“Basically, his brain will swell. The stroke was a massive one. It did some major damage. The swelling will add pressure on the brain stem, where all the bodily functions are handled, and there is a significant risk his body will begin to shut down. His heart will stop, his breathing will stop—everything will stop—and he will die.”
Kelly
As Dr. Taber spoke, my body went rigid. “What are the signs?” I asked. My world was being ripped apart. My husband was dying, but it was like my body wasn’t aware of it, and I sat tall and straight as I spoke with the man who was the bearer of such horrible news. “What are the signs . . . the signs that his brain is swelling?”
He was a doctor. He’d probably delivered the same news to dozens or even hundreds of other families, simply because of the line of work he had entered into. Yet, he wasn’t cold or detached. He was kind with his delivery. He handed me a tissue.
“As the swelling spreads, he’ll probably run a fever. He’ll have more and more trouble breathing on his own. He’ll sleep a lot.”
“But, he’s already sleeping. He’s already sleeping so much.” What will sleepier look like? Will I know?
I sat there thinking that my husband would probably die. I panicked every time he kicked or threw the covers off with his left leg or arm. He had no movement in his right side. The doctors had told me that he wasn’t seeing out of his right eye. My husband, who had taken such amazing care of himself throughout all the years we had been together, was lying in bed, deteriorating before my eyes.
I made a call on my phone. “Tom, it’s Kelly.”
“How’s he doing?” You could tell he knew things had gotten worse. I couldn’t hide the worry in my voice.
“He’s in critical condition, Tom. They, um . . . they said it was a massive stroke. Half of his body is paralyzed. I, uh . . . Tom, you better come soon, as soon as possible. They said that he . . .” My voice broke so many times on that call. The tears that I was trying so hard to fight were clogging my throat, making it tough to say anything. “Tom, he might not make it.”
Gary, My Brother
I got the call on Friday morning, and later that afternoon, we were on a plane.
“Citadel sent a limo to pick us up so we can fly to Chicago on a private jet,” I muttered. I climbed into the limo feeling like I was living the life of the rich and famous. And yet, we were all a bit numb.
The limo delivered us to the airport. There were, of course, other planes and helicopters not far from the one we were about to board, but one in particular caught our attention: Trump’s private helicopter, in a nearby hangar.
Emotions were undoubtedly running high. It was, I think, the first time that all of us realized how important Ted’s role was, how far he had come in such a professional setting.
It was so strange to be experiencing something that would, at any other time, be such a thrill, but to know that at the end of it, our brother was lying in a hospital bed, fighting for his life.
The Decision
So much had happened in a single day. I had been moved twice but was back where I had started—in ICU. Ken Griffin had called and again offered his support. Gerald came to the hospital to see how else he might be able to help. Later, for example, I wondered how my family had appeared at my bedside in Chicago so quickly when they lived in Long Island. It was those individuals who knew me well and I worked with day-to-day—Ken, Gerald, and Adam—who took care of the travel arrangements for my family. This also gave Kelly some breathing room to figure out what she should do next.
My wife had received the devastating news that, if I were lucky enough to go home at all, I would be unable to do anything on my own ever again, or I could be in a vegetative state. And, while all of this was happening, I was far too out of it to be aware of any of it.
Saturday brought another big moment in Kelly’s life, in more ways than one. Not only was she told that I would likely die from the swelling caused by the stroke, but she was also asked to make a significant decision that could mean the difference between life and death.
“It is your choice, ma’am—surgery or no surgery,” the doctors told her. With so simple a sentence, she was asked to make a momentous choice.
The surgery wouldn’t correct any of the damage already done; it would only release some of the pressure by removing part of my skull so my brain could kind of expand out of the hole. Without surgery, my brain had nowhere to go but down. It would put pressure on the brain stem, causing additional damage and possibly death, which is what Dr. Taber had already told Kelly.
If the skull was opened, my swelling would be alleviated; the hole in the skull would release the pressure from the swelling. About four weeks after removing a portion of the skull, I’d probably have another surgery to put it back (or at least a portion of it).
I’d be alive but in little more than a vegetative state.
Kelly
I asked Ken Griffin and Adam Cooper from Citadel to come and sit down with Dr. Taber and me on Saturday morning, before Ted’s family got to the hospital.
I met Ken and Adam as soon as they arrived, glancing down at my attire—yoga pants and a sweatshirt I had put on two nights ago.
I was so tired, but I knew I had to make a decision. I knew they would have significant input that would affect my ultimate decision, and I also knew that Ted would want me to consider their comments.
We sat down in a conference room, and they asked me if I wanted anything to drink before we started our conversation. I said no thank you.
“I have to know what you’d want,” I said. “You guys are closer to Ted than his brothers. You share his drive, you’re more like him in personality, and you love your professions as he loves his. If you knew you could never talk or walk again, that you may or may not be aware of your surroundings, what choice would you make? Would you have the surgery?”
At first, Ken Griffin didn’t say a word. He was contemplating this huge life decision and really thought about it before he spoke.
“I promise, I want your honest opinion. I won’t hold this against any of you. I just need someone to talk this through with me. If you were in Ted’s situation, what would you want your wife to do?”
One by one, they each said the same thing: “I wouldn’t want to live.”
Ted and I had living wills, so I already knew that if he could, he would have said the same thing. I simply needed confirmation from someone who knew who he really was.
The surgery would keep Ted alive, but that’s all it would do. It wouldn’t correct anything. It wouldn’t reverse any of the damage already done. The speech and physical deficits and whatever other injury he’d already suffered . . . no surgery could reverse the brain damage.
“Don’t operate.”
And I closed my eyes. Whatever is meant to be will be. I’m not going to keep him alive to live in a hospital bed.
I walked away from that meeting, found my way to the chair beside Ted’s bed, and awaited his brothers and sister to break the news—the news that I could barely accept myself. My husband was going to die at forty-one years old. He probably wouldn’t make it through the night.
CHAPTER 4
Game Changer
I didn’t know I was dying. I didn’t really know anything. I knew when my wife was there. I noticed when my bosses came into the room, and I knew that my pastor’s daughter was there to speak with me, but I don’t remember anything they said. Did they talk to me? I tried to be alert. I’m not sure I pulled it off.
Kelly
“Don’t be surprised if he doesn’t respond to you. He looks around a bit but doesn’t seem to understand what we are saying to him. I’m not even sure if he knows I’m there.” I told this to Ken Griffin, Adam Cooper, and Ted’s boss, CFO Gerald Beeson. It was true. Ted was essentially nonresponsive, except that suddenly . . . suddenly, he was different. He acted differently when these three people walked in the room. He knows. He knows these guys. He trusted them, and they trusted him as well. He
was glad they were there, and he could hear them. I just knew it.
“Hi, Ted.” Gerald was the first to speak to him. Ted perked right up at the sound of his voice. It was amazing. He looked around, and it was obvious that his brain was processing the faces of the men before him. It was the most I had seen from him in many hours. He, somehow, found the strength to put on his best show.
The men looked at me, and I smiled. I really smiled, and I meant it. It was so good to see some response from Ted. As soon as the three men left the room, I took the seat on the left side of the bed, knowing he couldn’t see out of his right eye. He was kind of out of it, but he looked at me.
No, not kind of—he was completely out of it, but he looked at me anyway.
“Ted, if you had to live in a hospital bed the rest of your life and you couldn’t walk or talk, would you want to live?”
He squeezed my hand.
Aw, damn it. Was that confirmation yes, he’d want to live? Or no, he wouldn’t?
So I repeated, “If you had to live in a hospital and never walk or talk again, Ted, would you want to live?”
He squeezed my hand again.
I left the room and crossed the hall to call Dr. Terry Sullivan, the doctor Ken Griffin had recommended from the get-go. Dr. Sullivan really cares for his patients, and after I spoke to him, I knew he’d put me in touch with the top neurology specialists who could help with Ted’s condition.
From the phone, I could see Ted. His bed was elevated just enough so that he could look around the room but not enough that it actually held him upright. But suddenly, he was upright.
As I looked at him, Ted sat up in bed.
He can’t sit up. He can’t sit up. He can’t move, I thought. But, he did. He sat up. You know what? He’ll overcome this.
He was letting me know, and I could almost hear him saying the words. “Yeah, I want to live, because I’m not going to be in a hospital bed the rest of my life.”
Just then, Dr. Sullivan answered the phone.
“He just sat up,” I said, though I’m not sure if I was telling myself, Dr. Sullivan, or the universe.
“No, he didn’t do that. He couldn’t,” Dr. Sullivan responded.
“He just did it! I saw him! I watched it happen!”
I hung up and walked back into the room. I was so scared. Even though Ted probably couldn’t comprehend what I’d asked him a few minutes before, on some spiritual level, on some energetic level, he obviously had.
And then the doctor’s words, each reiterating the next, ran through my mind. “You do understand, Ted isn’t going to have a normal life after this. He’s going to need a lot of rehab, a lot of recovery time, maybe a full-time caregiver, and that’s assuming he can actually pull through. He had a massive stroke.”
But I knew that day: Ted had something else in mind.
Ted was letting me know he was going to survive.
Family Matters
A few days after the stroke, while I was still in the ICU, my brothers, Tom and Scott, and my sister, Nancy, came into my room. I think I smiled. I wanted to smile. I don’t actually know if a smile was possible at that time. The emotions were clear on their faces—the recognition, the love, and the sadness.
“Is there anything we can do?” Nancy asked Kelly, which was good, because she had been dealing with so much. But it was also tough, because the visit would be short-lived. It had to be. They lived in New York. I was in a hospital in Illinois.
“I wish we could be with him, with you, through this mess,” Nancy said.
“It’s okay. I’m sure he’s happy to see you,” Kelly had told her.
My sister couldn’t have known. They couldn’t have known how happy I was to see them. They were there to lend support when I needed it the most.
Jeannette, My Sister-in-Law
Gina, our daughter, was a senior in high school at the time of Ted’s stroke. “Mom, I want to go too,” she begged.
“No, Gina. Not this time,” I responded, because I didn’t know what awaited us on the other end of the flight. Tom and I didn’t think it was a good idea just yet.
She was close to Ted because of the many family vacations we took with him and Kelly.
“Mom! I have to be there,” she said, the tears now running down her face. But I still couldn’t give in, because I didn’t want her to see him suffering. I didn’t know what to expect.
“Listen, not this time. When we go over to see him again, we’ll bring you with us.”
“What if . . . ,” she started.
“Don’t say that. You know him. You know how strong and healthy he is,” I told her. At this, we both smiled through our tears. “Get him a card and we’ll mail it to him. I’m sure he would appreciate that.”
Not long after that, she did send him a card, and her inscription read, “Dear Uncle Teddy, I just want to let you know that I look up to you in so many ways. I admire you so much, and your success is truly an inspiration to me. I know your strength will help you pull through this.”
Nancy
Devastating. That’s the best word I can come up with to describe how I felt that night.
I got the phone call at my home in Long Island.
“Who is calling at this time of the night?” I said aloud before answering in the scratchy voice of someone woken from a deep sleep. It was late Thursday night. I’d been asleep for a while already.
“Nancy?”
“Tom? What’s wrong?” I could hear it in his voice. Of course, I immediately thought the worst, and I wasn’t all that far off.
“Ted’s in the hospital. He was taken in an ambulance earlier tonight. Kelly just called. She said they are trying to figure out what’s wrong. She doesn’t know much. She just said that he’s okay for right now. They got his blood pressure stabilized in the ambulance.”
“His blood pressure stabilized? What happened? Was he in an accident?”
“No, they were just watching TV and he stopped talking, and she knew something was really wrong.”
“Should we go? Do we need to go . . .”
“I don’t think so. Not yet. Kelly said that she’ll call when she knows more, so we should probably just wait. Let’s call the airlines and make plans for Monday.”
Then, there was another call. Kelly called Tom and told him that Monday wasn’t going to be soon enough. “Ted isn’t going to make it through the night. His boss is sending a private jet for everybody. You need to get here now.”
My son was so little at the time. I remember him watching as I raced around the house trying to pack a bag quickly. A little while later, we got on the jet. It was so surreal. Not much time passed, and we were suddenly at the hospital in Chicago.
“Mr. Baxter is only allowed two visitors at a time,” the lady at the reception desk told us. “The rest of you can wait over there in the designated area. There is also a cafeteria, if you’d like to grab a snack or some coffee.”
So, we paired off and went in two at a time. I went into the room with Scott, my next older brother after Ted.
He doesn’t look that bad, I thought. He was awake.
“Hi. You’ve given us quite a scare,” I told him, trying my best not to let my emotions get the best of me after the adrenaline-filled trip. Scott was putting on smiles as well. He cracked a joke, and I waited for Ted to have a great comeback. He didn’t, but Scott and I laughed and continued to joke while we visited with him. He definitely knew who we were. It wasn’t as horrible as I thought it would be.
I was able to hold it together there, in the room, but when we got back out to the hallway, I lost it.
“Is this the last time we’ll get to see him, Scott?” I asked through my tears. I looked up and saw that his eyes weren’t clear either. I had to leave the area so Ted wouldn’t hear me. “You saw him smile?” I asked as we hurried away from the room.
Scott nodded. He had definitely smiled at us. He smiled.
Scott, My Brother
It’s not easy to hide emotion w
hen you are facing something like this. That’s what I did. I think that’s what we were all trying to do. The visit in the hospital room was rough. We joked, Nancy and I, but there was no real communication with Ted. The conversation with the doctors was worse still.
I remember hastily walking down the hall screaming in my own head, He’s gonna die! He’s gonna die! This can’t be happening!
As many will do, I turned to my wife for support. I called Karen as soon as I had the opportunity to do so.
“My brother is going to die, Karen. He’s going to die,” I sobbed into the phone.
“Listen,” she tried to console me, “he might not die. It’s not 100 percent. Don’t give up hope. He’s very young and he’s strong,” she kept saying, but I had seen him. I had talked to the doctors, and she hadn’t. I didn’t think she knew how bad it was, but she was right about Ted being strong. The worst part of the whole conversation was the fact that she needed consoling too. She was on a field trip with our son, Bobby, and had just received a call from her brother that her father might not make it. He had been ill. She was there, crying, on the trip with Bobby, and neither of us could be there for the other.
Gary
“I’m all right,” I answered, not even entirely sure who asked me if I was okay. I couldn’t let him see me crying, which meant that I had to get the emotion out before I entered the room. It was all so surreal, the thought of Ted—the guy who was always so fit and active, so ready to set off on some new adventure—on his death bed. Even before I turned into his room, the reality of the situation hit me like a tidal wave. “I’m all right,” I said again, but I suspected the nurse, or whoever had asked me, had already walked off. I wiped my face, fought to keep a smile there, and walked in.
He doesn’t look that bad. “Hi, Ted.” The words felt unnatural, but he looked in my direction. I could tell which half of his body had been hit by the stroke when I first saw him.
“Watching television?” It was a weird question to ask, but then, it is never easy to make conversation in a hospital, and it’s even worse when the other person can’t respond. I glanced at the screen, and there was some kind of nonsense on, nothing that Ted would like. “Here,” I said, handing him the remote. I taught him how to use the remote control for the television so he could have something to do. “There you go,” I said when he hit the button to change the station.
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