56 1/2 Hours

I think about this time frame all the time. It was the time from when Laura first started having her stroke symptoms at around 4 p.m. on Wednesday on May 15, 2019 (exactly two years ago today), until she took her last breath at 12:40 a.m. on May 18, 2019. Not even three full days of time. Of course, the worst part of it was that I didn’t get to spend very much of those 56 1/2 hours with her, which really sucks.

The ambulance was there within 30 minutes and was en route to Sentara Leigh Hospital 15 minutes later. Of course, since I wasn’t “kin,” I was able to go with her. So, I didn’t end up seeing her again until about 5:30 p.m., and that was only after her mom gave the hospital permission for me to see her in the emergency room they had her set up in. As they tried drugs, something called tissue plasminogen activator or tPA, to break up the clot that was causing the ischemic stroke, these would end up being the last two hours I would spend with her while she was conscious. She was scared, but not very. I don’t know how to describe it. I won’t say she was ready to die, but she was prepared for it ― if that sounds right. I just spent most of the time talking softly to her and holding her hand.

Finally, around 7:30, they had determined that the drugs weren’t going to break up the clot and that they would have to go in and do it surgically, which needed to be done at Norfolk General Hospital, which meant another ambulance ride. I was told that I would be able to see her once they got her set up in a room at Norfolk General because they weren’t going to perform the procedure until the next morning, so I just kissed her and told her I would see her in an hour or so. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

Some time between being transported to the new hospital and being admitted, she took a turn for the worse. I was told later that her blood pressure dropped dramatically and that she began throwing up bile. So, they scheduled the procedure, called a mechanical thrombectomy, which required them to use a threaded device from the thigh area up to the base of her brain to try to break up the clot manually.

Of course, I was never told this. When I got to Norfolk General, I was told to wait. Then wait some more. Then wait some more. Then, after being there for almost 90 minutes, they sent me to another part of the hospital to wait ― in a waiting area with no people or no one behind the desk. I ended up being there for about another 90 minutes before I could finally track someone down who sent me to the waiting room area of ICU in the River Pavilion of the hospital.

I was there for about an hour when her radiologist and the doctor who performed the procedure, Dr. John Agola, came out to talk to me. This was when I found out how dire the situation was, that she had indeed suffered a major ischemic that had been caused by a plaque-based clot that had lodged in an artery at the base of her brain and blocked the blood flow and oxygen to her brain. They had induced a coma to perform the procedure, the procedure hadn’t worked because it was a plaque-based clot rather than a blood-based clot (which is why the tPA drug didn’t work, either), and that she had likely suffered severe brain damage and likely would not come out of the coma. This all occurred around midnight. They said that no one would be able to see her until the morning, and I would still need the family’s permission before I could see her anyway, so I went home.

So, I wasn’t able to see her again until 11 a.m. on Thursday, so out of those 56 1/2 hours, I had already lost 16 1/2 hours. She was in her own ICU room and, when I got there, her mom and little sister were already there. It was pretty shocking to see her with all the tubes connected to her and the breathing inserted in her mouth. The only other time I had seen that was when I saw my father after he slipped into a diabetic coma and traveled to Houston from Georgia in time to say my goodbyes before they unhooked from all of the machines he was connected to.

We were told that she likely wouldn’t survive but that there were a few more tests to perform, and it was possible that she could breathe on her own, but that she would likely be nonresponsive with no motor skills of any kind. There were some scans like MRIs and CT scans that they were going to perform to see if there was any hope. However, late in the afternoon, after one of the scan results came back, another one was canceled, which kind of set the stage for what was coming. Her mom and sister stayed until about 7 p.m. that night, and I stayed about another hour, and then I went home, knowing that Friday was going to be a crucial day for the love of my life.

I got a call from Jan, Laura’s mom, about 7:30 a.m. on Friday saying that they had decided that there was nothing more they could do for her and that the next stage was going to be palliative care, which also meant that they would be unhooking her from the machines and the breathing tube. So, I showered quickly, fed the cats, and headed to the hospital, getting there about 9 a.m. So, now I had missed about 29 1/2 of those final hours.

After a couple of hours, they began unhooking Laura from all of the machines around 11:30 a.m., and she was breathing on her own soon afterward. We all stayed with her for a while, and everything seemed fine in the short term. She even snored a little. If any of you have ever slept in the same house as Laura, you know she could rattle some rafters, and she was doing so from her hospital bed as well.

As I’ve mentioned before, I spent most of the afternoon and early evening by her side, kissing her, holding her hand, and playing music for her. Her favorite songs and some of her favorite albums. It actually made for a nice last day, although it made the day go by much too quickly.

Around 6 p.m., her breathing had remained relatively the same, so her mom and sister decided to go to dinner, and I decided to go home and feed the cats. By the time I reached home at 6:30 p.m., I received a call from Mary, Laura’s sister, saying I should get back to the hospital.

It turned out that Laura’s breathing had started to become shallower. It was still steady, but she wasn’t snoring any longer, and she wasn’t breathing as deeply as before. I made the turnaround in about an hour and was back at the hospital by 7 p.m., so the final total of what I missed in those last three days ended up being 30 1/2 hours.

Her mom and sister stayed until about 11 p.m. or another four hours, but they decided to go home. I told them I would at least wait until after midnight ― that way, if she passed away in the middle of the night, I would be able to say I had been there. Around 11:45 p.m., I played the last song for her, which was Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” which was her favorite Elvis song, my mom’s favorite song of all time, and a terrific summary of my feelings for Laura.

As I was considering leaving after midnight, Laura’s breathing became even more shallow and erratic. So, I determined that I would stay for a little while longer, and I’m glad I did. I just held her hand and told her it was OK ― that it was fine if she was ready to go, then we would deal with whatever came next. I talked about the Rainbow Bridge and how she would soon be reunited with Spike and Butch and Shawnee and Hoppy and all her other animals, and maybe even my mom and grandma might be there too.

As I’ve also mentioned before, everyone knows how much Laura loved the rain, with her big dream about moving to the country and living in a house with a tin roof so she could hear the rain better. It hadn’t rained at least for a week, and probably longer, in the days before her stroke. However, right about 12:30 a.m., a large squall moved across the Elizabeth River (Norfolk is located along the Elizabeth River for those of you who don’t live here), complete with thunder, lightning, hail (I think), and rain that was coming down sideways. It rained like that for 15 minutes and then moved away and dissipated. I know this because, by the time I got home later that morning, it was completely dry in Virginia Beach. However, during that 15-minute rainstorm, Laura took her last breaths, passing away officially at 12:40 a.m. on Saturday, May 18, 2019. To this day, I still cannot believe that happened (the rain, as well as the other thing).

So, in her last 56 1/2 hours, I was only with her for 26 of them. Many of them were beyond my control, but I still feel guilty about not spending more time with her, especially in light of the fact that I wasn’t going to get to spend any more time with her after that. Actually, I feel guilty about many things, like I should have pushed her harder to quit smoking (the plaque in her arteries can at least partially be traced to 40-plus years of smoking). Maybe some of those panic attacks weren’t really panic attacks but were minor strokes that she wasn’t giving me enough details about. So many things I feel like I should and could have done better. I still also think I was supposed to be the first one to go.

Now, two years later, I’m stuck here lingering around ― there’s really no other way to describe it ― with no significant other, no relatives, not as many friends as I thought I would have by this point, and certain issues occurring in this world that I’m not sure I understand anymore. At least the cats are still fairly young.