July 10, 2023
Salatiel “Sala” or “Chimos” Solano, 67, of Hendersonville, NC went to be with our Heavenly Father on July 6th, 2023. He was born on November 27th, 1955 to Ponciano Solano Uribe and Acencion Gonzalez in Joquicingo, Mexico.
He immigrated from Mexico and became a United States citizen in 2005; after many years of hard work and travel, his family joined him in settling down in Hendersonville, NC after discovering his love for the mountains.
Sala was an exemplary son, brother, husband, father, grandfather, uncle, and friend. He married Bertha Aguilar on July 1, 1974. He had 5 siblings, 6 children, 12 grandchildren, and was the great-grandfather of 1 (with another on the way). If you know any of his family members, you know that he was absolutely adored and loved. He truly enjoyed making other people laugh and was always there to support those he loved.
Sala loved staying active and even after retirement, he became passionate about working as an automotive mechanic with his son-in-law at Precision Motor Works. Any free time he had, he spent working on his cars, tending to his home garden and dedicated to his wife.
He loved learning, snacking, catching up with old buddies, and worshiping God. You could always find him spending the weekend at Grace Lutheran Church and at Smiley’s Flea Market. Sala undoubtedly loved laughing and making memories with all his family. In his younger days, he was a boxer. He was always known for caring more about others than himself.
Sala was diagnosed with a rare aggressive form of thyroid cancer known as anaplastic carcinoma that spread to his trachea, ultimately requiring the need for a very invasive surgery to remove his tumor. Unfortunately, he succumbed to multiple complications during his postoperative hospital stay.
He joins his parents: Ponciano and Acension, grandparents: Lola and Adeliado, in-laws: Pepe and Maria Elena, sister-in-law: Nena, older brother: Leonel, his eldest son: Abraham, and his daughter-in-law: Ana.
Salatiel is survived by his wife, Bertha; his children: Rut, Jenny, Josue, Israel/“Lobo”, and Nahun; his siblings Acela/“Lydia”, Eliel, Daniel, Gamaliel; his son-in-laws Rafael and Javier; his grandchildren: Jose-Isai, Sharon, Michelle, Josue Jr, Jennifer, Nicole, Kathy, Abraham Jr, Natalie, Cynthia, Jazlynn, and Jordan; his great-grandchildren, Isaias and Ellie (expected later this year) and many more loved ones.
A visitation will take place from 3 to 4pm at Shuler Funeral Home on July 10th, 2023. Salatiel’s memorial service and other arrangements will be announced at a later date.
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Psalm 73:26
July 8, 2023
It is with great sadness that we announce the unexpected death of our beloved husband, dad, and grandpa. Salatiel passed away at Wake Forest Baptist Hospital on July 6th, 2023 surrounded by his family.
A visitation will be held at Shuler Funeral Home in Hendersonville, NC from 3 to 4pm. Details for Salatiel's memorial service and other arrangements will come at a later time.
We sincerely appreciate everyone's love and prayers, and hope you will continue to pray for his wife and our family.
Post Op Day 6
June 25, 2023
Late Saturday night, we were told there was a room available in the CVICU but now we had to wait for all of the teams involved in his case come together to come up with a plan. Early Sunday morning, there was a lot of back and forth and confusion about whether or not we would move forward with the ECMO due to Salatiel developing pneumonia the past week. Eventually we were told we would have to wait until the infection cleared. Salatiel's oxygen ended up dropping and the settings on the ventilator were turned up to full power. He is recovering fine and oxygen remains stable but were told not to overstimulate him and let him rest after the episode.
Later that night, my grandpa started to wake up a little and the respiratory therapist was cleaning his face and he turned his head so they could clean it good and she was like “did you see that? He likes it!” He was agitated because of some pain but as the nurse was administering pain medications, she asked him to wiggle his toes. He started to barely do it and the nurse told him," okay, that’s fine," and he started to move this feet a lot more to let us know he could do it! 😂 We were talking to him and we told him that my grandma is coming in soon and also that she always stays with him, she doesn't want to leave his side. He turns around to look for her and she looks so excited both times we mentioned her. 🥰 Michelle said that he was starting to fall asleep but woke up as soon as my grandma came in and kept looking for her!
We did finally get an update and were told that tomorrow is when the actual doctors that make the final decisions come in. But they did say, as of right now, because he’s improving, he doesn't need the ECMO anymore. The plan has no changed to extubate once the infection clears; if there is any trouble still, they will have to put the trach in. We are praying to God for that not to happen!!!
Post Op Day 3-5
June 22-24, 2023
We are still waiting on a room and ECMO machine to be available in the CVICU. Grandpa's tubes got changed from a nasal one to an oral, hopefully this will help him because he's developed a slight infection due to the breathing tubes. Antibiotics are working. They are trying to lower his sedation so he can be a little more awake but it is a trial and error process. He gets very agitated when he doesn't have enough sedation, the nurse suspects it's from pain. We are keeping our fingers crossed and praying a room opens up soon and for the vocal cord nerves to work very, very soon.
Salatiel has been surrounded by family during this time.
Post Op Day 2
June 21, 2023
So the doctors want to put grandpa on ECMO, which is a type of life support, they said it’s a unique situation because usually it’s done in cases where the lungs aren’t working but his are, this is what they want to do to make sure oxygen is flowing to all of his body. They said they’re hoping with ECMO, they’ll take out the breathing tubes and hopefully lower the sedation so he would be able to walk, talk, and move around. Right now, the ENT doctor can’t check on the nerve because the tubes are in the way. But our hope is that, once they are able to, they’re able to take him off ECMO once his nerve is working again. If not, they’ll have to do a tracheotomy, but they said they hope that wouldn’t be permanent either.
Post Op Day 1
June 20, 2023
ICU doctor came in, he’s going to be on the breathing tube still and they’re taking him back to the OR on Thursday to check on that left vocal nerve. He said rough estimate he may need to be on the ventilator for two weeks to help recovery, but they will try to make him less sedated as he starts healing. He’s very uncomfortable right now and keeps trying to move so we asked the nurse to give him more pain medication, he can’t talk but he can hear us. He squeezed mine and Michelle’s hand when we asked him to to see if he could hear us 🥺 the doctor did say everything else in his body is working good! Keep praying for grampy everybody ❤️
We also celebrated Salatiel's wife, Bertha's birthday today. We hope to celebrate with both of them again VERY soon!
Surgery Day
June 19, 2023
2:10pm
The surgery started at around 11am, they called at 12:45 and said everything is going good and going to plan, the surgery should take 4-6 hours and they call every two hours so I should hear from them soon again
3:31pm
They just called again, she said that they're almost done, there's still about 45 minutes left to finish and then I'll talk to the doctor when I'm done but that everything is going very well
5:40pm
The doctor just called, he said that they didn't have to cut his chest bone. He said he removed the thyroid and part of the trachea, he said that everything went very well but that the nerve of the left vocal cord isn't moving much, but maybe it is because it's stunned from the surgery. So they left the breathing tube just in case he has any trouble breathing during the night because we use the vocal cords to breathe and his are staying closed. They are going to wait for him to wake up by himself to see if the nerve works like it should again but he said that everything went well with the surgery.
6:02pm
They will keep him a little sedated for a couple days so he’s not uncomfortable or gagging with the breathing tube but he’ll be on pain meds that will probably keep him sleepy once they ease up on the sedation.
10:19pm
They just let us see him 🥺 he's asleep but they said that he can still hear us, grandma is gonna stay the night with him, Chimós strong 💪❤️ thank God everything went okay 🙏 we asked the nurse to put his beanie on because his head gets cold
Wake Forest Baptist Visit
May 31, 2023
The doctor said grandpa’s surgery is very dangerous because the tumor is on the trachea, it’s starting to get in the cartilage of it and it’s going past his breastbone. So for the surgery, he needs a heart surgeon to operate with him because now they’re going to have to take out his thyroid and part of his trachea about 1-1.5 inches and to do that, the heart surgeon is gonna have to cut through his breastbone so he’s also gonna has be cut down his chest. He said the most dangerous part is after they do take all of it out, they’re going to have to connect what’s left of his trachea to his vocal box and it is life threatening if it comes apart. He’s never had it happen himself but he’s heard of it. So because of that, the surgery is gonna go really slow and grandpa can’t be moving at all after, not coughing or anything to not disconnect it. He’s gonna have to be in the ICU for at least a week after the surgery and after that we get the results from pathology about his cancer and they’ll decide what to do after they get the results, so like radioactive iodine or not, things like that to completely get rid of the cancer.
First Surgery
May 10, 2023
Doctors at AdventHealth couldn’t take out his thyroid because the tumor is on his trachea, they’re gonna have to send him to Wake Forest to take it out and reconstruct his trachea; they might need to cut his breastbone to get to all of the tumor.