On the morning June 27, 2022 Tony Payson suffered a serious stroke leaving a portion of the left side of his brain damaged. His wife, Jodi, attempted to wake him up to leave for work and discovered he was incoherent and unable to move. At that time she contacted Emergency Services for help. Upon arrival the paramedics accessed rather quickly he had most likely suffered a stroke. He was transported to the Siren airport where a medical helicopter was waiting to fly him to North Memorial Hospital in Robbinsdale, MN.

Immediately upon arriving at North Memorial Hospital they administered medication to bring down his high blood pressure. They performed a CT scan and started him on high flow oxygen as his O2 was continuing to drop into the 80s. He did not enjoy the tubes in his nasal passages one bit and would growl whenever they were adjusted. Tony’s brother Don and headed straight to the hospital which happened to be 10 minutes away. He was joined by Tony’s daughters and wife shortly after. They were all brought to his room where it was explained that he could only see out of his left eye, could not speak, and could not move anything on his right side. Daughter Alyssa was able to spend some time at his side while waiting for Jodi and other daughter Katie to arrive at the hospital. He did seem to recognize her and comprehend that she was there, he held her hand and brought it to his chest.

Once Katie and Jodi arrived, the neurologist came in to explain briefly about his current condition, what they are going to do at their facility and what the future may hold. The family was able to stay with him in his ER waiting room. Son, Josh, was also able to make it to the hospital. That roomed overflowed with sarcasm to lighten the mood as Tony became more alert. Tony took advantage of the comfortability of his hospital gown and accidentally flashed a few nurses—thank goodness they were male.

Tony arrived at the hospital approximately at 11:45 am and was moved to the Neuro ICU at around 7:30 pm. Once they got him settled in his new room, they informed Jodi who was waiting in the waiting room, that the rapid test done 8 hours prior supposedly came back positive, meaning she was not allowed in his room and he would be quarantined for 10 days with no visitors allowed. Jodi’s sister, Kari, arrived to join her on the 5th floor shortly after getting this crushing news. The team in the neuro unit will continue his care and will provide updates as often as we request. A CT was done the morning of June 28, 2022 at 5 a.m. which showed slight swelling, that they had predicted would happen the day before. Measures are being taken to monitor and control the swelling, imaging will continue to be done during his stay.

Tony is a hardworking, generous, honest, reliable, dependable and very sarcastic guy. He is always willing to help someone out, he would give the shirt off of his back—literally. The road to recovery is long but the family is hopeful. There will be a lot of challenges ahead He will need to be in a facility for an extended period of time once he is released from North Memorial Hospital. There he will continue healing along with physical, occupational, and speech therapy. The end goal being returning home to his family.

Tony and Jodi currently live in an upstairs apartment that will no longer be suitable. The family will be needing to locate a ground level living space that can accommodate any mobility aids he may need to use once he is home. This in itself is a huge expense, traveling to and from the hospitals, needing to take off of work along with other additional expenses that might add up in the process.

If you are able, please contribute to this fund to help cover the unexpected cost related to this sudden tragedy. All donations will go to Tony’s recovery and expenses related. The family would like to thank the North Memorial (Webster) paramedics, the first responders, chopper crew, along with the staff at the North Memorial Hospital for their rapid response and care throughout those first 24 hours.