I’ve Never Really Known Anybody to Die Before
I have been meaning to post this for some time, while it has been up on my facebook for a while I think it is high time I added it to my blog [imported it from my old Blogger account into my current blog]. Here is my story about a good friend of mine…
Sure I have been to funerals; sure I have been to wakes and have paid my respects to others before. To be quite frank 3 of my 4 grand parents died before I was even born, and since then there has been no deaths in my family since then. However things were about to change, and it all started almost 2 weeks ago…
I will never forget Sunday April 27, 2008. It was a cool, early Sunday and I was going to work just as usual. I am usually the only person in the office at Bluegrass.Net on Sundays, and I opened up the building like I normally do. I sat down at my computer, and opened up my e-mail. I expected to see the typical tech support e-mail, or perhaps a funny office e-mail. That day was different, there were 7 or 8 e-mails that all said “Jon’s Status” or “RE: Jon Status”. These e-mails where about a fellow co-worker, and the weeks leading up to this day he had been battling cancer. He had undergone major Chemo Therapy, and that week he had finished up his first treatment and was allowed home. He was thrilled to be home with his 3 year old daughter and his lovely wife, and they enjoyed a week together. Around midnight on Friday the 27th Jon was asleep on the couch at home. When his wife tried to wake him up, she just couldn’t. An EMS was called for and Jon was rushed to Baptist East. An emergency brain surgery had to be done to remove a blood clot from his brain. The surgery was a success, and it looked like things would get better. In the early hours of Saturday a 2nd clot turned up, and they had to operate once more on his brain. The results this time were not so good; the bleeding did not stop after the surgery. Pressure built up on his brain and started to cause damage, the surgeon said he could not risk going in a third time in such a short period. Jon was taken to the ICU to be stabilized, and the final e-mail I had in my inbox stated that things “did not look so good”.
I had to finish up my shift at work before I could get to Baptist. There was nothing that could be done anyway, Jon was critical and in a coma. After work I drove to the Hospital. As soon as I got there I thought I had my calm. This however was not the case. I just ran, ran across the large parking lot and up two or three flights of stairs in the hospital. I ended up on the third floor, and turned the corner and looked down the hallway. It was getting dark, and the hallway was fairly long. At the end were two dark, double doors with “Intensive Care Unit” printed at the top. It was so silent you could hear a pin drop, at that moment I felt the deepest sense of fright I had ever felt before. Jon’s Mortality and my Mortality became painfully clear, and it scared me beyond anything I had felt before.
At the ICU I sat with the Yarden family for 10 or 20 minutes, catching up on what had happened so far. Shortly after I got a chance to finally visit Jon. He was room 376, another thing I won’t forget anytime soon. I had been told to “prepare” but I knew I couldn’t just prepare for this. I walked in that dark exam room, and there he lay. Asleep and oh so helpless.
For the next week I visited Jon each day, usually right after school. I would sit there and usually start by reading the day’s headlines to him. I would tell him that he needed to hurry up and wake up so we could get some Waffle House and so he could help me out with my programming back at work. During that week things started to degrade. Jon was still in a coma, and his reflex tests started to show him “posturing”. When a person in a coma is “posturing” it is a set of certain movements during reflex tests that are known to neurologists as a sign of major brain damage. These tests indicated that there was major damage to the brain stem. Getting closer to Derby weekend things slowly got worse. The doctors had no better news; you just don’t survive that much damage to your brain stem. The family waited to make a decision just a little longer
And now it is May 7, Wednesday. After I got out of school, I headed for work as usual. Once I got there I asked for the regular Jon Yarden update. The room got quiet, my boss Aaron said “They were supposed to take him off life support at 3. It’s about 3:30 now and we haven’t heard back yet”. To make things simple, Jon was taken off life support at about 4:10 today. When the removed the ventilator he was expected to just die. Instead Jon started gasping for air, and all that could be done was make him comfortable. It is now about 8:44PM, and Jon is in Palliative Care at Baptist. He is still breathing on his own, barely but still breathing. This can take hours, days, or even weeks sometimes for patients. He can stop breathing at any point. Either way he is NOT going to wake up, he IS going to die.
The chemo that was supposed to save him has ended up killing him. The blood clots are directly related to this. The cure that was supposed to save him is going to kill him. I just ask for you guys to just pray for his family. I would really appreciate it if the Junior Retreat group I lead in November also pray for him. He is leaving behind a wonderful wife, and a 3 year old daughter. I would also like to thank Mark Koroluk and Patrick Beach for listening to my desperate phone calls from that hospital.
Before I finish up this note if there is anything that you take away from this, I want you to take away this: Nothing in Life is guaranteed, nothing. Jon Yarden, a healthy, fit man died just as easily as the rest of us and without warning. I hate to be morbid here, but we are all going to die at some point. So take every chance and risk, have no regrets in life. Tell your family that you love them; tell your friends that you care for them. You might not wake up and get the chance to say “I love you” to those that are important to you ever again. I know Jon Yarden told his wife and daughter “I love you” before taking a nap on the couch that Friday night. He will not get the chance to wake up and tell them that one more time.
Jon Yarden died at 1:20AM on Thursday May 8, 2008.