07.15.24 MEETING MINUTES - Laserfiche WebLink

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Minutes of the Regular Meeting of Council Monday, July 15, 2024 Page 4 Caitlin Kovach Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak this evening. I am John and Alice's only daughter. My parents have always been community -based people. The house I grew up in was located in Ridge Acres in Willoughby. They were respected members of their community for the 20+ years that they presided there. They left that home to move to Mayfield Village and have been respectful, trustworthy and active members of their community ever since. My parents moved into their home in early November 2013. On November 24, 2013, I gave birth to twin boys at Hillcrest Hospital. My earliest memories in their home are of comfort and peace. Not only was I able to stay close to the hospital while my twins were in the NICU, but I also knew our 3-year- old son was safe and happy at his grandparents during those times. From the very beginning, my parents have been largely involved in all three of my boys' lives. Each of them has developed such a beautiful and unique relationship with both their Grandma and their Gumpa as his grandchildren call him. As the boys have gotten older, they have grown especially close to my Dad. Being a Gumpa is by far his favorite thing to do. He will tell you it is his proudest title. Nowadays he is also Gumpa to a 2-year-old granddaughter who also brings nothing but joy and sunshine to his life. He can make her laugh like no one else over and over. Over the past 11 years, he has become more of a staple in this community, so much so that he and the boys have been on a first -name basis with Parkview Pool employees for many years now. He is the happiest when he is out enjoying a beautiful day with his grandkids on the Greenway Trail. Although there are many days when my Dad feels well enough to take his grandkids to the pool, there are many more days where he is too weak to stand, times where he has been hospitalized for 30 plus days due to life -threatening complications. We try to get through those times the best way we can to make him comfortable. We were completely devastated when we discovered that he has Stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer which had metastasized to his lymph nodes, bones, and most recently his lungs. This was also in addition to the Parkinson's Disease and end stage respiratory failure that requires him to live full- time with oxygen supplementation. We soon learned that his cancer was considered untreatable, thus making him terminally ill. At best, there could have potentially been some options not to treat, but to buy some more time. Most of these options were different forms of chemotherapy. We were told that his body would not tolerate that treatment. Imagine being told that you are terminally ill. Or imagine being told that your loved one was terminally ill. What would you do? How would you feel? How would you go about having to tell three young children that their hero is dying? If you are like me, you would want to do everything in your power to make that individual feel comfort and to ensure that they can continue to feel comfort during such a scary time. If you are the one being diagnosed, among many other things, you would have to start meeting with hospice to think about how you want to die. I guess you wouldn't want to die in a hospital or rehab facility that's full of noises and strange people. My guess is that you would want to be comfortable in your home and surrounded by people that you love. That can be very scary, especially when you know that it is coming. The very last thing your loved one should be concerned with is whether or not they have somewhere to live. The