Email address: kathy.hubbard@yahoo.com

No postal address at the moment

FRIENDS OF BILL HUBBARD TRUST ACCOUNT
Go to any Wilmington Trust Bank and you may deposit funds to help our friends.

Bill Hubbard was in serious car accident on the way to idyllic retirement,
eventually resulting in his death eight months later in December 2007.
Updates follow below as we continue to keep up with Kathy.

July 2008: Kath is still trying to decide exactly what she wants to do with herself now. If and when she figures it out, she'll let us know! It is 110 degrees there. Mid-90's in Delaware is actually sounding good compared to that! Kath is looking like Isla suits her well!

April 21, 2008: Kath is settling in and enjoying herself. I chat with her online most every day. Postal mail is difficult/unpredictable. Email is much better. She volunteers at Isla Friends of Animals washing puppies. Check out their linked website. Some of Kath's stateside friends dropped in expectedly for her birthday/anniversary of Bill's accident and threw her a party. She sends her love to everyone.

April 2008: Kathy has moved into her own room with pooch Isla and is filling her days. While it is not the idyllic retirement she and Bill planned, she is trying to make the most of what she has and is letting God be her guide. She has been surprised by friends "popping in" unexpectedly, which is wonderful. She enjoys the emails and cards/letters she receives from her stateside friends and thanks everyone for those and your continued prayers. This will be a hard month for Kath, as it is a full year now after the accident, but only a little over 3 months since Bill died.

February 2008: The last time the church group got to see Kath before she left was at the first Lenten Soup Supper where she shared her (our our) favorite potato soup with her friends. It follows below. The recipe originally came from another great Reformation cook, Belinda Bahder:

Potato Soup

15-17 fist size potatoes or larger; peel and cook until done.
4 cups instant mashed potatoes - use flakes
4-5 onions-saute in microwave with some butter until done
3 1/2 cups of milk
1 stick margarine
salt & pepper to taste
1/2 cup sour cream (optional)
2 cups water
Add all together in large pot and simmer. Use hand masher on potatoes.

February 2008: Kathy is now living the island retirement dream solo on Isla Mujeres. You can keep up with her via email (above).

January 2008: Bill's ashes were spread in the waters off Isla Mujeres by Kathy in the company of a small group of friends. He retired there after all.

January 3, 2008: Celebration of Life service January 3, 2008 at 7 PM

December 23, 2007: RIP - This morning at 2:00 AM, Bill went to live with the angels. Kathy was with him holding his hand as he made the transition to a better world free of pain.

December 13: Nice to see Kathy back in the Reformation Choir, although we'd really like to see both of them in Isla Mujeres.

December 12: Never a dull moment in this saga. Bill is at Beebe Hospital fighting the same old lung problems - nothing this webservant can pronounce or understand well enough to pass on to you. He hopes to return to Harbor Healthcare soon.

December 11: Bill finally moved to Harbor Healthcare in Lewes - see address below. Back in Sussex County. Hooray! Kathy is bunking with Mary K. Konesey and may be contacted there or through her cell phone.

December 8: Two steps forward, one step back. NOT so great news. Bill was supposed to be moved to Harbor Healthcare on Monday the 10th, but that is now not to be. He is back in ICU with pneumonia again, apparently not an uncommon occurance for a patient with Bill's challenges. Pray that he may soon again regain his strength and that he and Kath may be able to move back to Sussex County and eventually their dream of Isla Mujeres.

December 4: Great news! Bill is being moved to Harbor Health in Lewes some time the end of this week. Back in Sussex County! He continues to improve. Address is: HARBOR HEALTHCARE & REHAB CTR INC, 301 OCEAN VIEW BLVD, LEWES, DE 19958

November 26: Addresss for Taylor Rehab, 175 E. Chester Avenue, Ridley Park, PA 198xx. Phone (direct) 610-595-6511. If you call, please call between 5-7 PM. They anticipate a move to a Sussex County facility before the end of the year.

November 13: Bill was moved to Taylor Rehab in Chester, PA yesterday. No details yet. Stay tuned.

October 19: Bill is doing better! His oxygen is improved, breathing well through the night and he is starting to eat semi-solid food. Keep up the prayers. They're working! Kathy is worn out from the up and down of his condition. She hopes to visit Milford next weekend (Reformation weekend) so you may see her in the choir. Hugs will no doubt be appreciated!

October 7 p.m.: Bill had rallied a bit. His O2 is improved and the CO2 was down. The docs were amazed. He is still hanging by a thread.

October 7 a.m.: The doctors have told Kathy to call the family in. They are not as optimistic as they once were. His body systems are shutting down. Please pray.

October 1: Bill's lungs have cleared up and O2 levels are better to keep his lungs functioning. They are going to put a PEG tube directly into the stomach for feeding for more substantial nourishment. Also you can specifically donate blood through the Blood Bank of Delmarva to credit the Bill Hubbard (DOB 7-24-41) account through Reformation Lutheran Church.

September 13: Bill is currently in West Chester Hospital, 400 E. Marshall Street - Room 3304, West Chester, PA 19380. He is continuing to have problems with fluid build-up in his lungs and is taking meds and nourishment intraveneously. Kathy is staying in Wilmington nearby.

August 16: Last week they found that Bill had double pneumonia and moved him to Paoli Hospital. He will have to be moved again to another rehab facility that is better able to care for any medical emergencies that Bill may continue to encounter. More details as they become available. Kathy flew down to Isla for a week but is back in Pennsylvania now near Bill.

August 2: Bill Hubbard, Bryn Mawr Rehab, 414 Paoli Pike, Malvern, PA Phone: 610-251-5531 > 8 PM < 9 PM.

Open letter from Kathy:

Thankin' all ya'll for your prayers and good thoughts. Those prayers are being answered. Bill will soon be choosing his manual wheelchair. Three to four people on our island website have access to two electric wheelchairs so I hope one can get to the island. I go to Brynr Mawr for training August 2-5, then go for a sleep test the next week overnight and Bill has to have care so I will do that for 24 hours. I WILL need a nap!

God bless the Boyers, Koneseys, Dicks for housing and those folks who gave gracious gifts, and prayers and thoughts and love and hope and joy at the news that the trach is gone.

Bill is 66 and the sky is the limit! God is good!

Kathy Hubbard

July 8: Bill is at Bryn Mawr Rehab on Paoli Pike in Malvern, PA - #106-Spruce and "moving right along". They are still evaluating his needs and condition, but he is progressing nicely and his spirits are up.

July 6: More great news--Bill is well enough now that he has been moved to rehab in Bryn Mawr. Webmaster Trish Boyer has been out of town and doesn't have contact info to pass on to you yet, but will soon so check back here. Trish will be on vacation from July 15-31, so no updates during that time. Kath will be housesitting for the Boyers during their vacation--a win/win situation, especially for Boyer puppy dog Skipper who will be happy to avoid a kennel and allows Kath to get a "puppy fix" since her precious pouch Isla is still on Isla Mujeres (yes, she was named for the island)!

June 29: Great news! Bill has been off the vent for 30 hours, is able to eat and his personality is back. They hope to keep him off the vent permanently now. He is scheduled to move to Bryn Mawr between July 8-14 or July 15-21 depending on some personal doctor issues. Things are getting better and better, slowly but surely.

June 16: Bill was off the vent today for 12 hours. That's progress! It's a struggle, but each day he improves. On July 4th he is scheduled to be moved to Bryn Mawr to a rehab unit. Kathy will be staying in Delaware for an underdetermined time. Contact information will appear here as it becomes available.

June 6: New room: Christiana Hospital #3D11 Bill sat up in a chair today and was off the vent for two full hours. They are starting to feed him regular food. He needs his protein! He has lost over 60 lbs. so far. Tomorrow they are going to try him off the vent 3 times for 3 hours each. Hooray!

May 30 : They have have inserted a voice piece in the trach and Bill can now communicate. His first words (no surprise) were, "Kathleen, I love you."

May 29: With all the ups and downs that Bill is having (fever/infection is the latest), Kathy has decided to stay in Delaware to be near Bill. Note new trust account info' above.

May 23: Bill is in Christiana Hospital room #6D35

May 21: Bill is getting better day by day. He was off the vent all day Saturday and Sunday and the tubes are out of his lungs. He will have a new room number shortly, so stay tuned. They hope to install something in his trach shortly so that he can talk/give him speech therapy. Note that Kathy has a new email address. She will be here until May 31st and then goes back to Isla to house-sit.

May 16: Guess who showed up at choir last night? Our prima soprano is temporarily back until the end of the month; Kathy is staying in Milford and visiting Bill at Christiana daily. We were excited to see her and wrap our arms around her. Greet her on Sunday. And you can still reach her at the email above.

May 12: Bill and Kathy are on their way back to Delaware. He will be in Christiana Hospital in
Room 2B37 by some time late this evening.

May 11: Bill is on his way to a hospital/rehab center in the Philadephia area within the next 48 hours or so. Details not available yet, as there are multiple choices for facilities. It will be posted here when known. Bill continues to improve/decline/improve/decline, which is the nature of serious illnesses and injuries. Kathy needs your prayers for strength. It's been exactly one month now since the accident. Thirty days of stress.

May 2: Kathy called tonight. How wonderful to hear the excitement in her voice. Bill is stable, the oxygen levels in his blood excellent. He still has the trach in, but is breathing on his own. He is off the respirator during the day, talking and cracking jokes. He is only back on the vent at night because he has sleep apnea. I asked about the pneumonia and she said the IV antibiotics knocked it out within 24 hours. Wow. She also corrected the post from yesterday and said that the accident was about 80 miles away, not four.

Kath says there were "so many angels" in this process - insurance man, Red Cross workers. She also says to tell you all that prayer is not wasted energy and to listen to Pastor John - pray all the time! She sends her love and thanks to all.

May 1: More and quite interesting news about the actual accident. We initially heard that Bill was "close" to Cancun. We now find out that he was only 80 miles from the ferry that would have taken him to his new home on Isla Mujeres. The local newspaper reports show a picture of the truck which was essentially collapsed into a "V". By happenstance, Bill had put his late mother's crutches and walker in the truck to donate to the Red Cross. When he crossed the border, they put a Red Cross sticker on the truck because of that. Coincidentally, Red Cross workers were behind him when the truck veered off the road into the tree. They had seen the Red Cross sticker and called the accident in by cell phone getting rescue workers there virtually immediately. Praise the Lord!

Bill underwent 9 hours of surgery yesterday to repair the ribs that continued to puncture his lungs. He was transferred to a brand new hospital near the airport for the surgery. His ribs are now wired together, the fluid and swelling have gone down, his lungs are clear and they will again begin to wean him off the respirator.

Bill will most likely do his rehab stateside, possibly in Philly where family and friends would be near enough to visit. They anticipate rehab of 6 to 12 months. No report of how soon that might happen.

April 28, 2007: Trish has been away for the past week so unable to update you. While gone, the following news on Bill and Kathy. The doctors relayed that there is a 6-month window of opportunity for Bill to be able to possibly move his legs. Keep praying. Don't know what that is about unless the titanium rodding has helped to stabilize the spinal cord and some sort of nerve connection may be occurring.

Bill was sitting up and talking some last Sunday, but later in the day had a setback. The shattered ribs are causing the lungs to continue to be punctured. They decided to put a tracheotomy in to hook him up to the ventilator to increase the lung volumes. They set his broken leg yesterday when they had him under sedation for the trach.

This from Kathy 4-27-07: "Fire up the prayer chain as Bill will be having surgery to repair all ribs tomorrow. The Doctors had a cat scan done today and everything is stable but the ribs. They continue to move and not heal so.....it must be fixed"

April 20, 2007: Not unusual with this kind of trauma, Bill now has pneumonia. They pulled out one chest drain tube yesterday and replaced the second one with a smaller one. He is healing. He is communicating with Kathy and today she is taking a tablet for him to write on. Kathy raved about the doctors, how wonderful they are. The 8-bed hospital is for ICU and emergency patients only. Denny was released on Monday and home in Georgetown on Tuesday. He'll have some character scars, but otherwise is fine. Kathy found out that the accident was at 4 p.m. on Wednesday and rescuers (jaws of life, the whole deal) were on the spot very quickly, as was the Red Cross. Paramedics have been to the hospital to check on him days later. Everyone is very caring and supportive. Kathy sends her love to all and says, "Keep those prayers coming!"

April 19, 2007: First of all, if you took the address before when it was listed at the bottom of these updates or if you got it from Kathy before she left, it was slightly wrong. It is Lot 4, not Lot 5. Please correct your address book. It's a small island, so mail will no doubt still get there, but corrections should be made.

Kathy says the doctors are just great. They also put 2 titanium rods in his spine (neurosurgeon) to help support him. As an indication of how wonderful and supportive those in her new island community are, Inge (who owns the house into which they are moving), has already begun plans for a ramp and converting the living room into Bill's bedroom (bedrooms are on the second floor).

A number of you asked about Isla, Bill and Kathy's little dog. Initial reports were that she was fine, but Kathy noticed she was favoring one leg, which turned out to be broken. The island veterinarian went to their house on his scooter, picked up the dog, gave her Valium, took her to the clinic to set the leg and returned her by scooter at 10 p.m.! Wow. Maybe we ALL ought to move to Isla Mujeres with service like that!

Most of their possessions were damaged. Bill's laptop was destroyed, but Kathy's new one (see photos above) appears to be fine. She is trying to get help to set it up and I will post her email address here as soon as I get it. She had help (4 hours worth of paper work) retrieving what was left of their possessions.

Kathy is, of course, visiting Bill daily. Some have asked how long it takes her to get there. Isla Mujeres is a 20 to 30 minute passenger ferry ride from Cancun where Bill is hospitalized. Kathy is hanging in there and appreciates all your prayers and love surrounding them both.

April 18, 2007: Bill was taken off the respirator just to check to see if he could breathe on his own. He was placed back on it just to help him through the current trauma. He is starting to wake up. Because of the ventilator, he can't speak, but recognizes Kathy and Inge and knows Isla is okay. He is making appropriate responses. He also has a broken leg (don't know which part or what they've done to it, i.e., cast, pins, or whatever). They are planning on taking one chest tube out tomorrow (April 19) and the other on Friday (April 20). Bill has not yet been told about the severed spinal cord and result. Anybody's guess whether he knows/suspects.

April 15, 2007: Bill is off the respirator and breathing on his own.

April 14, 2007: Overnight, Bill moved his arms, head and eyes.

April 13, 2007: Kathy called Bill's son, Chris, this evening to pass along the news, which is not good. Bill's spinal cord was completely severed in the crash and he is paralyzed from the waist down. He will never walk again. They operated for 10 hours. He has 8 broken ribs and both lungs were punctured. He is sedated, probably an induced coma. Denny was not operated on yet, contrary to our original information. He will be operated on for cosmetic facial repair and they expect he will be released within a very short time.

April 12, 2007: Please keep Bill Hubbard, his brother Denny, and their families in your prayers. As many of you know, Bill and Denny left to drive to Mexico with all of Bill and Kathy's worldly possessions and their little dog, Isla, to start a new life in retirement on Isla Mujeres. Kathy was to follow shortly thereafter by plane. On April 11, 2007, the men were in a one car accident near Cancun. Bill has a punctured lung, head injuries and other fractures. Denny had facial injuries and underwent cosmetic repair. We don't have as many details as we'd like, but the police found a local number in Bill's cell phone (he was unconscious) and called the woman in whose house they will be living.

The choir was throwing Kathy a surprise party on Thursday evening, April 12, which was also Kathy's 55th birthday. The organizers let her in on the surprise ahead of time and she elected to go ahead and be with friends in spite of the traumatic events. She flew out Friday morning, April 13th. She'll call back to Delaware with an update when she knows more and it will be posted here, as well as announced in church.