on march 23, 2011, my sweet step dad checked into the hospital with chest pain and pain in his right arm. after a night in the hospital and a lot of tests, they decided to release him. i'll let his words tell you the rest of his day. (from an email he sent me this morning)
"while I am sitting in the lobby, I realize that my legs are becoming unstable. All I can do is go hand-in-hand to another chair. I call your mom and she cant get off work till 12 so I'm in quite a quandary on what to do. Luckily my nurse, Bonnie, sees me in the lobby and stops to ask me how I'm doing. She doesn't think that I should of left and she thinks I had a stroke. Now mind you Bonnie is not much older than you are and she is right on target. I told her I would be happy to go back with her except that I couldn't get up. Back I went to my room and they had not even changed yet so it's like I never left. The time was 9:56. I had an MRI of the brain at 11 o'clock. The MRI was negative for any signs of lesions or brain matter... he he. My right hand was extremely weak and my right leg was growing weaker and weaker. I was seen by my first Neurologist around 530 that afternoon. Your mom and Tiffany were there. He dismisses the MRI of the brain and does a physical examination. I can't move my right hand, I can't sit up and my I can't move my right leg. I can move my arms, left hand and left leg. As part examination he takes out a pin and starts poking me. We both quickly realize I can't feel the pin from my collar bone down. In broken English he pronounces that he believes I had a stroke of the spine and damage is not recoverable. At which point balls of fire spew from Tiffany eyes and she's starts yelling at him about how he could make this diagnosis without MRIs of the spine. He started the hem and haw about whether not we can get MRIs that night. Tiffany flat out tells him to bring people back in from home to do the MRI's. They just ordered from 10 PM till 1 AM I do M3Is and CAT scans. So ends day one. Little did we know the day two would be far worse..... But that's another story."
and he is right. day two got worse. and so did day three, four, five, six and so-on. day two he was transferred uptown and into neuro icu. day three my parents finally decided to tell me what the hell was going on. the first night he was in the hospital, i was annoyed they wouldn't call me back because i needed to do my taxes. brian finally called back and chatted with me about my questions. little did i know, he was hooked up to all sorts of machines and needles and was now paralyzed.
i had to work through the weekend so i couldn't go home. they still weren't sure what was going on, giving him lots of medicines to see how he responded. extremely healthy, 53 year old marathon runners don't just stop moving. they just don't. or so we thought. on monday morning, my mom called with the news. the news that this wasn't temporary. the news that brian was paralyzed. i ran into my HR directors office, told her i had to go, went home to get lola and sobbed the entire way back to charlotte. this couldn't be real. not my stepdad. my stepdad is a goof ball who needs his legs. my stepdad is a runner. my stepdad is an amazing skiier. this wasn't real.
we spent the next week in the hospital until they eventually moved him into his room at the rehab center where he spent the next 6 weeks learning how to do life as a parapalegic. i drove back to atlanta, and drove straight to the convention center where i sat in my bosses office and told her i had to go home. you realize things in the face of tragedy. most importantly, you realize that there is nothing more important in this world than your family. and that our days are short and shit happens and it's time to start living.
and so here we are, one year later. it's been a hard year but an encouraging one. brian is walking somedays with his walker. he is playing wheelchair rugby and hand cycling. he is driving with his new hand gears. he is "bringing it" every single day. his dedication and perserverence amaze me. he hasn't thought for one moment "i'll never walk again." he hasn't accepted that this is it. i hope he never does.
so today we celebrate his accomplishments. we celebrate the fact we still have our brian - that he hasn't let his disability win. we celebrate his friendships and his family - i literally have no idea where he would be without them. brian has the kind of friends that heard the news from my mom and immediately left work in nyc, took a cab to the airport and showed up in his hospital room with not even a toothbrush. he has the kind of friends who emailed an excel spreadsheet of his rehab appointments with a "to" and "from" column to their group of friends to sign up for each month so my mom could have a break. he has the kind of friends who took him on his first plane ride since the stroke to see a football game at notre dame. he has the kind of friends who cooked us meal after meal those first couple weeks. my parents have wonderful friends, but it is because they are wonderful people.
so cheers, brian. to recovery and to all the love you have seen the last year. i love you.
{keystone, co. 2010}
{willy b. 2008}
{poppin' wheelies. 2011}
{bhi. 2011}
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