Well, first of all, sorry for the "to be continued" shit. Thanks for all the concerned messages though. It's real nice to know people genuinely care! See, there is hope for humanity after all, huh? Smile!! I really didn't mean to leave all of y'all hangin, it was just 1am and I was tired. Here we go, without further a do...The conclusion, the message, and all that goot shit!!!
I fly out the door, jump in my truck, and turn my radio off! I don't want ANY song to be associated with this! Funny how your brain works! I call my Wife and quickly tell her what's going on. She tells me that her Mom is on the way to my house to watch my little ones and tells me that her Sister is gonna ride down too. Her Sister is a Medic and is actually always there when you need her most. She is always willing to help, especially with my Chit lens, and I can't say how much I appreciate that. My Brother and his Wife just got a puppy and have 2 other dogs, so she figured that my Brother's Wife may need some help. I hang up and call my Brother. I tell him, "It's not good Dude, this is REALLLLL serious!" He says, "Oh I know it is! I looked that shit up on Wikipedia! What are you saying? Do I need to fly in?" I tell him there is not much he can do, but I would try to get here. I tell him I will call him when I get Downtown and know what's going on. I hang up with him and immediately call my Dad. Now, my Mom don't even know what's going on because she's not home. I can't even imagine how my Dad is feeling at this point. He is 700 miles away and all he can do is wait for me to tell him what's going on. I tell him what's going on and I can hear his voice cracking and I know he hears mine cracking too. I tell him word for word what has transpired to this point and tell him I will call him when I get Downtown too! I'm flyin down I-94 and I'm a wreck. I pray to God, "Please don't let my Brother die...Please!!!!" All I can think about is the picture that my Brother and I took on Easter and if this would be the last picture I would ever be in with him!!!! I get home, run in the house, tear off my suit, throw on some jeans, and tell my kids to say a prayer for their Uncle. My Son looks at me and says, "We already did Daddy!" My eyes well up and we are out. I'm in and out of traffic and as we get to about 8 mile, I completely lose it. With tears steaming out of my eyes I say, "He just can't die Ditty (that's what I call my Wife)." Within a couple of minutes I get it under control, but I am driving like a maniac. I'm in and out of traffic and my Sister in Law is trying to follow. Time is tickin and we finally pull in. We call my Brother's Wife and ask her where she is. She says, "5th floor!". We are on our way in. Luckily my Wife's sister is real familiar with the hospital and now we are trying to find my Brother's Wife. She makes a call to someone and boom, she is like, "this way!" We find my Brother's Wife and she is a mess too. She is stuck in the ICU waiting room by herself and they told her they would come and get her in a few. The waiting is straight up excruciating.
Finally someone comes and gets us. We head to the room and my Brother is laying there and there are like 8 Doctors and Nurses bumpin into each other, steppin over each other, and getting him hooked up. We get introduced to a Nurse, a Doctor, and finally a Surgeon. Someone on the team is having my Sister in Law sign waivers explaining what is going on. I remember her saying, "This is saying it's ok to put this in his arm, this is saying that you are ok'ing surgery and you understand that there is a chance of infection, stroke, and death...however, if he doesn't have surgery...HE WILL DIE!" The Surgeon starts talking to us and says, "He has a very serious condition. He has a dissected aorta. (pronounced it so perfectly too! I don't know why I noticed that, I guess I'm just observant when something is very important to me!) The reason we are so concerned is there is a tear in his aorta that is bleeding around the sack of his heart. If it ruptures, HE WILL DIE!!! That is why we are hurrying. It will be about an hour before he is in surgery!" At this point I'm thinkin, what the hell are you talkin to me for then bro? GET CRACKIN, THAT'S MY BIG BROTHER! Just then, my Brother says, "Hey, if I die...donate my shit!" I look at him and say, "You're not gonna fuckin die! Mom and Dad are on the way and I will see you in a little bit!" I kiss him on his forehead and tell him that I love him! As they are getting ready to wheel him out, I feel like I should tell him I love him again and kiss him again, so I do! At this point the Nurses are trying to assure my Sister in Law that even though it is VERY serious it will be OK! I remember 2 nurses, Zaherra and Chuck! I can't begin to tell you how much better they made me feel about the situation! They wheel my Brother out and all we can do now is wait!!!!
We get back in the waiting room and try to calm each other down. I call My Dad, and my Brother and tell them both verbatim what's up. I can't sit there anymore. I'm so anxious. Every time the door opened I was looking to see if it is one of the Doctors or Surgeons we talked to. The doors opened so slow too. They would buzz, click and open opposite each other! I just want to get through an hour and know that he is at least IN SURGERY and it didn't rupture. They had told us it was a 5-6 hour surgery so get comfortable. We went downstairs to get something to eat, but I just couldn't quit looking at the time! I don't think time EVER moved that slow for me!!!!! We came back up with some bananas, chips, coffee; and set up camp! Now, I'm getting call after call, and text after text. It was such a big help though, it really helped to take my mind off of what was really going on. My Aunt and Uncle show up, my Brother's Father in Law, my Father in Law, my Wife's Uncle, and next thing you know, we got the ICU lobby locked down!!!! We have a big family! My Mom is one of 12!!!!! Whatchu know about being pregnant for 12 years?????
Finally it is about 1:30pm and I finally feel like some of the weight is lifted off of my shoulders. Enough time has passed that I feel as though he is in surgery and the possibility of his aorta rupturing has passed!!! WOOOOO, at least a little sigh of relief. I call my Brother and he says just about the same thing. He lets me know that he is planning to fly in the next morning and tells me that my Mom and Dad are flying out at 4:00pm and should be there by 6:30 or so. I call my Dad and he tells me the plans and I talk to my Mom for the first time. I can hear the concern in my Mom's voice. My Mom is very soft spoken, and when something serious is going on, you can feel the sincerity in her voice. Things have seemed to calm down a little bit, so I start calling people back and texting people back, just so they now what's going on. I figure if they care enough to call or text, I owe them, at least to keep them in the loop. Another one of my Uncle's call and asks where in the hospital we are. I tell him and he comes walking in. Him and my Brother are 1 year apart. Growing up him and my Brother were real close. He would go camping with us and we spent a lot of time together at my Grams! Of course we get to bullshittin and I tell him the whole story and he just can't believe it, nobody can. We are kind of standing off to the side and I tell him, "You know, when you are in your 30's-40's, you think you are indestructible! This is so crazy! When it is so close to you like this, it is very humbling. All of a sudden you realize that you, or someone that you love could be gone in a second!" He agreed and went on to tell me about a girl that he worked with, that had been gone for a while fighting some ailment. I asked him if he wanted to go have a smoke, so we went to go have a meeting downstairs a long with my Father in Law.
Some time has passed and we still have the lobby locked down. Here comes a Nurse. She introduces herself to my Brother's Wife and says, "I just called down to the O.R. and they said things are progressing the way that they should, they are grafting in the aorta now. I will let you know any further developments as I know." She thanks her up and down and we are all starting to feel better. I'm back on the horn...my Brother, my Dad, my Work, and all my Homies. My Sister in Law and my Wife's Uncle head out to pick my Parents up from the airport. We are probably 3 1/2 hours into the surgery so we head back downstairs to get something to eat. We bring some pizzas up and when we do, my Sister in Law tells me that the Nurse came back out and said they were at a very critical part in the surgery. This is where they re-introduce his heart to his body! Probably within a half an hour the doors open and here comes a Doctor. He comes walking toward us, ehhhhh, he doesn't look familiar but it was crazy in the room, I'm not sure. We make eye contact and I stand up, my Wife stands up next to me, my Brother's Wife stands up too. Now we are all looking at him and everyone has gathered around. He looks a little unsure but keeps walking toward us and says, "Here's what happened..." MY HEART SINKS!!!! He says, "After he choked, his difibulation (don't hate on me if I butchered that, that's Doctor shit right there!!!!) got to 200, but we got it under control!" My Brother's Wife's Dad says, "How did the surgery go?" and the Doctor says, "What surgery??? I'm sorry, I'm sorry...wrong Family" AHHHHH, now I hate to hear about somebody else choking, but I was sooooo glad when that shit wasn't about my Brother!!!!! Within 20 minutes of that, the Surgeon comes walking out. from a door on the other side of the lobby, btw! I been starin at the WRONG DAMN DOOR all day!!!! LOL! He sits down and says, "He is in stable condition. We grafted in a new aorta (sweet pronunciation AGAIN! every word sounded perfect to me after stable!!!!). Normally in a case like this there is further damage to the heart, in his case there WAS NOT! Normally we have to replace the aortic valve, in this case WE DID NOT! We expect him to make a full recovery. He is still under anesthesia, but you should be able to see him TONIGHT!!!!" I can't believe it, a round of hugs and kisses is in order!!!!! I leave my parents a message that he is OK, so when they get off the plane they know. Call my Brother and share the good news! I call everyone that has called and texted all day and let them know that he is gonna be OK!
Ok, first of all, I kind of debated writing this in my blog because it is very personal, but here it goes. So now I'm standing off to the side by myself in the hall way. I just hung up with someone and I decide to text my Brother and tell him that I love him so when he finally comes to he knows how much he means to me. This is exactly what I wrote...I saved the texted! "Chris, You can't imagine how much I love you! I could hardly stand to see you that way. I did all I could to hold it together this morning when I saw you! When I left and heard the diagnosis I completely broke down and thought was it possible that the picture we took on Easter would be the last one I would ever get to take with you. On the way to pick up Katie, I prayed to God to please not let you die and when I saw Katie, I cried and told her that you just couldn't die! To me you were always invincible, someone I always admired and looked up to. The truth is that in life you don't always say those things, but I want you to be able to read this and know from the bottom of my heart I love you with all my heart and soul and would've traded places with you in a minute if I could've! I love you!" as I'm writing this My wife looks at me and asks, "What's wrong? Why are you crying? I said, "I was just texting Chris." She just nods and smiles!
Shortly there after, my Brother's Wife and I go back to see him even though he is still out. They tell us everything that's going on and tell us how good he is actually doing, WE ARE SOOOO RELIEVED!! Finally my parents arrive and everybody is still there, actually more people are on the way! Another Nurse comes out and says we should be able to see him in an hour or so. I take my Dad to the Cafeteria so he can get something to eat for my Mom and Himself. As we are walking back we realize now we have to go through a security check, I try to be sweet to avoid it, but nope. We are waiting and this dude behind us is cussin, carryin on, and talkin all kinds of shit! I'm tryin to humor my man but damn! I turned to my Dad and said, "Just like North Carolina, huh Pop?" LOL!!! That's a whole nother story there! When we get back up to the lobby, my Wife is like, "4 more minutes and it's been an hour!" So we try and go back to see him. They tell us it's gonna be a few and they will come and get us. We finally do get to go back at about 10:30pm. I walked in and he has his eyes closed, I say, "Let me see your eyeballs dude!" He opens em up and I say, "You good dude? You look good! Good to see you dude! I love you!" I told him to get some rest and that my younger Brother was flying in and I would see him in the morning. He gave me a thumbs up. We spent the whole week in the hospital with him. We were there everyday until he got released. I couldn't believe how fast he progressed and how great the staff was! I could go on and on, but I'm gonna wrap this up and spare you all the week's stories, shit there would be like 3 more too be continued's!!!
I wrote this blog, not for a good story, not so I could leave you hangin, and definitely not to put my business or my Family's business out there. I wrote this blog because I love my Brother. It is a tribute to him. I hope it makes you appreciate someone or something a little more. A tribute that says good things that can come from any situation. Maybe you have to try and find the good that comes from a situation and maybe it's staring you in the eye. My Brother is on his way to a full recovery and in my opinion has a NEW outlook on life! My Brother is probably happier than I have ever seen him!!! LIFE REALLY IS TOO SHORT!!!! Make amends, forgive and forget! Don't be one day late, tell the people you love that you love them and FOLLOW YOUR HEART! Smile, Laugh, Love...Just Because! I'm out, Your Boy JC!
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