Good evening everyone. I'm asking all of you to please pray for my family. My cousin (the first cousin of my mother) had a massive stroke this morning and he's in a coma on life support. He's only 59 years old and has been through so much in his life. He survived 2 brain aneurysms (one year apart from each other), the first of which happened almost 25 years ago. It was a miracle he lived through the first one, let alone a second one. Most people don't live through that but he pulled through. I remember getting that phone call, I was just 12 years old. It was early on an August morning in 1989, and my parents, my sister and I were actually getting ready to leave for the airport to fly down to WDW. We were at WDW for 9 days and my mother called our aunt every single day, multiple times a day, to check on him and see if there was improvement. They operated 2 days after he went into the hospital, on our aunt's birthday no less. Once we returned home, we went to the hospital in manhattan every single day. My dad would go to work in manhattan and work a full day (6am-2pm), and then drive home to brooklyn to pick up my mom, my sister and me and we would go into manhattan to visit him at the hospital and stay until later in the evening. Every single day. It became routine the rest of that summer, and a little into Fall. On weekends we would spend even more time with him. And there was no place we would rather be. We wanted to be there as he made progress, to talk to him while he was still unconscious and get him to wake up, to try and get him to speak again once he regained consciousness. And to be there for my aunt and the rest of our cousins. It was a terrible time for everyone but it also kept us close. A month after he first entered the hospital, it was his 35th birthday. He was still in the ICU, but he was doing much better at that point, talking and recognizing relatives and friends. My aunt asked if it would be ok to have him come out to the solarium and we would sing happy birthday to him. The doctor allowed it. His son was only 4 years old at the time, and he hadn't seen him since he first went into the hospital. His wife brought his son to the solarium area as well, the nurse brought him out and he got to see everyone. He recovered even quicker after that. It was truly a miracle, we have all believed all these years. Shortly after, he went into rehabilitation therapy. He did great and after a few weeks he was able to go home. We always said he was a walking miracle. The following summer he went in for a test and they found a second aneurysm. They operated immediately and he recovered much better from this one than the first, since this one hadn't ruptured. Again, truly a walking miracle. In recent years, his health has slowly deteriorated. He had congestive heart failure a couple of years ago and we went to see him in the hospital. He came home a few days later. But today was devastating for everyone, especially my aunt and my cousin (his son, who found him this morning in the bathroom). We went to the hospital to see him today. My parents and my sister went earlier, and DH drove me into manhattan with the boys and the three of them waited in the car so I could visit. DH doesn't handle these things well so he declined when I offered to take turns with him staying with the kids. I talked to my cousin, I held his hand. He was unresponsive, although I swear at one point he squeezed my hand a bit. His son said it was most likely a spasm but I like to have hope. The prognosis is not good at all according to the doctors, but they assured us that he is not in any pain. They will be taking him off the ventilator tomorrow. His wife is his health care proxy and last time he had heart failure he had a DNR filled out. There are other details apparently regarding no drastic measures to keep him alive, but I don't understand all the small details. The hospital staff said they couldn't disconnect the ventilator today because they didn't have enough staff on because it's Easter. ??? Please pray for my family that my cousin doesn't suffer. I'm a realistic person and I know that the odds are against him surviving, but I just don't want him to have any pain or suffering. Thanks everyone, sorry this is so long but I had to get it out.
Oh by the way a little FYI.... They are refurbishing all the rides during the month of July. Only shows and restaurants will be open.
