i recently read about the unexpected death of soccer journalist Grant Wahl during the world cup in Qatar last week. i hadn’t heard of him at all before the news, but the headline grabbed my attention because my dad died from the same cause: an ascending aortic dissection which occurred suddenly and without warning, most likely years or even decades after an aneurysm began to balloon undetected.
unlike Mr. Wahl my father initially survived his aortic dissection, which was quite against the odds for his 73 years combined with the severity of his condition and the amount of time which elapsed before he was treated: around 15 hours in total between the moment he first experienced chest pains and the start of his surgery. i remember hearing estimates that his overall likelihood for survival was initially under 25%, increasing to ~50% if he survived the first days after the dissection. after the 11-hour open heart surgery he underwent the knife a second time to repair a femoral artery after doctors realized that blood was not circulating properly to his left leg. then, weeks later, there was a third operation, the one which I believe punctured his will and led him to dwindle towards his death: an amputation of the same leg which had not been successfully rescued by the second surgery.
there is a small, quivering voice buried deep down inside of me which feels responsible for my dad’s death - not directly, i suppose, since it is very likely that the aneurysm in his aorta had begun to form up to 20 years before the event which killed him. but perhaps, this voice insists, i was the final twiggy straw in an avalanche of worries, regrets and stress which finally broke his health and his livelihood, especially if you consider the timing of my discharge just two months before the dissection from a psychiatric stay at a hospital. those months when i was still flailing and reorienting myself were among the most fractious i can remember between us.
but today, instead of analyzing my relationship to my dad and peering into all of those tedious, textured layers of love and admiration and resentment and guilt, i am remembering just one narrow, one-dimensional sliver of him, one which i and everyone he knew used to take for granted: his vitality. for as far back as my memory can reach, my father was the first one to wake up in the morning, the first one to whisk me out of bed to go on speed walks around the neighborhood, the first one to jump into the pool (and the longest hot tub-soaker after finishing his laps), the first one to suggest a cross-country ski marathon through the Adirondacks, the first one to start weeding and de-slugging his vegetable patch before sunrise and the last one to come inside for dinner in the evening. and then, one day, after hours spent trying to repair the kitchen sink, he felt a sharp twinge in his chest and thought he had merely torqued his arm too aggressively while trying to screw the bolt closed. my father’s first suggestion to my mother was that they take a break from the sink and go for a swim instead. but he collapsed when he tried to stand up and when my mom tried to tug him into an upright sitting position he suddenly began hopping up and down, unable to sit still, as if there were burning hot coals underneath his feet. and that was the last glimpse anyone had of the vibrant, high-energy physique he was known for.
my mom called a Kaiser health hotline and followed their instructions to take him to urgent care, the only problem being that the closest Kaiser urgent care center was a two-hour drive away. upon arrival the staff measured his pulse and blood pressure and then immediately referred him to the nearest ER, which was so overwhelmed with patients that the triage doctor on staff wasn’t able to see him until sometime in the early hours of the next morning. that doctor performed an ultrasound, spotted the dissection and told my parents that he would need to undergo surgery right away. my mother was hesitant about the thought of open heart surgery and wanted to seek a second opinion, but one of my sisters (who went to medical school) told her that there was no time for a second opinion; they should go ahead with the surgery. my father, still conscious, was airlifted to a hospital in baltimore but declined to remove his wedding band for the surgery until my mother and another sister who lived nearby arrived at the hospital approximately 45 minutes later. my dad was worried that the hospital staff would lose the ring and wanted my mom to hold onto it for safekeeping.
in retrospect the actions of my parents look syrupy slow, as if they froze during the exact moment when they should have acted with urgency, but it is clear that the thought simply didn’t occur to them that my father might die. it was impossible for them, or any of us, to imagine how quickly the interconnected systems propping him alive could all collapse, one after the other, like a row of topsy turvy dominoes. i was hours away, north of philadelphia, as the events unfolded during that first night, and every now and then i would glance at the group chat my sister started with my siblings to keep us abreast of the latest updates. she wrote at one point, as she and my mother were waiting with my father for the ER doctor to see him: “dad’s been farting a lot in his sleep.” “par for the course - he’ll be fine!” i responded.
i remember that time now, not with any particular regret or embarrassment, but rather with the awestruck appreciation of someone watching a high-speed train which she has just missed leave the platform as she is left behind on the diminishing tracks, standing perfectly still and in wonder at how dizzyingly fast it has passed her by.
Thank you for your honesty - he sounds pretty amazing - and I wish i could gather you up and hug you. Funny thing that you know about grief is that even if you did everything differently - what you may deem as "perfect" in hindsight - you'd still feel the same guilt - it's inevitable. Hugs.
Thank you 💕 hugs right back at ya! 🫂