Have I told you lately?

Over the past four months I’ve had a lot of people ask me what happened to my Joe. I can clinically explain the details. He went into sudden cardiac death at home. We got him back thanks to CPR. In ICU he was put into a medically induced coma on a respirator. They attempted to lower his core temperature trying to reduce any damage the lack of oxygen might have caused to his brain. Unfortunately, aside from opening his eyes, he never came out of that coma or off the respirator. And then he got an infection and went septic, was headed for another cardiac arrest, and his kidneys and liver started failing. They had done everything they could for him. So, I had to let him go.

The next questions people ask inevitably are why did this happen? What caused the cardiac arrest? Had he been feeling ill? 

People are curious creatures and need answers to help navigate loss. But sometimes those answers just don’t come. There is only one question I can answer. No, he wasn’t feeling ill. He had actually been feeling great, going to the gym four days a week. We had only recently begun really living life again after being declared NED (no evidence of disease) from stage 4 metastatic colon cancer in November of 2019. He never completely recovered from the treatment side effects, but he was getting stronger every day. Vacations, concerts, weekend getaways were finally happening regularly, and Joe was feeling better than he had since his cancer diagnosis.

I don’t mind the questions. Sometimes talking about what happened to him makes me cry, and other times telling it helps support every decision that was made along the way. The only real advice I could give is: if you ever had chemo get your heart checked out.

Otherwise, maybe stop focusing on the why and start focusing on the who. Tell the people you love how you feel RIGHT NOW. You never know when the last time will be the last time. I certainly didn’t. But Joe knew how much I loved him, and I know how much he loved me. There was never any question about that.

To all of my family and friends, I love you more than words could ever explain, and I’m so very grateful to have you in my life. This song is for all of you.