Andrew Claymon
February 22, 2010 by in2azioa · Leave a Comment
Dear Fellow ICE Officials,
It is with great sadness that we inform you that today (7/5/10) Andrew finally decided that it was time to let go. At around 2:30 Andrew passed away. Once we have decided on services we will let everyone know.
Andrew has been a USA Hockey certified official and CIHRA member dating back to the 2005-2006 season.
Andrew was a longtime local, born and raised in the Vail valley. He lived in Edwards with his mom Joni, dad Mike, and brother Brian and is a sophomore at Battle Mountain High School. He was an avid outdoorsman and especially enjoyed hunting and fishing with family and friends.
For the past two plus years, Andrew has been battling a rare form of cancer at Children’s Hospital in Denver. Throughout the duration of Andrew’s illness, he has maintained his officiating certifications and registrations with USA Hockey and CIHRA. And, as opportunities have permitted, he has officiated a game here and there. He has been proud to be a part of the hockey community and, notably, our CIHRA officiating family.
Unfortunately, Andrew’s condition had worsened in recent months and doctors no longer consider treatment an option. Bluntly, Andrew was given a very limited amount of time.
Since their last update (6/30/10) , Andrew had many ups and downs. He was able to fish most of the day last Friday and then tried to take Grandpa Jim out in his boat on Saturday morning, but they came in after about an hour and Andrew was weak and short of breath. We put him on oxygen right away and then later in the day he started having more difficulties breathing so we decided it was time to get Brian and some other family members to come here to our campsite at the lake. Mid-afternoon on Sunday, Andrew again had a more severe breathing episode and we thought we were losing him. He was fairly incoherent and breathing very oddly. He was sitting up with his eyes closed and then all of a sudden he opened his eyes and said to us “He isn’t ready for me yet”. We said “who isn’t ready for you yet?” and he said “I talked to God and he told me that he wasn’t ready for me yet”. Later that afternoon, Andrew got out of bed, sat in a camp chair next to the lake, got his fishing pole out and caught several fish!! We think it was pretty obvious that God wants him to catch more fish before he goes to heaven!
Information posted on 7/5/10 from their CarePages site…
On Thursday afternoon, Andrew said he was ready “for real food” as he had not eaten since Sunday morning and he was ready to go back to Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Arnold, NE (2 hours from Merritt Reservoir). We packed up and moved Andrew, his boat, and the camper with the enormous help of our “pit crew” (our family that was still there and Rick Mueller, Mackenzie Mueller, Aly Pelchat, and Brett Lich and Woody Lich who had driven to the lake on Thursday morning to see Andrew).
We had several bad scares over the weekend and Andrew was having some stomach pain, but we got the pain under control with medication. Every time after one of these scares, Andrew would rebound and start walking around or go outside like nothing had happened. Andrew slept pretty well on Sunday night until 4:30am when he had some mild stomach pain. Today, he stopped breathing at about 10:30am and we thought he had died, but after a minute or so he started breathing again. After a little while, he got up to go to the bathroom and also went outside. There was a little humor in that Andrew had just almost died and here he was up and about and we looked at each other and chuckled as if to say “Look at our son never giving up.” At 12:30pm, he stopped breathing again for several minutes and again we thought had died, but he started breathing again. He was unconscious from then until he took his last breath around 2:30pm.
Services will be as follows:
- a wake service (including informal story telling about Andrew) on Friday, July 9 at 7pm at St. Agnes Catholic Church in Arnold, NE
- a funeral Mass on Saturday, July 10 at 10am at St. Agnes Catholic Church,
- graveside services and burial at the Arnold Cemetery immediately following the Mass
- a luncheon following the graveside services at the Arnold Community Center.
A memorial service will also be held in the Vail Valley in the very near future and the details have yet to be determined.
In lieu of flowers, memorials are suggested to any FirstBank of Colorado location to the Andrew Claymon Memorial Fund. These funds will be distributed to various organizations that Andrew was involved with (Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, Children’s Hospital in Denver, etc.).
For anyone who is coming from out of town to Arnold for the services and who needs a place to stay, there are 2 hotels in Arnold, a few hotels in Broken Bow, NE (30 minutes away), a bunch of hotels in North Platte, NE (50 minutes away).
It is comforting to us tonight to know that Andrew will no longer have any pain or suffering, but we sure wish he was still here so we could take care of him.