I know that many of you want to know what happened. I will not go into all the details of his ordeal out of respect for his son but I will tell you enough.
On August 2nd, Matt went into the hospital to have two arterial stents implanted. This was a scheduled procedure, not emergency procedure. Also, this is considered a minimally invasive procedure. The doctors implanted five stents. The following day, on August 3rd, they implanted four more for a total of nine stents. He coded in the recovery room. They performed CPR and revived him but they had to hook him up to an ECMO machine because his heart was no longer beating on it's own. Also, blood was not flowing to either one or two of his legs - I cannot recall which. Doctors there could not figure out why his heart was not beating on it's own nor why blood was not flowing as it should. They flew him out to Mayo Emergency Center the following day. It was touch and go for a while and many times vitals would improve and we were hopeful that he was going to make it. But after several different procedures, some even extreme, all his major organs started shutting down. When all was said and done, he would not have been able to have the quality of life that he wanted and we made the decision to take him off life support. He was too independent and too full of life for anything different. He passed away shortly thereafter. He was heavily sedated the entire time so he was not able to see or speak to us. But he did turn his head towards the sound of my voice (towards me) more than once so I am hopeful that he knew we were there with him.
He was cremated and his ashes will be scattered at the Bering Sea in Alaska per his wishes. The date is still to be determined but it will be in the distant future.
His story is not over.
Side note:
There is no service and there is no obituary. I was not there when his father spoke to the funeral home so I am not sure why no obituary. It has me a bit peeved and I will look into it. I believe there was an announcement of his passing in the church bulletin where his father goes and I will post a picture of that when I get my hands on it.
Matt devoted his entire life to his son and more recently, he took over the care of his elderly father. With the exception of his co-workers, TSPTalk members were his extended friends and family.
Lastly, he asked me to marry him and I said yes. We were finally going to have the family we always wanted. Things were not supposed to happen this way. But many times I am reminded of something that he used to say to me, "life does not always give you what you want so you have to do the best with what it gives you." His life was cut short but we are still here and our work is not over. Life is meant to be lived and that is just what we're going to do. But it sure would have been more fun with him in it.
