Thank you to the many folks who have reached out in person, by text, and via social media after the death of my brother, Randy, last week. Heck, some of you even offered to help by covering an event or two for me in the past few days, and I thank all of you for your extreme kindness. Randy’s obituary appears on page A-4 of this edition. His story is a compelling one, though he wouldn’t see it that way. As you’ll see in his obituary, Randy had a very active and promising first 19 years of life. Then it all changed for him. In 1978, while home for the summer after his freshman year at Washburn University, Randy was a passenger in a vehicle that crashed on a rural road outside of Wathena. That crashed left him with a life-altering traumatic brain injury.
I know some of you saw Randy in our office a time or two over the years. For several years up until the pandemic, he was a press day presence at The Landmark, helping insert flyers into the newspapers, helping haul the papers to the post office, and filling the news racks around Platte City. When you did see him in our office it is likely he avoided conversation with you. Don’t take that personally. The brain injury left him not all that confident in conducting conversations with folks he didn’t know.
Because of his interpersonal challenges caused by the brain injury, it eventually was determined he needed a legal guardian. I assumed that role 23 years ago.
That’s a little bit of his basic background. There’s plenty more to be said. In many ways his life had the twists, turns and tragedies of a Netflix movie. I’ll share more on Randy’s life in a future Between the Lines.
Last Wednesday afternoon Randy died from an apparent heart attack. It seems fitting it was a Wednesday. Randy was alert to “bad things” happening on Wednesdays. Wednesday is typically our press day, and the day when we’d need to be out on the road doing things necessary to get the paper distributed. “It always rains on Wednesdays.” “It always snows on Wednesdays,” were comments Randy was known to say when he was helping us with distribution.
Last Wednesday I had arrived at his apartment in Troy, Ks. shortly after 11 a.m. for our weekly, sometimes twice weekly, visit. I’m comforted by the fact that we spent the last couple hours of his life together, running errands and conversing in our usual, mostly nonsensical, way. Time with Randy kept me humble and helped me be more patient with all people. Last Wednesday I drove him to the local Dollar General, then we took our normal cruise down Troy’s Main Street and he pointed out the places he liked to visit on his walks around town (which were the same places he told me about every week, a communication trait that was part of the brain injury). I had noticed when he handed his payment to the cashier at Dollar General that his hand seemed to be a bit shaky, and in the car his voice didn’t sound as strong as normal, though a lifetime of cigarettes can do that to a person. We returned to his apartment, where he continued to insist he was fine. I told him I would be back in a bit, that I would drop off the newspapers and then I would be taking him to get checked.
“I’m ok. I’m just getting old, Ivan Foley,” he said, and yes, for years and for reasons I do not know and never asked, when he was talking to me he almost always called me by my full name.
But after getting in my car and driving a short distance down the road, I was overcome by an overwhelming feeling that I should be trusting my instincts. And my instincts were telling me not to wait. So I turned around and headed back toward his apartment. From a block away I saw him now standing in the grass near his apartment, bending over like he was nauseated. I got him over to a chair on his front patio and immediately called 911. It was 12:40 p.m.
All still seemed like it would be fine after the ambulance crew arrived. When he saw the ambulance pull up, Randy stood up and started to walk toward it. “No, stay where you are. They’ll come to you,” I said, and he sat back down. The two members of the crew initially didn’t at all seem to think we were in emergency status, calmly tending to him and questioning him. One of the crew asked him to list his level of pain between 1 and 10. “I can handle it,” was Randy’s response. They pressed him to give a number, and in his typical tough-sounding fashion he eventually said 5, though I’m not sure any of us bought it. And they didn’t seem overly concerned about an initial EKG result. One of the crew eventually said: “I don’t think it’s a heart attack but I’d like to take you to the hospital to get you checked, if that’s ok.” Again in typical Randy fashion, he deflected decision-making, responding with: “Whatever Ivan thinks,” at the same time I was saying “He needs to go to the hospital.”
They loaded him on a gurney and put him inside the ambulance. They struggled mightily to get an IV started and a second EKG was run that apparently was more telling than the first. A paramedic walked over to a small side door of the ambulance to tell me that now “It does look like a heart attack.” I told Randy that I would see him at the hospital soon, told him to stay calm and to answer the doctors’ questions honestly. One of the paramedics said something to the effect that there would be no need for me to hurry to the hospital because “it will take them a while to get tests run and get him into a room.” But after walking back into Randy’s apartment to shut off the TV, lights, and grab his cell phone, I headed toward the hospital. On the way, I called my wife Linda to see if she could leave her real job to come grab The Landmarks from the printer in Wathena and get them to Platte City and help Cindy and Fred do the mailing.
Once they had him in the ER at Mosaic, Randy’s condition apparently went south fairly quickly. The doctors would eventually tell me he was initially conscious and talking to them. When I arrived at the ER the person at the front desk told me they had taken Randy back for a scan and someone would be out to talk with me shortly. After quite a while a hospital chaplain was the first to come out to speak with me, which I knew was not a good sign. He spoke of eventually moving me down to the “cath lab” waiting area. After a while there was a visit from the same chaplain along with a doctor this time, and it was at this moment the doctor told me how dire the situation had become. They were not getting a good pulse on Randy, could not get his blood pressure up, and I was told a scan had shown a major blockage in his heart. In effect, half of his heart was not functioning, the doctor told me. I was told they would keep performing CPR compressions while Randy was on a life support machine for about 30 more minutes or so, after that there would be no point.
At this point my mind was turning to mush. I called my wife. I told her I hadn’t gotten to see Randy since his arrival at the hospital. “Tell them you want to go back there to be with him. Hold his hand,” Linda said. Suddenly I was focused again. That phone conversation was at 2:50 p.m. Shortly after I hung up from that call, a second doctor came out with a similar report that the first doctor had given, but shortening the time they would continue the compressions and life saving measures to “about 15 more minutes or so.” I told him I wanted to go be with Randy. It was a statement, not a question. “Let’s go,” he said.
As we were walking back that direction, I asked the doctor if Randy would be able to hear me while I talked to him. The doctor said yes, with the compressions and the life support machine doing its job that Randy would be able to hear me but would not have the ability to respond. The room was packed full of 6-8 medical personnel still doing their best. I grabbed Randy’s hand. I told him I was there with him. I loudly and repeatedly told him I loved him. I loudly and repeatedly thanked him for the things he had done for me. I’ll always be thankful for those moments.
The chaplain said a prayer over him. Randy was pronounced gone at 3:15 p.m.
