My Father - What Happened, and an Update

His name is Thomas Stanley Kuciak, and he had a stroke.


As to what happened, I wasn't there - so please forgive the lack of detail - but this is what my mom's told me:

On Sunday night, my dad didn't feel well when he went to bed.

At three o'clock Monday morning, my mom woke up and found him awake and sitting in the next room. He said it was time to go to the emergency room. She dialed 911.

They got him to the hospital, which is luckily about five minutes away. He was lucid and awake, but in pain. His left arm felt strange. The doctors said he'd had a stroke.

My mom called and told me what had happened. She said he was getting tests, and would call back. Having nothing else to do, I worked until they called at about 12:30 Monday afternoon. He dialed the phone himself, with his right hand, and held the phone to his head with his left.

He said, "I feel like shit." He said something else, but his voice was slurred. That was all he could say. That was fine - I didn't want to strain him.

At the time, it seemed like a relatively minor stroke. A warning stroke, something to tell my dad he'll have to life a different way, and keep an eye on his health. It was distressing, but seemed in the moment that, after a scare, we'd be able to just move on with our lives.

I called my mom again at about seven last night. She was home. He was about the same, and the nurses said she should get some rest. She was exhausted, and I only talked to her for a couple of minutes. However, she later told me she got very little sleep.

My flight was at 9:45 this morning out of Burbank. I got in at about noon Phoenix time. Their friend Jerry picked me up. I got to the house, dropped off my stuff, and we went to the hospital.

When we arrived, he wasn't in the room. He'd been taken down for a series of tests. But we were only there for a few minutes before they brought him back.

He was unconscious.

The nursing staff got him hooked back up to the battery of machines and cleaned him up. It took several minutes, during which my mom and I sat in the corner, watching.

When they were done, Taina - the nurse - explained where we were at:

Last night at about 10:30 or so, a nurse checked on him, and he wasn't breathing. His lips were blue. They got a tube in him. He hasn't woken up since. He isn't breathing on his own.

If you call his name, his eyes flutter open. She did so, demonstrating. But the eyes don't track. There's no one home. That doesn't mean he's gone per se... he may just be too far down. The eye blink is an almost reflexive response. He didn't open his eyes when my mom or I spoke to him, though.

He clenches is left fist. Taina thought that was odd, since when he was awake, all of the discomfort had been with the left side. Ordinarily, discomfort on the left side means that's where you'll have the most trouble. But he's moving that side... and not the right. It's not good or bad, just unusual.

Right before we'd arrived, the neurologist, Dr. Gorman, had sent him to do a range of tests. They wanted to see if there was brain activity. They wanted to see if he'd had another stroke, which is possible. These things sometimes come in groups.

The thing is, no one, including the medical staff, knows anything at this point until the tests come back. We're in limbo.

What we DO know is he's now a diabetic. He also has high blood pressue. It's not dangerously high, just high.

Daina was told us the unvarnished truth: we have a 50/50 chance of keeping or losing him. There is a chance he could wake up in an hour and, after rehab, be fine. There is a chance he could wake and have suffered neurological damage. And there is a chance he won't wake up.

She was very clear... she said that, if she felt we needed to, she'd let us know that we should stay in the room. And that was not the situation. He's out, but (relatively) stable.

Until we know more, all there is... is not knowing. He may not have brain activity, and there is only blackness. Or he may be thinking, and just be too deep in the dream to communicate.

I'll post again as soon as we have information.