A Cooper family lives on in each of us and in his posterity.

Thanks again for all your support in so many ways....

Slim is out of surgery

We met with the doctor at around 5:35 PM  He explained that they removed about 300 cc's of "murky" fluid from around the pericardial sac, which probably means there was some infection.  They have also placed a tube into both sides of his chest and one in the incision site.  The left chest tube has already drained out 1000 cc's of clear fluid.  They left his chest wound open and have covered it with a special dressing to protect the open wound.  They will have the wound care team place a wound vac back on this site.  The intent of this  wound vac is to help draw out any residual fluid that may have infection.

He will be in the ICU for at least the next 3-4 days. (if all goes well)  He is intubated to help with his breathing while they keep his chest open.  Because of this, he will be sedated for most, if not all of this time.  At the end of the 3-4 days they hope to go back in and close up his chest. We have not been able to see him yet as they are getting him set up again in one of the ICU rooms.

UPDATE:
Around 6:30 pm the doctor came back out to say that Slim's having some additional complications.  His left ventricle is not working.  They have taken him down to the cath lab to try and put a stint into one of the bypass grafts that doesn't appear to be working.  Looks like it will be a long night....


Jaren

In Surgery

Slim is currently in surgery. He went in around 1:30 this afternoon. Jaren, Dori, Braden and his wife are with Judy at the hospital waiting. No word yet.

Will post as soon as we are updated from the surgeon.
Angie

Monday morning update.

The doctors just did their morning rounding and gave mom an update.

WBC  is back up to 21,000
INR is around 2.4 (not changing despite interventions to help this return to normal)
Echo- Pericardial sac around the heart looks like it is double the size it should be.... meaning too much fluid etc. is around the heart.

They really would prefer to wait unitl the INR is lower, but they don't think they can wait any longer.  The plan is to still go forward with the surgery later today.

Jaren

Sunday Feb 13th- We have restarted the Blog

Since Slim continues to have complications from his heart attack and bypass surgery we have decided to reinstate the blog. 

Slim entered the hospital for the 3^rd time since his heart attack on Jan 16^th.  The last two admits have been as a result of complications from getting an infection.  The most recent readmission (Wed. Feb. 9^th) was also due to some early stage kidney failure.

The first sign of an infection came while he was home recovering two weeks ago. Mom and I began to notice some increased swelling and redness to his left leg.  It was located at the incision site of where they took the vein used to make the grafts for his bypass.  He was admitted for five days and in the end they drained out one pocket of infection and put a wound vac on the incision site.   Slim probably should have stayed in the hospital at least another day so they could monitor his infection and other lab tests better.  However, he was pretty anxious to get out and be home where he felt more comfortable. The hospital set him up with out-patient infusion therapy going morning and evenings to get the needed antibiotics. A day and a half later he was again re admitted. The White Blood Count (WBC) score had gone up again to 21,000, which indicated that the infection was getting worse.  The lab work also indicated that his kidneys were not doing well. He also continues to have fluid around and or in his left lung area.

As they were in the process of admitting him into the hospital they were assessing his dressing on his chest and noticed some infectious fluid coming out of his chest incision site.  They had the physical therapist that works with wounds come in and set up a wound vac on this site as well.  They also reexamined his leg and noticed some tunneling had occurred.  Tunneling occurs when the infection and necrotic (dead) tissue starts to work its way deeper into the body.  As they followed the tunneling, they found 2 more masses of infection in his leg.  They cleaned them out and kept the wound vac on to help suck out any additional fluid and to promote wound healing. 

Lab Results as of Wed;

*INR was over 5.  This means his blood is too thin. Normal should be around 1.0

*WBC 21,000 Normal white blood cell count is 5,000-7,000

*Kidney function score was a 2.0, which indicates that the kidneys are not working as they should.

*They did an echo cardiogram and found excessive fluid around his heart.

*CT Scan- showed that the infection appeared to only be superficial in his chest.

They have done various tests to assess what type of infection he has…. Since he has been on antibiotics since his surgery, the cultures are not able to identify exactly what type of infection he has.  Because of this, they are using the strongest antibiotics they have…. Assuming the worst of infections and trying to treat it as if that is what he has.  It is likely a staph infection

Over the last few days the lab tests showed that the infection was getting better.  He was down to 13,000 on his WBC on Sat.  His INR was still at around 2.4… The challenge is that they are trying to balance giving him as much antibiotic as they can give him, without pushing the kidneys into further failure.   They have also been giving him vitamin K to try to help boost his blood into thickening up more.  This has not improved as fast as they would like.

Slim has had a hard time sleeping in the hospital bed. We received permission to take over his favorite recliner and put it in his room.  He spends most of his time in this chair.  He has to sit mostly upright because if he lays down he begins to cough and this irritates his chest incision.  He doesn’t have much of an appetite and has difficulty talking much.  He can talk for maybe 1-2 sentences and then starts coughing. This is why we have discouraged visitors…. He just can’t carry on any kind of a conversation.  It also drains him and he really needs to conserve his energy.

Sunday:  The labs came back and showed that his WBC had actually gone up to 14,500. This is not good considering how much antibiotics they are giving him.  They would like to have taken him into surgery today, but his INR is still too high.  In simple terms, this means that he could bleed out while in surgery.

The Tentative Plan for Monday-   They hope to take him in for surgery Monday afternoon around 4 pm.  The plan is to put a chest tube into his left lung to assist in draining out the excess fluid.  They also hope to explore his chest incision site and even look down towards the heart and surrounding tissues, looking for excessive fluid or signs of infection.  This could also mean doing some debridement of necrotic (dead) tissue.  Following the surgery, he may need to go to the ICU unit. 

We are not sure how long he will be in surgery tomorrow, as they don’t know just what all they will find once they are able to get inside his chest.   I will post again tomorrow night when we know more about how the surgery went.

Thanks for all your prayers and support

Jaren