Day 2 - The Fight

My husband continues on with recapping the first couple of days in the hospital.  It really pulls at my heart when I read this…I also have to sit back and be proud after reading this on how much I did fight. 

This was truly me I suppose!!

 

Day 2 “The Fight”

Once George and my parents left, I was back by myself in the hospital with the evening shift nurses and my wife lying in the bed in an induced coma with 40K of tubes in her.  As I was speaking to the main nurse, I had mentioned that I was so happy on how the Neurology team was so informative on what had happened, what went on tonight and what is going to happen tomorrow.  I went ahead and told her that I had asked a team member what they thought was the long term prognosis and as professional as he could he told me this “If you promise not to ask this again, I am going say this…It will be a miracle if your wife walks out of here with a shunt in your head”.  Nurse looks me straight in the eye and goes, “Mr. Clark, do me a favor, listen to your doctors,  they will keep you informed and don’t ask that question again cause you will expect that best case scenario to happen maybe quicker than it should or maybe it won’t happen at all”.   Talk about some great advice! Down in the ER area, I labeled it as the “ER 500” because I must have walked round and round similar to a NASCAR car, it was crazy.   The time was around 1-130 and I decided to head home to let the dogs out cause I knew tomorrow was going to be a long one and Patty would kill me if I didn’t take care of her “children”. ICU had given us a time frame of a few hours before Patty was going to be transferred upstairs.  I arrived home and I remember walking into the house and thought to myself, “am I ever going to bring her back home”? …and “what the hell will my life be without her in what we have created”.  I let the dogs out and more importantly I had to shower.  Remember people, I ran 5 miles around 5pm and this is 7 hours later, pretty gross combo.  I packed a few things that I knew I would need, stopped at 7-11 and came back to the hospital around 3:30am.  The ICU room was still not ready so I just sat that there, did some more walking and did A LOT of thinking, good and bad. 

At around 5:00am things started getting really interesting with Patty and the so called induced coma.  For some reason, she began her fight and they were having a tough time keeping this chick down.  The nurses had to keep giving her more and more stuff (no clue what it was) and she would fall back and within a short window, she would start to slowly move and squirm in the bed.  The nurses then were shocked on her fighting off this and each of them mentioned that yes, this is annoying and really not good cause they needed her to rest…the way she was fighting is showing signs of a fighter. Her surgery to coil the aneurysm was scheduled for 8am and we finally got the call at 630am that the ICU room is finally ready!  While they were packing her up to go upstairs, something happened and truly don’t know what triggered it but Patty woke up, no she really woke up…she basically sat up, wide eyed, grabbed my left arm and tried saying something.  The nurse I was with was almost frozen in her tracks on what was happening.  How I describe what happened…she woke up..saw that she was in the hospital and was like, “Babe, get me the fuck out of here.”  Another nurse came flying in and they pumped more crap in her and down she went.  What a happy-----Sad moment.  The happy part was seeing her fight but the sad part was I just experienced that all by myself and I had wished at least Shay was here to see this.   As we head upstairs, the neuro team met me at the room that I will eventually spend the next 22 days in to review what is going on and any updates they need to give me (BLOG piece of advice here…if your head ever explodes, go to HUMC, that’s all).   We arrive upstairs and we immediately are told that the surgeon is ready and we can start taking her.  At this point, I turn around and George, Shay, Kris and Amy are there to help me escort Patty down to surgery, very thankful they made it.   During the walk to the elevator I tell the group the experience I had with Patty and how she basically woke up.  You could see Shay was obviously upset and nervous walking her mom down to this life threatening surgery.  In the elevator, I think one of the most important things happened with this whole experience…Patty did her wake up move..she saw Shay and reached for her and grabbed her hand just like she did to me down in the ER.  I think this was a very important moment cause before this, Shay had only seen her mom laying there lifeless and now she saw her mom fighting with everything she had.  We walked her down the floor where she was going to have the procedure done (yes this was considered a procedure and not a surgery…I am a Doctor now and know the difference between processes and procedures J )  

Patty got wheeled in and I get introduced to the doctor who leads the entire Neuro practice at Hackensack and his name is Dr. Daniel Walzman.   I shake his hand, and you can see he is a no fooling around and all about business type of person.  He basically said that his team has informed you on what happened and here is what is going to happen.  The aneurysm was in the back of the head on the right side, which is a good thing.  In the back of the head is where all of your feelings are affected but much harder to operate, it’s like a corn field with weeds.  The top of your head is where your motor skills are but much easier to navigate to operate.  “Now I am going to successfully coil this aneurysm but you have to understand that your wife has had a lot of blood that leaked in her brain and the recovery time frame will be around 21 days”.  Now I must have turned white as a ghost but heard the word “recovery” and regained control of the situation.  He goes on to tell me that days 5-15 are very important and these will be crucial for her recovery.   He shook my hand and I watched the man leave who was going to save my wife’s life walk away.   In the recovery room the following people came to show support for Patty and I guess me too.   Val and Lee, Mike V, Sant, Bree, Noubi, Amar, Susan, and Theresa and also the group I talked about above.   These people took time out of their schedule on a weekday (Friday) to support my family and I through this crazy ass time.  At around 10:15am, Dr Walzman came flying out and you can hear the gasp from the people who were there.  My first thought when I saw him…”Damn that was quick, good or bad….bad or good”…He goes to tell me that the surgery was a success and he whips out his phone and shows me the coiling.  Now I had already said thank you very much but the minute I saw the phone, my first reaction was “Is that a picture of the New Orleans Saints helmut???”  He looked at me like I was crazy,  didn’t say no but basically said that’s the picture of the coiling and all is good and you will be able to take her upstairs shortly.  Here is where I got concerned that I am going to be spending a lot of time with him and he doesn’t get any of my jokes, long road ahead for me too :o !  You could see some of the relief from the people who were there but they also knew what I had relayed to them from Walzman.   About 45 mins later, we took Patty upstairs to the room in the ICU but no more than 2 people can be in the room with me.  People popped there head in and got to see her and some people had to leave.  Mostly now is waiting in the waiting area on the same floor of the ICU.  They estimated that it would take 2 hours for her to come off everything.  

Around 12:30 she started waking up and in the room were myself, Susan and Shay.  This was a slow process that spanned about an hour and a half with her coming in and out of being conscious.  Around 2pm she really was awake but needed to pass a few tests to get some of the tubes out and could eventually start talking.  Amazing where we were 19-20 hours ago to where we were right now.  The breathing tube was removed and she now has a cute scratchy voice talking.  Having to describe to her what the hell happened was surreal but seeing where she was at this moment was remarkable BUT in the back of my head still was what Walzman said about this journey.   The people that were still there started visiting her and over a course of the next 2-3 hours, more and more people arrived including Jan and Onofrio from work, Tracy and Jason Brown.   Around 5:30 there were so many people in the room including Poppy, Court, Eric,  George had brought Amanda, Eileen, George P, Jamie and the girls and my cousin John showed up to give Patty a prayer to recover quickly (My family owns the Holy Roller portion of this miracle). 

Now the person that we have not spoken about was Camryn in any of this scenario.  I called her mother the night before and we agreed that I will tell her after school on Friday and then she will need to come visit Patty.   She arrived at the hospital and was down the hallway in fear and sadness of what was down in the room and what did her BFF look like.  Patty and Cam are the best of friends, they truly are.  Patty is known as Camryn’s “Toy”, yes Jack Brown F’ing Toy!  Thank God George was there and he was able to get her down to see Patty in the room.  The emotions were high but she stuck it out like the champ she is.

Another interesting thing happened when everyone was there the ER Main doctor made a visit but the best part of the story was this. He looked in the computer and saw that Patty was room 21 (totally forgot the room name, surprised I didn’t get it tattooed somewhere) and when you came out of the elevator, the room was first.  He flew by the room cause he heard the patient speaking….NOW, we all know Patty and when she gets going, she doesn’t stop and she isn’t quiet…so you can def picture this.  He walked all around the ICU and asked multiple nurses and he kept arguing with them because the last time he saw her, she was in some rough shape. When he stepped in the room and saw all of the people, the love from family and friends and Patty sitting up talking and cursing, he was taken back with emotion. This doctor a few months later would actually text Patty to check to see how she is doing.  Unreal!

At this time, the nurse came up to me and stated that she has had celebrities and rap stars in the ICU but this amount of people has taken the cake for the most over the top….but they all have to go!!  Your call, you kick them out or I will, she needs her rest!  I think the time was around 630ish and I had to release the news that everyone has to go.  Amazing day with amazing support and a rock star of a wife who battled through life and death right before our eyes.  I am being told that I need to go home tonight and that 40 hours straight will end up killing me first.  And just before Patty could rest her eyes, who comes flying in but Cherie and Moody straight from Brooklyn and from work!   Patty went through a rough day and I am up for 40 hours straight and for those two to come from where they were lightened up the ending to an incredibly long day. 

 Day 2 has come to a close and the battle that Patty faces is steep but achievable in many ways!  The love and support I had received in the hours of when this went public to now had been unreal and that got me through a lot.  The family and friends who visited, thank you,  thank you, thank you…

TO BE CONTINUED….

We celebrated my 1 year "second chance" anniversary this past week...it really is amazing where I am at this moment...especially when I read what Chris wrote.  The power of prayer is real and miracles really do happen!! Thank you to everyone who reached out to me personally, commented on FB etc... you all have really been incredible.  We are forever grateful!! Thank you xo