RIP Jim Carlstead

James Edward Carlstead, 67, of Buda passed away at MD Anderson in Houston Texas, December 4th, 2007.
He was born in Keytesville, Missouri on September 25, 1940 to Francis Pauline and George William Carlstead.

A 20 year veteran of the Air Force, Jim performed many duties for his country including running radar evaluation squadrons; officer in charge of a missile site “on the front line of the cold war”, a member of the Air Force and National Rifle teams, and gunsmith. He graduated from the Air Force’s Office Candidate School in 1963.

In 1980 he started Carlstead Truck Sales, which did business in the Buda, Texas area for 27 years. He served on the Hays Youth Athletic Association Board from 1987-1989, was a member and officer of the Austin Rifle club, coached the UT Rifle Team for 10 years, and enjoyed square dancing with the Waterloo Squares.

He is survived by his wife of 36 years, Ellen; his daughters Cristi Carlstead of Istanbul and Sara Carlstead Brumfield of Austin, a son-in-law Ben and a granddaughter Josie.

The funeral service will be Thursday, December 6 at 7PM followed by a visitation until 9PM at St. Anthony Marie Claret Catholic Church, 801 North Burleson Street in Kyle, Texas. Graveside service will be held at 9:45 AM Friday, December 7 at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.

In lieu of flowers memorials can be made to the University of Texas Rifle and Pistol Club; c/o Lee Patterson; 2112 Guadalupe St., Room. 512; Austin, TX 78705 or to the St. Michael’s Academy Endowment; 3000 Barton Creek Boulevard, Austin, TX 78735.

Bye-bye Daddy. I will miss you more than I can imagine.

Dad is dying.

This is an odd forum for this sort of information, but since we don't all live in the same small town and talk over our fences, it seems like the closest equivalent.

My Dad is dying. He was scheduled for surgery at MD Anderson the Wednesday before Thanksgiving to remove a tumor, but that Tuesday we discovered the tumor had quadrupled in size in the previous month (not normal for sarcoma at all) and was no longer operable. He started chemotherapy on Thanksgiving day. By Saturday he was in the hospital with neurotoxicity -- a reaction to chemo that causes a lot of confusion and, in his case, paranoia. He also couldn't really walk, mostly due to the tumor (we think). They watched his kidney function, which was slowly getting better, but when the white blood cell the chemo was breaking down starting hitting this weekend, they just couldn't handle it. (We decided not to do dialysis, which would only have been for more chemo, which he really wasn't handling well at all, and wouldn't have helped the tumor enough to be operable...) He's basically in kidney failure right now, slipping into a coma, and waiting for the stress to start affecting his other organs.

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.