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TWA Obituaries
Wilbur
(Wally) Wallace
The
following was sent by Wally's daughter Jon Wallace regarding his passing
May 24, 2014
I penned this up this morning as a post to my Dad's Facebook friends. It
explains what happened to him. Please pass it on to his TWA friends and
co-workers that intersted in knowing what happened.
Sadly, I must write, that my father passed away this morning, May 24th,
at 5:35 am PDT. It was a little after sunrise, locally here, in the
Pacific Northwest of the US. His health had been on a slow decline
starting about Christmas time of 2013. The underlying cause is suspect
to be Multiple Myeloma, which is a cancer of the bone marrow. The
symptoms he was having and some blood test results in the last week
showed the signatures of this particular type of cancer. This cancer
affects the kidneys as well. The condition that unexpectedly put him in
the hospital last Sunday morning was the inability to stand up. While
being checked out in the emergency room, the doctors suspected an
infection, poor kidney function, and unstable low blood pressure. He was
admitted at that time to the ICU unit in critical condition.
By Sunday evening, the doctors determined that the infection had evolved
to septic shock and he was put on antibiotics and medication for
sustaining his blood pressure since his body was not able. The source of
the infection was from the kidneys. By Tuesday morning, he was showing
improvement, the infection was coming under control, and he was being
weaned off the blood pressure sustaining medication but it was apparent
that kidney function was still an issue. Initially, he had agreed to
dialysis but also significant discomfort and pain were starting to
factor in. My Father was asking my Mother and me to just please let him
pass. It was heart breaking. On Wednesday morning, my Father was
steadfast in his desire to pass away and we reluctantly agreed to let
nature take its course. This was in spite of him showing improvement in
recovering from sepsis and the blood pressure instability. I believe my
father knew that his quality of life would not likely return to what it
was and he would not be able to do the things he enjoyed. I suspect he
was correct and that is what the doctors also believed. Even after
beating the sepsis, he would have to endure treatment for the cancer,
which is not curable, and he may have to have of endured long term
dialysis if his kidney function did not return. That was also
unacceptable to him. My Dad would not have been happy with anything less
than being on his feet again and doing the things he enjoyed in life.
On Wednesday afternoon, we made the difficult decision to stop all
treatment except for that to maintain comfort. He was removed from the
ICU and placed in a regular hospital room while his pain and comfort was
being managed. His body began to manage his BP on its own, his heart was
strong, but his kidneys did not improve. On Thursday afternoon, he was
transferred to a local hospice care home here in Kennewick, WA. He was
comforted there until he passed away this morning.
My dad was the last remaining living member of his family from Warren
County, Indiana (from a very small town called Independence, between the
town and city of Attica and Lafayette, and nestled among corn fields and
the Wabash River). He had retired from Trans World Airlines back in 1990
and he and my Mother moved to the Kennewick area and set up residence.
He had worked in Kennewick a number of years in the banking industry as
a part time sideline and made many more friends there. He is survived by
my mother Pat, his grandsons JL and Evan, my wife Evelyn, who he loved
as a daughter, and me, Jon. We are his immediate family. There are
several brothers and sisters of my Mother in WA who have been providing
spiritual support to us and I thank them all for that. There are many
among my Wife’s brothers and sisters that have known and adored my Dad
too.
My Dad had a big warm heart and was very loving and generous on many
levels to us all. This is a significant loss to us. He really worked
hard at keeping in touch with all of his family, and periodically made
trips to Indiana or visits to us in Southern California, or flying us up
to visit here in Washington. He has a large social network of friends
and enjoyed traveling and going out and doing a variety of activities.
He especially enjoyed riding motorcycles and making cross country trips
with the Cavalcade group. He had even added a side car to his motorcycle
to make it possible to ride a little longer and took each of his
Grandson’s cross country with the motorcycle to Indiana to see where he
grew up. I know that made him very happy. He and my Mom put me through
college and contributed to his Grandson’s educations. We are forever
grateful and proud to be his family. There is so much more I could say.
As my Dad use to say; “…I just need to keep on trucking…” He literally
did so until he could truck no more. Love you Dad, peace be with you,
you are in no pain no more. I had you for 52 years of my life, and we
all wish it could be more. We love and respect you. May you be riding
your motorcycle, be waterskiing, house boating, making homemade ice
cream, woodworking, camping, just traveling to different places to see
the sights, or visiting with your brothers and sister that went ahead of
you. You were all the good that is life.
Thank you,
Jon Wallace and Family