I don't know what it is about this place; I seem to come here to vent
when things around me stop living.
I've talked here before about my move to Charlotte, and how a few weeks ago, my best friend and his wife were starting their own move here. Last Wednesday, I brought home dinner for the four of us and my wife's parents. After dinner, my friend and his wife decided to go furniture shopping. Once on 485, he had a severe asthma attack. He managed to get the car to the side of the road, but as he was getting out of the car, he turned blue and passed out, hitting his head on the asphalt pretty hard. His wife called us in a panic; we were able to get her to call 911 instead of us and I went out to find them and get her to the hospital.
The next couple of days were tense, but the following days started to lighten up a bit. His condition was slowly improving. His wife started talking about how he was going to have to start listening to her about taking care of himself. My wife went back to painting the walls of our new house while I was at work. Then yesterday about 4:30, I got the phone call. They think somewhere along the way, he developed a blood clot, and yesterday it reached his brain. He was airlifted to a different hospital with the intention of doing some brain surgery, but when he got there, he had "little to no" brain stem function left.
He's been on life support since; they're giving his family enough time to drive down to say goodbye. He goes off the life support sometime this morning. Sara and I went last night. It was the hardest thing I've had to do in a long, long time, seeing my friend, alive-but-not-really, for the last time. I've seen him asleep plenty - my living room couch was a second bedroom for him before he met his wife. It felt like I could just throw a pillow on his face and wake him up, like I'd done a dozen times before. The three of us would just sit there and talk for a minute, the room would go quiet, then one of us would start crying, and the other two would join in. Then we'd calm down, talk a little more, and the process would repeat itself.
His wife is 28. My wife is 29. I'm 30. He's 33. This is stupid; we're not supposed to be dying yet. I've given him crap about his sports teams since day one; how am I supposed to talk shit about the Steelers now? Moving to Charlotte was supposed to be their way of really starting their life together fresh, leaving their baggage behind in another city and hitting the reset button. I don't know if she even knows what city she'll be living in a month from now. There isn't much for her here now, there's nothing left for her in Virginia. She could go home to Massachusetts, but I'm not sure if that's what she wants. These aren't the kinds of decisions you should have to make with a day or two of warning.
They're also saying he may have had an allergic reaction to something, and that it may have triggered the initial asthma attack. He had eaten the dinner that I brought home right before heading out. I had been raving about this place to friends since I got to Charlotte (Price's Chicken Coop, inev, in case you're interested). In my head, I know that doesn't mean anything. In my gut, though, the coulda-shoulda-wouldas are there, and they're not going away.
This sucks.
Author
Topic: My best friend won't survive the morning. (Read 3266 times)