Hi, I'm Lorraine's sister Jeri, and I'm fundraising to help her pay for final arrangements for her dear husband, Steve Cook, who passed away yesterday, May 3, 2022 – the day before his 62nd birthday – from complications of heart bypass surgery.

It wasn't supposed to be like this... they were looking forward to their golden years and planning how to spend their retirement. Steve had some health problems, including Type 2 Diabetes and Stage 4 Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). He also recently found out he needed bypass surgery and a new heart valve. The doctors all said he would feel better and have a chance at a longer life once he got this surgery behind him. Although health conditions forced it, his retirement was something he was looking forward to.

Lorraine and Steve lived from paycheck to paycheck by the most frugal means. They wouldn't be traveling the country in retirement, but maybe they could putter around in their johnboat on the St. Johns River or garden together. All they wanted was to be happy and be together. They had no mortgage or car payment and didn't live beyond their means. Steve's retirement check, along with Lorraine's social security, would get them by if they were careful.

But he didn't qualify for Medicare, and at the end of April, their health insurance would run out. He had to have the bypass surgery now.

Careful preparations were made. In the weeks before surgery, the medical team often met to discuss Steve's case and their approach, given the complicating aspects of his health. Over the last year, Steve had successfully gotten his sugar under better control, though, and lost nearly 50lbs. There was nothing he could do to reverse the CKD. Still, the doctors were confident they could address that with dialysis before surgery and careful monitoring during and after surgery to give him the best outcome possible.

He went into Memorial Hospital in Jacksonville, over two hours from their home, to have dialysis and be in the best possible shape for surgery.

Meanwhile, Lorraine and I got a hotel room 15 minutes from the hospital so she could be nearby and see him before and after surgery.

She waited all day while he was in surgery, and after nearly 7 hours, she found out it was a success, and she got to see him in recovery. He was still sleeping from the sedation, and the nurse said he probably wouldn't be awake until the next morning. So she came back to the hotel room, where we ate dinner and planned to get some rest.

But at 11 PM the hospital called and said we needed to get right down there. His heart had stopped and the doctors were trying to save him.

The doctor had opened up his incision and took Steve's heart in his hands and massaged it for 50 straight minutes until it began beating on its own. The surgeon called it a true miracle because he never expected to revive him at that point.

We asked why his heart had stopped and the doctor said he suspected it was high levels of potassium, but they were giving him mediation that would bring that down and they were planning for dialysis as soon as he was stable enough to endure it.

They put him in a medically induced coma to keep him immobile so they could work on him.

The staff didn't sugarcoat anything. Steve was "touch and go" and "extremely critical." The doctor said there was only a slim chance he'd make it through the night. But he also said to pray because miracles do happen, as we had already witnessed with the resuscitation.

Over the next two days, Lorraine would visit Steve, speak to him, stroke him gently, and reassure him that he was in good hands and everyone loved him, so just stay strong and keep fighting.

Every update the nursing staff gave her was always positive. "Steve's making good progress, and his vital signs are improving!" When she visited on Monday, the surgeon remarked that he was quite the fighter, and Steve was now "stable" yet still critical. He said, "if he continues to improve, in 3-5 days, we'll begin waking him up".

When Lorraine came back from the hospital to give me the news at the hotel we were crying happy tears and rejoicing. The clouds were beginning to lift and we allowed ourselves to imagine life after this was behind us all. A dear friend ordered us pizza delivery from afar and we ate with gusto, shared laughs and plans, and then settled in for what started out as the best sleep either of us had since Steve first entered the hospital.

But our excitement was short-lived. The nurse called at 12:30 AM on Tuesday, saying we needed to get there quickly. He was going downhill fast, and he was fading away no matter what they tried.

The rest seems so surreal, like a blur. After a short update on what had transpired, Lorraine was whisked back to his bedside. Machines whirred and monitors glowed, all telling the story that would soon have a sad ending.

"We've done all we can," the doctor said, "but his organs are shutting down and there's nothing more we can do."

Lorraine was sobbing and shaking, in total shock that things had changed so quickly.

She came back to the waiting room to give me the news and we hugged each other tightly as the nurse explained what would happen next. "We'll begin shutting off each machine that he's hooked to and ..." The rest of her sentence just sounded like noise as our brains could not comprehend.

Lorraine went back to tell him goodbye and stroke his head while they started shutting things off.

"This is the last machine," the nurse said, "it's the pacemaker. See that monitor with the red line? That is Steve's heartbeat. When we shut that off he'll be under his own power."

They shut it off and Lorraine watched as the squiggles representing his life slowly turned to a flat red line.

She came out to the waiting room and we hugged each other wailing in sorrow. The nurse tried to comfort her saying that, since Steve's heart had been stopped for nearly an hour, he had most likely experience severe brain damage and would have required long-term hospitalization.

That wasn't as comforting as one would think.

Leaving him behind at the hospital was the hardest thing my sister's ever had to do. Seeing her feeling such profound sadness and not being able to "fix" it was one of the hardest things I've ever experienced.

We drove back to the hotel, all numb and in shock. What's next?

What's next, it turns out, is figuring out how to pay for his funeral expenses – a cruel reality to have to deal with after suffering the loss of her best friend and beloved husband, Steve.

So I promised her I would take away that worry. That all of our friends would rally around her to help. I just needed to create a GoFundMe.

So here we are, at the end of the story. Steve is gone and we are celebrating his life today with white cupcakes and fond memories. Today Steve would have turned 62. He was far too young to die and had not a single day floating around in the johnboat enjoying his hard-earned retirement.

Please help me lessen her stress about how to pay for cremation and the bills coming her way. Give what you can and share with others that they might help too.

My heart breaks for my sister, and this is all I can do to help her begin to heal.

Thanks for caring, thanks for reading, and most of all, thank you for your kindness and generosity. What goes around comes around.

xoxo

Jeri