PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

At one point, there were three Labs in all three original colors in my family! One aunt and uncle had a Chocolate Lab named Maddy who was born in 1989 or so and had to be put to sleep in 1999 due to cancer, our Black Lab named Molly was born in December 1994 and we put her to sleep in December 2009 due to failing health, and another aunt and uncle had a Yellow Lab named Sandy who was born in July 1995 and had to be put to sleep in January 2009 due to failing health.

 

Maddy, Molly and Sandy ! Love those names.
This is Nuka, after Nuka-Cola from the fallout universe. We also have a cat named Pip

 

Amanda has a cat named Pierce, and we would never be able to afford Hannah without the help we are getting!

 

@ColoradoTJ

The time and date stamp on my dashcam is off, but I watched the video again and counted roughly 1 minute and 25 seconds between the time we got out of the truck and ran up to Emily's condo, and when I came running back to the truck so I could get my phone to call 911; I called 911 at 8:40PM, so that puts our approximate arrival at around 8:38PM. Police and EMS arrived at about 8:46PM, and I called my dad at 8:49PM to tell him what was going on. That call lasted two minutes, ending when the cop came out to tell us that Emily had passed away, which means we found out the tragic news at about 8:51PM. So, this started somewhere between 8:05PM and 8:10PM, when Amanda expressed concern that she hadn't heard from Emily in two days. I texted Emily at 8:11PM and called her at 8:13PM. We were probably in the truck by about 8:22PM and pulling out of my driveway; I called Emily a second time at 8:32, while we were on our way, and left a voicemail. We arrived at Emily's place at around 8:37 or 8:38...

So yeah, we went from simply a feeling that something was wrong to finding out that our friend had been dead for almost a day in barely over 40 minutes; I hope I never have another Saturday (or any day for that matter) like this ever again!!!

 

By this time next week, I will have been to six funerals in less than four years, with three of them being for people under the age of 45!



I am sad to say that Emily wasn’t the youngest. The youngest was mine and Amanda’s old teacher’s son, who was killed in a car crash in January 2024 at the age of just 21. The most recent was for Amanda’s mother a month or so ago, and we still haven’t gotten the autopsy results nearly three months after her death!!!

The first one was my neighbor, who had breast cancer and had a bad reaction to the chemotherapy that ultimately killed her in September 2021 at the age of 41.

My friend Jim Aldredge died in August 2022, when he bled to death internally following surgery to remove a cancerous section of his lung; Jim was 75 years old, and I was spared having to see his body.

Seeing my teacher’s kid go into the ground made me cry, not because I knew him particularly well, but because he was only 21.

The last one I went to before Amanda’s mom’s was in the summer of 2024, when a family friend of Amanda and her parents lost her battle with cancer; I had never met this person in my life and went purely to support Amanda. The body was cremated in that case.

In the cases of my neighbor and my teacher’s son, they were both open casket. I’ve been to probably half a dozen open caskets since I was 18, and it didn’t bother me because I knew what I was in for. Even with my grandpa, it didn’t bother me. This was because the bodies had carefully prepped by the funeral home to look like they were merely sleeping.

 

What still gets to me about Emily is that Amanda and I both thought she was alive for more than 10 minutes after arriving. As stated before, the illusion that she was still alive was promptly shattered once the lights were turned on in the condo. She was only illuminated by the front porch light and the lights from my truck. Even if she had been alive, it would have still been obvious that something was wrong. We probably arrived at around 8:37PM, and while Emily being in her pajamas would have been normal at this time, the fact that the TV and seemingly all of the lights were off was not.

Emily hated sleeping with the lights on, according to Amanda, so this also added to the illusion that she was merely unconscious. She was known to fall asleep on the couch sometimes, but it was rare. We think that she decided to sleep on the couch because she may have been too sick to move to her bed, and one of the top theories is that she had a medication-induced seizure while sleeping and aspirated on her vomit.

I somehow missed the vomit even after the lights came on, but Amanda said she saw it off to the side. Another thing in this whole ordeal that really gets to me is whether Emily was asleep and it happened peacefully, or if she was awake and largely aware of what was going on. We may never know this. She was lying on the couch as if she’d passed out, and her eyes were closed, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she was asleep.

I just thank God that we found her after less than a day, and that she had the A/C on. For some reason, I remember the cop telling us that she been gone for at least a day and maybe more, but Amanda’s estimate is somewhere in the range of 14 to 18 hours before we showed up. If Amanda is right, this would put her actual time of death sometime between 2am and 6am.

 

Really sorry about your friend Charlie, that's an awful thing to come upon but you both are good friends for initiating the check either way. That is a cute pup too, I'm sure she's happy to be with some people she knows.

 

@ABA180
@ColoradoTJ
@shakerhood
@steelcity2
@TnShooter

Yet another thing that really gets to me about Emily is how young she was. We went to high school together. She was only four months older than me and had turned 36 in November 2024; I turned 36 less than two months ago!

She wasn’t healthy, but we didn’t expect her to die before her 40th birthday! Emily’s age at the time of her death is probably what gets to me the most…

I am overweight myself, and don’t have the healthiest eating habits. However, I’m not totally sedentary and I don’t exclusively eat junk food. Since we found Emily, I have really eaten a particularly unhealthy food. The day after we found Emily, Amanda and I went to Walmart to get food and supplies for Hannah. Now that Easter is over, Walmart is one of many places that has a surplus of marshmallow Peeps; I love Peeps! Walmart had them for 75% off, and I passed up the opportunity, because sugary food likely didn’t help Emily…

 

Totally dig that. I think we talked before about the start of 2021 and how much it sucked, to the point I said I'd rather go through 2020 again (you know what I mean). Eight days apart lost 2 dear friends I'd known since my teen years.

A little comfort food at the moment is okay, man. But I see what you mean about it. Similar reasons when I turned 40 got me to change some of my ways.

 

@ColoradoTJ
@shakerhood
@steelcity2
@Stitchgirl90
@TnShooter

We all die. It's literally a fact of life. I'm going to die. Amanda's going to die. Everybody reading this is eventually going to die. One thing that's bothered me for as long as I can remember would be what happens after we're gone. I like to think that our spirits live on; I also like to think Emily has been restored to the healthy avid horseback rider she was a little over a decade ago, and that she is up in heaven with Declan (the horse she is seen riding in the pictures) looking down on us as she goes on an eternal ride with him. Based on how we found Emily, we don't think she suffered, and that she just passed on in her sleep...

But that's where things start to bother me. Did she basically fall asleep and never wake up? Is she in a never-ending dream? Is her spirit still hanging out here on earth wondering what the hell happened? Emily likely knows what happened to her, but she wanted to make sure Hannah was safe before she crossed over to the other side; I am truly beginning to think that Emily's spirit beckoned us to her place that night for the sole purpose of rescuing Hannah. She was likely in my bedroom when Amanda got the feeling that something was wrong, I'm pretty sure she was with us in the truck as we hauled ass through the storm to her place, and she was there with us when we discovered her body.

 

I feel like my mind has not fully put everything together...

Two weeks ago (Monday, April 28th), I communicated with Emily via text message, and she told me that she wasn't feeling well; Emily was constantly sick, and I brushed this off as just another attempt at getting attention...

Three days after I texted with Emily, Amanda texted with Emily (Thursday, May 1st), at which point she told Amanda that not only was she was not feeling well but that she believed two medications she'd taken were interacting, and Amanda told her to talk to her doctor...

Two days after that, we found her dead...

Numerous friends have reported communicating with Emily throughout the day on Friday, with the last known communication being a text with her ex-boyfriend at 9:59PM. We believe that Emily was still alive at 10PM, and that she passed somewhere between 12AM and 6AM on Saturday morning.

Things have gotten a lot better for me in the roughly 10 days since she passed, but I still can't believe that yet another person I knew is gone, and I am certainly still coping with the fact that I actually found their body.

 

@ColoradoTJ

Some people experience guilt when somebody they care about dies, depending on the situation, and I think that I am experiencing that right now...

 

What I'm feeling guilty about is that Emily was likely really in trouble, but I was so used to her crying wolf in order to get attention that I brushed her off. Within five days, she was gone...

 

I'm going to stop speculating on things publicly until the autopsy results come back, but Amanda and I think that two of the prescribed medications she was taking caused an interaction that led to her death...

 

As stated above, it's as though my mind hasn't put everything together yet, even though it's been more than a week since we found her. The whole thing just seems so surreal; I never thought in a million years that I'd come across a friend's dead body...

 

Out of respect for you Charlie. (And everyone one else involved)
I going to not comment. I don’t think anything I have to say on the subject, would help you or anyone else heal.

 

I really need to wash my truck too, but raining what seems like 6 days a week offers very little opportunity.

 

I am very overdue for a physical, and was planning to schedule one before Emily passed. My physician is booked solid through at least August, but once I told the receptionist about what happened with Emily and how I was worried about my own health, they were able to get me an appointment with another doctor at the practice on June 6th. I do not think I’m gonna drop dead tomorrow, but I’m overweight and I have high blood pressure, and I would really love be on this earth four or five more decades! Seeing your overweight friend dead at 36 really opens yours eyes!