UPDATE:

Hello all,

Roger's memorial will be on Friday morning 2/20/26 at 10 am at

Christs Church

941 So Dash Point Road

Federal Way, WA

There will be a light lunch with tea, coffee, and pastries following the service. An open mic will be available for both during the service and after. If anyone has old pictures or fun stories to tell, please come and share.❤️

This was posted in Facebook in a group called Roger's IPF Journey  A place where his daughter Mary could keep everyone updated about what was happening. More information will be there.

My dad was diagnosed with IPF a few years back and up until recently has had very minimal symptoms other than needing some intermittent oxygen. That all changed abruptly on Saturday, November 29 at about 1 AM when he needed to be transported to the hospital by ambulance for severe shortness of breath and high fever. He was in the hospital for a five day stay where they treated him for what they presumed was pneumonia. He received many doses of IV antibiotics, IV steroids, blood tests, and chest x-rays, which were all fairly inconclusive. Other than that the x-rays showed increased inflammation in the lungs. In the hospital, he was hardly able to walk a few feet to the bathroom without help without dropping his oxygen saturation into the 70% range while on 5 L of oxygen. That was problematic as they would not allow my mom to stay and help him, (actually escorted her out with security stating those are their policies.) Ok, but then he would use his call light and nobody would answer. They told  us they expected his lung functions to improve over the next 5 to 7 weeks. He was discharged home with saturations in the 80’s on Thursday, December 4 from Saint Francis Hospital in Federal Way too early and without adequate support. At home, there was an oxygen generator with a max oxygen output of 5 L. He also had two oxygen tanks with regulators that allowed up to 8 L a minute of oxygen which he hadn’t used in the past. It quickly became evident that those were not going to be enough to support him, as he was unable to even get up to the bedside commode without dropping oxygen levels into the 60% range. The saturations  would quickly recover with rest, but his saturations never really got above 88%. Then he ran out of oxygen on Saturday as we weren’t expecting to need more than the generator, and apparently Norco does not deliver on the weekends. We were able to call the VA and they allowed James to come up and pick up several bottles. James and Tiara stayed with mom from Thursday night until Tuesday to help at the house and they did their very best to get the house set up for this unexpected change in life circumstances. He had a follow up appointment on Tuesday at the VA where we discussed this as well as the fact that on Tuesday he again developed a temperature of 102.2. A CT scan of his chest was ordered along with some blood tests. The results of the CT showed an unexpected amount of inflammation and worsening disease in the lungs. The pulmonologist said previously on the CT scan in April of this year the disease seem to be just in the long bases of the lungs and now it looks like there is inflammation all the way up into the upper lobes. Because they have been unable to differentiate whether or not this is a bacterial, viral, or other type of infection, or if this is a sudden and acute worsening of the IPF they performed a bronchoscopy yesterday. This was pretty scary as he had to be intubated for the procedure and they weren’t sure of how he would tolerate this or if they would be able to remove the breathing tube afterward. Dad gladly signed the consent, stating, “well I’m not goin down without a fight, let’s do this…” He came out of the bronchoscopy with no problems and as he came out of the anesthesia the first thing he exclaimed was, “I made it!” Makes me want to cry. The bronchoscopy was done to obtain some cultures from within the lungs. After the bronchoscopy, they also put him on some stronger antibiotics. This morning we got the preliminary results of the bronchoscopy cultures and as of yet there is no bacteria growing. In normal cases, this would be good news, but in this case that is not so. We were hoping for finding of bacteria that can be treated with medication’s, but instead doctors are trying to figure out what to do next. They’re discussing palliative care. This is different from hospice in that palliative care is put in place to help you live your best life with the most comfort while you have a serious illness. The doctor said today that he would still be here in the ICU for a while, but they were not specific. I can’t say enough about the care he has received here at the VA. There has been such a sharp contrast between the care here and what we received at Saint Francis Hospital, which was not only horrifyingly minimal, but inadequate, quite frankly piss poor. As a healthcare provider, I would caution anyone from seeking care there. Anyway, mom and Inhabe been staying here in the Fisher House which is a posh little house on the VA campus with all the comforts of home and more. We didn’t get kicked out by security. Dad is doing much better on high flow oxygen but still has very little activity tolerance. He has not wanted anyone to visit, but we will let you know if this changes. Please call, text, send cards and prayers. He’s loves you all, this is just a tough time.

Roger has sadly lost his battle with IPF at 11:30pm, 1/28/2026 surrounded by his family. He will be missed greatly.