Dottie's Story
Bringing a former Air Guard commander home.
When Brigadier General V. Wayne “Speedy” Lloyd was diagnosed with a fast-growing brain tumor, he wanted to get back to his home among the West Virginia hills. “I started my life here,” General Lloyd told his sister, Dottie Lorenz. “And I want to end it here.” Dottie knew that she would need help bringing her brother home. She would need the support of Hospice of the Panhandle.
General Lloyd spent the last weeks of his life at the Hospice of the Panhandle Inpatient Facility watching the planes fly from the 167th Air National Guard – the base he had commanded for 10 years.
While at the Inpatient Facility, Speedy received more than 200 visitors, military men and women whose lives he had touched through his decades of service to the country. One woman who visited shared how General Lloyd had sent her to navigation school at a time when very few women went to navigation school. Because of him, she had become the first female navigator in West Virginia.
“I don’t think there was one person (at the Inpatient Facility) that didn’t bend over backwards to make sure that my brother was comfortable,” Dottie said.
One of Speedy’s last wishes was to fly once more over the Shenandoah Valley. Hospice of the Panhandle helped to make that possible because hospice care focuses on helping patients live more fully and assists them in achieving their goals.
“Hospice of the Panhandle, thank you so much for taking us in and treating us like family,” Dottie said.
