Toby Tuttle

The Tuttle family is saddened to share with you that Sylvia “Toby” Tuttle passed away on the afternoon of Wednesday April 26 th , 2017, at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.

She would have turned 81 on May 7th.Toby had been in the hospital since April 6th with various health issues including an elevated heart rate and white blood cells that suggested an infection. And, she had recently been diagnosed with advanced stage esophagus cancer. She never stabilized enough to start treatments for the cancer, and last week her doctor said the window for treatment was closing.

The day before her passing, facing more procedures and the untreated cancer, Toby announced she was done being in the hospital and she wanted to go home to die. There was a family meeting with her doctors and she agreed to instead move to the Hospice care within the hospital.

She was moved to a room with a beautiful view of The Golden Gate Bridge. They removed her feeding tube and told her she could eat food. She ate a little rice and cake. Her husband, Tim, came and sat with her. They held hands and together they watched the sunset out her window. He also put her wedding ring back on her finger. It had to be removed when she was admitted to the hospital and she insisted that she get it back.

The morning of her passing, she requested strawberry shortcake. Her daughter, Beth, went to Tim’s apartment and made some and brought it to the hospice. Beth was combing Toby’s hair and waiting for the rest of the family to arrive for the shortcake when Toby suddenly died. She passed very quickly. And so, it was done.

We are all very sad, as you can imagine. But we are so grateful Toby was able to get herself out of ICU and into a place where she could spend some good time with her family, and most especially Tim, before she passed. And, we are very impressed with and touched by her courage in her time of dying.

She must have known it was coming. And, always a woman of the theater, she wrote herself a beautiful final scene.

Toby will be cremated. Plans for a Celebration of Her Life are pending.

Meantime, if you’d like to do something in her memory, we suggest making Strawberry Shortcake, or whatever treat you desire, and enjoying it with your loved ones, at sunset if possible.

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