Steve H.
www.curehodgkins.com
- Joined
- Aug 18, 1999
- Messages
- 2,440
This will likely be long, so be forewarned...
I was wrapping up a few things at work before heading out to go meet my parents to pick up Cameron (he had been staying there a couple days for a visit) when the phone rang. It was my MIL, asking if I knew where Nicole was. Seemed like a typical call I got from her every other day, but this one changed quickly when before I could respond, I heard MIL breaking down in tears on the other end of the line
She finally was able to blurt out -- "Tom just had a stroke."
She was calling from the ER. They had gone down to the hospital to see the doctor because he wasn't feeling quite right (he was recuperating from a triple bypass) so they told them to come down for a checkup. While sitting in the waiting area, FIL realized that he had started slurring his words. He'd been around hospitals and doctors too long to not know what that meant.
I told her I'd get to the hospital as soon as I could -- being the only one downtown (among myself, BIL and Nicole), I got there first, where I found MIL in a waiting area in the ER. Soon, other friends started showing up -- FIL's VP and closest friend, a nun friend of the family, then BIL and finally Nicole. We all sat while they gave us some updates and eventually moved us to another location, when they told us that they were moving him from the ER to the neuro area of the hospital.
The whole time, we were all thinking of the possible scenarios -- ranging from minor problems that required some therapy to complete vegetative state. No one (to that point) had even considered an even worse possibility, until later that night. We got an official word about what had happened -- it was obviously a stroke, but it was in the back of his neck, down by the brain stem. They were working on clearing it with drugs and other methods, but they seemed to open sections and then have it clog up again.
We got moved again -- to another waiting area, in ICU this time. Our family doctor and close friend of the family showed up around this time -- FIL personally recruited him a few years earlier and he became like another son to FIL. When the neurologist came out to give another update, he took over and helped out, getting right to the point and skipping a lot of the fluff and asking medical questions, and then explaining what they were talking about afterwards. It was nice to have someone there who could ask the right questions.
He went with the neurologist to look at the x-rays and talk further with her and when he came back, it all hit us. He looked like death warmed over -- then put his head in his hands and looked up at MIL and simply said, "This isn't good." We all knew pretty much instantly what that meant. Everyone got up and found a corner somewhere to collect their thoughts, cry, make a phone call (as I did to my parents and BIL did to his uncle) and just find a few moments alone.
We met with the doctor one more time that night -- she basically said that there was little more they could do except wait to see if the drugs did some good, that surgery wouldn't be an option and any more drugs and he would bleed to death. We were basically told that he was unofficially dead, barring a miracle. We got a chance to see him and then went home for the night -- to try to sleep (that didn't happen, for the most part).
The next day, July 3rd, 2002, FIL officially passed away -- but in reality, July 2nd was the day that changed everything.
He was an incredible man, truly a "self made" man -- put himself through college on the GI Bill, became a Captain in the Army, went to Vietnam, published Economics textbooks, got two masters degrees -- the second of which, from Yale, all while he was working full-time and had a wife and two kids. Nicole once said that while her Dad worked long, long hours during those days, he was always home to tuck her and her brother into bed each night. Even though he was an executive, the people he loved working with the most, those who he really got to know well were not necessarily executive-type people, but those who were just like him -- incredibly hard working, dedicated and loyal employees. He literally couldn't walk down the hallways of his hospital without getting stopped dozens of time by people, just wanting to say Hi or Good Morning. And he always took the time to say a few nice words to each and every one.
My Dad is, and always will be my hero, but my FIL is a man who I truly try to emulate and live my life like -- for no other reason than because I know he would want his little girl Nicole to be as happy and safe as he tried to make her life for the 30 years he was her Daddy.
I was wrapping up a few things at work before heading out to go meet my parents to pick up Cameron (he had been staying there a couple days for a visit) when the phone rang. It was my MIL, asking if I knew where Nicole was. Seemed like a typical call I got from her every other day, but this one changed quickly when before I could respond, I heard MIL breaking down in tears on the other end of the line
She finally was able to blurt out -- "Tom just had a stroke."
She was calling from the ER. They had gone down to the hospital to see the doctor because he wasn't feeling quite right (he was recuperating from a triple bypass) so they told them to come down for a checkup. While sitting in the waiting area, FIL realized that he had started slurring his words. He'd been around hospitals and doctors too long to not know what that meant.
I told her I'd get to the hospital as soon as I could -- being the only one downtown (among myself, BIL and Nicole), I got there first, where I found MIL in a waiting area in the ER. Soon, other friends started showing up -- FIL's VP and closest friend, a nun friend of the family, then BIL and finally Nicole. We all sat while they gave us some updates and eventually moved us to another location, when they told us that they were moving him from the ER to the neuro area of the hospital.
The whole time, we were all thinking of the possible scenarios -- ranging from minor problems that required some therapy to complete vegetative state. No one (to that point) had even considered an even worse possibility, until later that night. We got an official word about what had happened -- it was obviously a stroke, but it was in the back of his neck, down by the brain stem. They were working on clearing it with drugs and other methods, but they seemed to open sections and then have it clog up again.
We got moved again -- to another waiting area, in ICU this time. Our family doctor and close friend of the family showed up around this time -- FIL personally recruited him a few years earlier and he became like another son to FIL. When the neurologist came out to give another update, he took over and helped out, getting right to the point and skipping a lot of the fluff and asking medical questions, and then explaining what they were talking about afterwards. It was nice to have someone there who could ask the right questions.
He went with the neurologist to look at the x-rays and talk further with her and when he came back, it all hit us. He looked like death warmed over -- then put his head in his hands and looked up at MIL and simply said, "This isn't good."
We all knew pretty much instantly what that meant. Everyone got up and found a corner somewhere to collect their thoughts, cry, make a phone call (as I did to my parents and BIL did to his uncle) and just find a few moments alone. We met with the doctor one more time that night -- she basically said that there was little more they could do except wait to see if the drugs did some good, that surgery wouldn't be an option and any more drugs and he would bleed to death. We were basically told that he was unofficially dead, barring a miracle. We got a chance to see him and then went home for the night -- to try to sleep (that didn't happen, for the most part).
The next day, July 3rd, 2002, FIL officially passed away -- but in reality, July 2nd was the day that changed everything.
He was an incredible man, truly a "self made" man -- put himself through college on the GI Bill, became a Captain in the Army, went to Vietnam, published Economics textbooks, got two masters degrees -- the second of which, from Yale, all while he was working full-time and had a wife and two kids. Nicole once said that while her Dad worked long, long hours during those days, he was always home to tuck her and her brother into bed each night. Even though he was an executive, the people he loved working with the most, those who he really got to know well were not necessarily executive-type people, but those who were just like him -- incredibly hard working, dedicated and loyal employees. He literally couldn't walk down the hallways of his hospital without getting stopped dozens of time by people, just wanting to say Hi or Good Morning. And he always took the time to say a few nice words to each and every one.
My Dad is, and always will be my hero, but my FIL is a man who I truly try to emulate and live my life like -- for no other reason than because I know he would want his little girl Nicole to be as happy and safe as he tried to make her life for the 30 years he was her Daddy.
