Tim Bright's obituary

Hard to believe this is happening.: http://m.legacy.com/obituaries/greenvilleonline/obituary.aspx?n=tim-bright&pid=172723778&referrer=0&preview=True

Pictures of Tim

We're asking for anyone who has pictures, videos, etc. of Tim Bright to email them to me at brightjenny08@gmail.com as soon as possible as we prepare for his service. Thank you for your continued support, each day is just as difficult as the last but there is a little respite in knowing how much of an impact Tim made upon your lives.

Services for Tim

Last night, a little after 8pm, a large piece of my heart was forever crushed when Tim peacefully took his last breath surrounded by both of our families. It's still incredibly surreal and I'll never forget looking into his beautiful blue eyes that one last time.

As crazy as it sounds and felt at the time, from the first moment I saw Tim coaching on the Furman baseball field, I knew he was the man I was meant to marry. He loved me in a way that could never be matched, he wasn't just my husband and best friend, but an extension of me, of my soul, and filled a void that had always felt empty. 

He taught me the meaning of love throughout our ups and downs, of selflessness by being the strong one and calming and reassuring me in moments that were just as, if not more so, dark and scary for him, of kindness by always putting others before himself when even in these last few weeks he told me that he was more worried about me being left behind than him having to go, and he made me a stronger person. 

Many people have noted just how strong I've been throughout these trials, I'm truly not, it just appears that way when you are following in the shadow of someone as strong as my husband. It's Tim that has given me that strength and to be honest, I'm absolutely lost without him. He faced his disease head on, and never asked why, just said that if what he's going through could save one person then it was all worth it. The world is a much duller place without him. 

He fought valiantly until the very end and was noble and brave in his words and actions. He will always be my hero, my world, my heart.

Services for Tim will be held Saturday October 11, 2014 at 12:30PM at Greenville First Baptist Church, 847 Cleveland St. Greenville, SC. A reception celebrating Tim's life and legacy will follow. 

Tim never understood the point of flowers and because of that refused to ever send me any. For that reason, we are asking that in lieu of flowers you donate to the one organization Tim & I believe in the most, iTOR. We know that someday they will find a cure for this horrendous disease. Memorials can be made to 'GHS Cancer Institute ITOR'  Philanthropy Office, 300 E. McBee Ave,  Suite 503, Greenville, SC 29601

Hard to Swallow

Many have already been spreading the news but we wanted to put out a statement from our families as well:

We are sad to share with everyone that after a fight of 4 1/2 years, Tim lost his courageous battle with cancer tonight.  Throughout this fight, Tim and Jenny have exhibited the type of courage and determination that made our families proud.  They have both touched the lives of so many in positive ways and their positive impact will last a long time.  In return, we have all been blessed to watch how their strength, faith and love for each other buoyed them through this fight.

 

Thank you for all the prayers and well wishes during this "journey".  We will let everyone know when memorial plans have been made.

 

Thank you and God bless.

 

The Clantons & the Brights

Another Down

This morning has been full of all kinds of tests as last night was a really rough one continuing to Tim getting sick multiple times this morning. He's currently in X-Ray/CT and they are trying to figure out what is going on with his poor body. Please pray for this to be a minor issue he can overcome and for guidance for the doctors to diagnose it quickly.

Two weeks in

Today it was decided that Tim would be discharged tomorrow. We were nervous but excited to head back to Tim's parents and hopefully get back into "real" life. Unfortunately since the procedure something has changed and the pain/anxiety meds that were well balanced are now overly sedating Tim so the plan now is to get his system a chance to clear itself out and start again with titrating his meds. Hopefully that will be done rather quickly and we can be on our merry way. We'd rather put the time in now than to boomerang back in a few days. In other news, after four days we have finally figured out how to use rewind on the hospital TV/DVD player. Long story but a huge advancement for our ability to watch movies here :)

Please pray for Tim's lungs to continue to clear out and improve in their functioning, for the new meds to be titrated quickly and accurately and for this chemo to knock out this cancer and be the miracle drug we've been waiting for.

I'll leave you all with a word of advice from a 5th grader's letter we received today (5th graders give some great and hilarious advice btw): "while you are still on earth pay attention to your friends and family and not your phone." :)

Surgery

Praise the Lord, the surgery was a complete success and really could not have gone any smoother. Savannah Stroud Hightower has been Tim's night nurse many times over the past few weeks and has become a very good friend. We just happened to meet her dad the other night who is an anesthesiologist and ended up helping us with doing Tim Bright's surgery today. Such a reassurance considering how many issues he has had with anesthesia and his breathing after. This is the absolute best shape I've ever seen him after a procedure. The worse side effect is how tired he is.  A permanent stent has been placed and the hope is that this should be the final fix for all of his GI issues. We obviously still have some huge challenges ahead, including getting him back on chemo and getting it ramped back up to full-strength. Please pray that he can start moving forward with this treatment and that it can attack his cancer to get it back under control as well as that he can begin to regain strength to be able to start living a normal life once again.