As previously posted, my neighbor was hospitalized after we found him in his apartment. Unfortunately, due to circumstances, he’s no longer with us. He was in he hospital for about a week, numerous different specialists came in to look at his charts, run tests, and try to figure out what they can do to help him. The family found that the reason for his passing out was due to a major stroke on his left side, being as he was under sedation they had no real idea as to how badly this was going to effect him.
They slowly began to take him off of sedation but he was still unresponsive. After a week the doctors said that he really should show some signs of life other than the machines keeping him alive. They’d taken him off the ventilator a few times over the course of the week but he failed miserably to breath on his own. His daughter noted that he was just lifeless and blank. They found that his entire right side was paralyzed due to he stroke, and his heart was only functioning at 25%. The family had to make the unfortunate choice of removing the life support due to this.
Jake wasn’t one of those guys that would be OK living on life support in a hospital / nursing home. Knowing his personality, and who he was in general – having anyone make a fuss about him was just something he didn’t tolerate. He was surrounded with love and caring people but never wanted to bother anyone, no matter how he was feeling. I always ran errands for him, and had to make it clear everytime that it was never an inconvenience to me. Looking after someone is second nature for me, especially considering his closest family was a half hour away. I believe in my heart if it wasn’t for the fact that I knew his routine, he wouldn’t have been found in his apartment until it was too late. His family had the opportunity to say goodbye to him, and even though I didn’t, and it hurts really bad, things happening the way that they did were better for them.
I didn’t get the phone call until a week later, which was upsetting but I can’t totally be pissed because I understand that families in that situation have so much more going on. I’ve spoken to his son and daughter since then, his daughter was up here for two days this past week to clear his apartment out. A lot was left behind for donations/trash but there’s still a few weeks left in the month to clear the rest out. I know it was hard for her to go through everything. She noted on Friday that she wanted to knock on the door to thank me for all I’ve done but also said that she’s fine and on auto-pilot until she actually needs to speak with someone. That’s understandable for me, I personally don’t know where my mind is going to be if I was ever put into her shoes. I know at some point in the future I will be, but can’t mentally comprehend or stomach that thought right now. It actually turns my stomach to even think about that.
Either way. Jake was a wonderful man whom was a dear, dear friend of mine and he will be truly missed. He was there for me when Lucy passed away and remained in my life for a few years there after. His spirit was always there, unfortunately his body was holding him back. I catch myself talking to him when I’m outside having a cig, in my head things haven’t fully set in being as the memorial service is not scheduled until the end of the month. I believe after that point, and his apartment being completely cleared out – things will finally hit me to the point that I have the breakdown that I feel coming on. I’m not on auto-pilot by any means, I’ll admit I’ve been out of it, and weapy for the past week. Today is really the first day I’ve sat down and got my feelings out.
I know I don’t blog very often, and when I do I tend to complain or have some major life changing event going on. Regardless, I’ll still use this as my outlet because I tend to revert back to old habits when the shit hits the fan.
It’s been a pretty eventful couple of weeks, some good events, some bad events.
We finally got back to NY very early on Wednesday (26th), we were so busy with everything in DE that we just didn’t have the chance to come home until then. We left at like Midnight on Tuesday, and got home about 5am. We stopped along the way because 4 1/2 hours in a car is just annoying without some kind of a release, which is probably why I’m not thrilled about the idea of going across country in an RV.
We came home and found that there was little to no work and began to worry considering we need to come up with anywhere from $35k to $50k in order to even truly consider moving forward with purchasing a home in DE. There’s too much debt to pay off before we throw a mortgage and utilities on top of it. So we figure, just continue to work our asses off and go from there. We were at a complete and total stand still for about 4 days and now things are slowly beginning to trickle in. Today, I was finally able to write things down and I have 8 projects to work on over the course of the next 7 days, which means its great that I was finally able to get AGnDesigns.net up and running 100%. Hopefully this will help us to get closer to our goal. At this point, whether the house is still there or not, is irrelevant. Of course to me this would be a sign that it was meant to be, but if not – I’m OK with that because I know that when it does come to the right time, we’ll be 100% financially stable to do it.
After a few days of being home my neighbor, Jake, finally poked his head out. I was told that the reason I hadn’t seen him was due to the fact that he was in the hospital for 9 days and only came home on Monday night (before we got home) so he was resting until he could gain enough strength to come out for a bit to say hello. From that day forward I made it a point to check on him on a daily basis. I spoke to him on Sunday evening to make sure he was doing OK and if the house was warm enough for him (the thermostat for all of the apartments is in our apartment because its baseboard heat that just does the whole top floor. I don’t know why it was setup that way but things happen). He noted he was fine, just a little sleepy and said he was going back to lay down, did his usual smile and told me that he’d be outside tomorrow since it was supposed to be nice out and he wanted to tell me everything that was going on. At this point I still did not know why he was in the hospital, but figured I’d leave him alone until he was ready to tell me.
So Monday comes around and there’s no sign of him. His apartment was closed up and I personally didn’t sleep the night before because my stomach was telling me that something is terribly wrong. About 7am or so I did hear some noise in his apartment, figuring he’d dropped the remote or something I didn’t think anything by it. I went about my day as normal, wondering when he was actually going to come out of the apartment to relax for a bit but that opportunity came and went. At about 8pm I went outside for a cigarette and saw that his light was not on and instantly started to panic, I had this overwhelming feeling in my stomach telling me that I needed to get into that apartment to check on him. I rang the bell and knocked on the windows – no response. I waited a minute in the chance he was sleeping and tried again. With no answer I ran back into my apartment to get the keys (we have the master set as we’re acting landlords when the store is closed downstairs) and then proceeded to his door with the assistance of my father cause I’m never comfortable with going into someone elses apartment alone. So we banged on the windows a few more times, rang the bell again and all I heard was a faint groan coming out of the apartment. We opened the door to find Jake on the floor. He was breathing, but he was blue.
So we called the police, the ambulance showed up and brought him out of the apartment to the hospital. I noticed while he was on the stretcher that his arm was sitting in a weird direction and instantly knew that he’d had either a stroke or a heart attack. I went digging around his apartment in search of his phone only to find it in the garbage can with two numbers recently dialed – both of which were to his son. I don’t know if he’d tried to call for help, or they were just the last numbers he spoke on, but either way I knew that I needed to call his son right away.
The ambulance was here for a while, they were working on him in the back. The second they put the tube down his throat I saw that it just became more severe than originally thought and scrambled to get in touch with his son. I called the house twice, the cellphone like four times. I didn’t get a response until a half hour later. I went to the hospital to try to get in to see him but they wouldn’t allow me in since they were working on him. His son showed up an hour or so later and we all just sat there feeling helpless until the doctors could come out to see us. They said that there’s a lot of fluid on his lungs, and around his heart. I learned from his son that the reason he was previously hospitalized was due to congestive heart failure, my stomach knotted up knowing full well that based on all of this I’d probably never see him again.
Over the course of the past week we’ve learned that he was borderline pneumonia when he was released from the previous hospital, and all they did was provide him with a water pill and antibiotic. I then learned about all of the excess fluids that they’re draining from him as his lung was almost collapsed. After numerous catscans and blood workups they noted that he suffered a major stroke to his left side, they’re unsure if when he comes to if he’ll be paralyzed on that side of his body or not. We noted to the son, and the doctors, that before the EMT’s showed up he was in and out of consciousness and he was trying to pick himself up off of the floor, so the only reasoning behind him being paralyzed is the reaction to him being a medically induced coma for as long as he has.
As it stands, right now, his condition is stable. They still have him under being as he needs the breathing tube, they’ve also put him on a feeding tube on top of all of the other tubes to keep him somewhat healthy. Either way I don’t personally think I’m ever going to see him again. I’m not permitted in the ICU to look in on him, and being as I’m not the official form of “Family”, they won’t permit me anywhere near his room.
My father, being a hospital employee and knowing quite a few people, did take one of the nurses aside and just asked if they could give him any information. The only response is that he’s in really bad shape and will be in the hospital for a very long time. I haven’t heard from his son in a while either, but I’m taking it as no news is good news for this moment in time.
It’s breaking my heart, honestly. Not only is he a dear friend of mine, I’ve considered him family for quite some time as well. He’s always included in holidays, I always make sure that he has a plate whenever I cook something big (which, as an Italian, is frequently). He’s always outside for BBQ’s with us, I’ve always gotten him something for his birthday or Christmas because to me that’s what you do with Family. It’s upsetting that I can’t get into the hospital just to see him, and equally upsetting to know that I could have checked in on him sooner and maybe the result wouldn’t be so bad.
The hospital ran some tests on him and informed his son that he wasn’t on the ground for very long when he suffered the stroke. If we didn’t check on him until the next morning he unfortunately wouldn’t be with us anymore, but we’re to find some peace with the fact that he wasn’t by himself for very long. This makes me feel a little better only because I can’t help but think to myself that I could have found him sooner.
We’ve had quite a few people in the apartments up here over the years. I can honestly say that only two have really touched my life. This one is hitting me the hardest though, it’s not like he’s moving out just because he found some place better. He’s leaving because of medical reasons. It’s just hard to look at his truck every day and his ashtray on the table next to his seat and not want to break down and cry. When it comes down to it though, as I haven’t heard from his son I’m treating it as no news is good news (for the time being). I’m going to continue pushing until I can get some kind of answers. It’s heart breaking, and very, very hard to deal with but hopefully over the course of time things will work themselves out. I hate the thought of him laying in the bed in a coma, but I guess that’s just what happens to numerous people. He’s only 66-67 years old, he’s got a lot of time left. I just hope he gets to see it.
Minus all of that, there’s really not a lot going on other than having to keep up with work. I’ve taken a bit of a break just to clear my head as I haven’t yet been able to type everything out. I’m just hoping to get some kind of news soon. This whole situation is distracting me from productivity and the only way I know how to clear my head is to go full force into things – but I literally do not have the heart to do it right now.
