And it continues....Day 3 and 4

My husband returns!!!.….

Over the next few months, I will be guest blogging on Patty’s site and providing everyone the story from my seat on what happened from February 20^th, 2014 till now…… I had provided updates on Facebook throughout this ordeal but here is where I am able to brain dump my side of the story. There is definitely a lot of information I never made public….I hope you can follow me over the next few months where I can share my story around this nightmare that my family was dealt with and the miracle that has happened.

Days 3-4 - Special Support Staff

When I left the night before at around 9-10pm after Patty had gone to sleep, I was working on a 40 hour straight shift and I was completely shot out of a cannon. I remember getting home to my mom reading a book...I only spoke to her for a few minutes and went straight to bed cause I knew I wanted to be back at the hospital the next day very early. Waking up that Saturday morning of February 22, 2014 was surreal and went into the shower and headed to the hospital so I could be there when she woke up. Remembering every minute on what Walzman said that the highs and lows are going to happen more than you would want. On the way to HUMC, I stopped at the bagel store and ordered an egg white on a whole wheat everything bagel, large coffee, Arizona Green Ice Tea and the Daily News and this would occur like Groundshog Day for the next 22 days. As I arrived that morning around 8am, I remember heading up the elevator and truly not knowing what to expect, I mean, nobody called me overnight for any emergency so that must be a good sign. All rested up, my head is clear and I remember turning the corner and seeing Patty all tubed up and resting comfortably. I met with the nurses and asked about last night and they said she started to get headaches but they are treating her with meds to make sure she is comfortable. I would sit down, eat my breakfast, read my paper and thank god for my phone and Facebook and group chats or depression would have gotten the best of me during this time of need. During the course of the day, Shay was there with her Dad and Amy, my parents and Susan spent most of the day. Today was the day that I really understood the importance of the ICU nurses at HUMC. I would sit there and watch them take care of Patty but I watched how they managed the other patients, the patients family members (has to be the toughest part of the job) and manage the many doctors throughout the day. Truly an amazing staff there and I will be talking about them throughout this journey.

When you have an emergency in life, your family comes rallying around you, your friends from all angles comes to help but Patty and I are lucky to have a work family that truly have been the rocks around our lives this past year. When I was sitting in the ER with my lifeless wife on life support, I made a bunch of calls to tons of people. Two people I called, my boss at CDI at the time, he has since retired, Bob Laurenzo and Joan Gutkowski, Patty’s boss from KPMG. The support that I received from Bob Laurenzo and Trish Bakker, CEO and owner of CDI, was truly amazing with checking in throughout the first few days and making sure the company was aware of what was going on. Trish’s profession before being owner of CDI was a nurse so those instincts took over and she is also a great mom...so those took over too. Here is the note from Trish to the entire company (Truly amazing):

Good Morning All,

It is with a heavy heart that I send this message today asking all of you for your help.

Prayers are needed for the Clark family. Last night, CDI's Chris Clark's (NJ sales rep) wife Patty collapsed and was rushed to Hackensack University Medical Center due to a ruptured cerebral (brain) aneurysm. Thus far, she has undergone two surgical procedures, one last night and one this morning to control/repair the bleeding. She is in the Intensive Care Unit and needs our prayers for a full recovery. Please keep Patty, Chris, and their two daughters, Camryn & Shay in your prayers.

If there is further information to share, I will do so. In the meantime, please do not call Chris or take any action, as you can imagine he is overwhelmed, scared and exhausted.

Thank you,

Trish

Back on Thursday night, I spoke to Alicia Noubi who works with Patty and needed to get Joan’s number to make sure she was made aware on what was going on. I had known Joan for many years, seeing her at the office when I visited, Xmas parties but as many significant others bosses, you know them from hearing about each other’s day. The support I received from Joan over those first few days was truly remarkable and this is where you know that yes they have the “boss” title next to their names, but they are truly friends past the corporate titles. I consider Joan a friend of mine now and we even went to the next level and said we were BFF’s….haha! There are moments in your life that you realize you met someone for a reason and made decisions in your life to switch jobs....the people from CDI and KPMG are those moments. So I thank everyone from both companies for the support and love you gave me over the darkest days and have given to Patty over the past year.

Saturday day continued into the night and I turn around and Adam and Liz Wolfson come flying in and Liz at the time owned a hair salon and in her possession had to be 50 magazines from the salon, I was almost afraid she robbed a bodega! haha! They visited for a little but explained that they have a week’s worth of food that they want to drop off at my house for me, my mom and the girls. That moment was a touching point for me because people are just so fucking nice. Getting dark now and Patty had a pretty good day but her days have these ups and downs… and then the Romano’s…Frank and Sue come to visit. I remember Patty basically waking up so quickly in the reaction to seeing them because they are important people in our lives and have been for a very long time. They only stayed for a short time but there goes to show you that the support for us is here and very strong. I left the hospital around 10pm after another 14 hour shift, but the days are definitely going by quickly.

Day 4: Sunday February 23, 2014 was just another day there at HUMC with headaches starting to come more frequent due to the blood in her brain that was not draining from the tube was starting to dry up and cause massive headaches especially throughout the night. Thank god for the doctors and nurses. The same group of people came and spent the day, Shay, her Dad, Amy, My parents, Susan, Theresa and Camryn made her return to the hospital. Mary Ellen, my cousin Eileen and Cookie were some new faces who came to visit with Patty. The people visiting during the day was a huge thing I think in her recovery, at times overwhelming but the love that came out of those visits were unreal. My cousin Eileen Greer was driving on that Thursday night when Patty collapsed and took this picture of the sky ...she knew it was a sign from God that Patty was going to be alright, she printed the pic and brought it to the hospital and the frame sits over our fireplace now.  During the day on Sunday, we had two visitors that came by to visit with Patty were Joanne Dinelli and Josh Binn. When I went back to school at Felician, they were in my cohort and two of the best people I met during that time and they happen to work at HUMC. Joanne actually works for Walzman and ordered Patty’s coiling, small world and weird and Josh runs the OR. Just great to see them and their support means a lot to me.



This picture doesn't even begin to show its real beauty in person that was captured by Eileen G

Another 14 hour day is complete and you can see that the fight that Patty is putting on each minute of the day is unreal. The journey continues the next time and we will head into the lows of lows in the next few days…..till next time.

*******

It still amazes me when I actually read what happened instead of being told. It gets me very emotional....especially when I am reminded how much people cared and took time out of their incredibly busy lives to come see me in the hospital. I think I touched on this last week about surrounding yourself with "good"...but I can’t say it enough. Even the people you work with...if you are lucky enough like we both are to have such an incredible support system... another contribution to my incredible recovery.

My training continues for the upcoming triathlon...I have about 10 more weeks! I feel like I am behind and I need to start doing more. I am not sure how to do this however! I am using everything I got early in the morning as it is. I am not sure some days how I will do this...I really wish I felt as good as people think I feel..ha! Maybe once the warmer weather kicks in that will also help. I just know however…I am doing this!!

I can do this!!...over and over I say this to myself when I do anything these days.  I swear people must think I'm so strange on how much I talk to myself haha!

My best advice that I can give someone is to register for a race or a competition etc...Let me tell you...it will keep you motivated!! Especially on those extra hard days when you don’t want to get out of bed...you will! I can’t tell you how many days I have had that I truly had to talk myself out of the bed.  It is definitely so much easier to be lazy…but I never regret my decision once I am all done.  I wish I can feel as good as I do afterwards for longer periods of time.  I am told this will hopefully get better…I have to understand and still accept the fact that I am still technically "recovering" but it just seems to be taken longer than I would like....I know I know patience Patty patience!!!

Wishing you all a great week…praying for some nice warmer weather!!!