Hi again every1.
Well, I have only the worst news to report. Laura is dead. Neurology performed a CT scan, then an emotive response test, which is considered conclusive, & there is no brain activity in my wife. Later today we will unplug the final machines, & organ harvesting will begin.
To the f**k with the voodoo doll of my wife, u can stop now. U win. None of u will know what I'm talking about, but I hope u will forgive me for what is probably about to become a long screaming rant. Have u ever noticed that u know at least 1 family whose share of bad luck & tragedies seems way over the average? We r that family. More specifically, Laura has been the more direct target of more evil crap than any1 else that I personally know. I'm only a splash victim. Here's the rundown:
2003? Laura's best friend in the world (she always seemed to have a hard time making & keeping friends, so they were particularly important to her) dies in a horrible drowning 'accident' (there is some unproveable suspicion that she may have been murdered).
2006 Laura slips on the ice & falls on her rear. & breaks her knee so badly that a plate & 4 screws r needed to fix it. She is left in permanent chronic pain, unable to run, unable to kneel on a floor to play with our (then 1 year old) son, walking with the aid of a forearm crutch. If she had lived, she was facing an ankle fusion surgery to prevent deteoration in 1 ankle, & possible knee replacement surgury(ies) (they didn't imediately give her an artificial knee only because she was so young (34)).
2007 Her mom dies, in 2 weeks, of lung cancer. More needs to b noted here. Laura was a multi-denominational chaplain working in the palative care clinic in the local veterans' hospital. She was no stranger to death; she had seen & helped thousands of people die, of all races, ages, & heritages, & in every way imaginable. & yet, of all the people she had seen, she could say, independently of the fact that it was her mother, to whom she was mountainously attached, that her mom's death was the worst she'd ever seen. She never recovered from this experience, & it was the clinch pin that ultimately made her unable to continue her work, put her on permanent long term disability for depression (almost never acheived in Canada), &, I believe, sped the downward spiral that finally has killed her.
2008 - 2010 We realize that something is wrong with our son. After many consultations, examinations, tests, etc. (many of them not covered by OHIP & very expensive), we get a diagnose of autism, ADHD, sensory processing disorder, & irlen syndrome.
2010 - 2011 We pull our son out of school after 2 disastrous years (mostly the fault of the school board), & ultimately get a letter from a child psychiatrist saying that he is unsuitable for school. This despite the fact that professional assessments rate his IQ as at least average. This despite the fact I can safely say that most people find him an intelligent, friendly, happy boy who too easily makes friends (he'd wander off with any1, even now, I think). NOTE: There is 1 positive spark here. My wife loved homeschooling him, & literally taught him more in 1 day than he learned in 2 years in school.
2012 Laura suffers thru 5 surgeries in 5 months, all trying to figure out why her tongue keeps swelling so badly that it threatens to cut off her airway. The doctors r certain she has lymphoma. She gets 3 new, big scars on her throat, a tracheoscopy (forgive my spelling), & more chronic pain, body wracking coughing that keeps her up most nights, chronic nauseau, fatigue, etc. We r forced to cancel our booked trip to Paris (we had insurance so we recouped all but $400).
Friday, September 14, 2012--finally, a feeble ray of hope! We get the results of the biopsy--no lymphoma! Thru steroids & surgery, Laura's throat has been cleared, the doctor is thrilled with how good it looks, & he removes the trach. Laura can talk again, breaths great, & is relieved beyond measure to b free of the trach. We begin to talk of rebooking our once-in-a-lifetime dream trip to Paris.
Saturday, September 15, 4:30am, 2012 Laura's airway mysteriously closes completely. She panicks & runs, in mindless terror down our hall, crashing into the kitchen table without even seeing it & collapsing on the floor (no, this isn't a movie script, it was real, I WAS THERE). Despite imediate help & excellent care, she slips into a coma, suffers disastrous brain damage, & never revives. 1 feeble, tiny good point: the amount of time she spent terribly frightened must have been less than 5 minutes, the amount of time she spent in abject, mindless terror about 30 seconds, --BINGO! Either that, or I was attempting to say "before" but it was too many letters to type-- she passed out.
I thot I was saving her as I started CPR. I was confident that my compressions were good, & that despite the blockage I was getting air into her. I had emergency services on speaker phone in front of me, & the ambulance arrived seconds (SECONDS) after I started working on her.
But I got to watch her face turn grey (although her colour improved as I started CPR), her eyes widen & go glassy & blank. I imagine that that image, my wife's blank, glassy, dead stare up at me, as I hovered over her, alone (gratefully for only a few seconds) in the half light of the kitchen, will keep me awake nights for the rest of my life.
As I fight to type as I cry, I note another tiny good point: My son slept thru it all. He knows now that mommy is dead, has seen her, & has taken it (for now), unimaginably well. I imagine that, in a strange way, his autism is helping him cope.
I apologize profusely for spreading this nightmare to my heroes (yes, heroes) on this forum. I hope u will forgive me. I hope u will allow me to continue to rant a few more times (yes, I'm not done, there is more I need to say, though I hope it will not b as nasty as this was). I thank u all for the outpouring of sympathy & grief I have received from u nearly total strangers. many of whom, I say again, I see as heroes of this strange hobby of ours. Goodbye for now.
Craig Munns