March 22, 2024 • 38 mins
In the premier episode of this podcast, Smiling Through the Pain, Maurice embarks on a profound conversation marking an excavation of the hardest events in his life. This poignant narrative outlines a life turned upside down, depicting the unimaginable experiences of Maurice that revolve around love, loss, faith, and resilience amidst extreme adversity. The objective of sharing this intimate narrative is to offer consolation or guidance to individuals navigating similar trials.
The narrative unfolds from a point in Maurice's life when he and his wife were leading an ordinary life, blessed with their 8-month-old child. This episode tears into a series of harrowing incidents, which started with a sudden turn of events that drastically changed their once peaceful life.
Maurice recalls the painful moments leading to his wife's rapid health decline, their fight for survival against a global pandemic and a traumatic situation that leads them through the bleak corridors of hospitals. Amidst the raw depiction of pain, a radiant illustration of Maurice's and Cindy's enduring strength takes shape.
Maurice's recounting of their time in the ER captures Cindy's descent into unconsciousness due to her health condition, and the heart-rending decisions he made on her behalf. In the midst of fear and anxiety, he clung to the hopeful signs...
This narrative is seemingly straight out of a drama, with an unexpected twist of his wife's survival. Cindy's resilience is a powerful testament of the resilient human spirit, underlining the transformative power of love and determination in challenging circumstances. This recount teaches us about the preciousness of life and the compelling need to appreciate every moment for its value.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
This is maurice and he's going to tell you
a story that is probably it's going
to be very hard to relate to and if you could relate to these stories then hey
maybe you could find some solace now the point the point of this podcast in
general okay we're not looking for anything we're not not looking for money.
(00:26):
We're not looking for fame.
This is solely product of Maurice going to a therapist and coming out with the
idea of maybe just vocally doing something creative in terms of telling your
story and basically creating a podcast to speak about,
(00:46):
you know, his journey, his story, his wife's journey.
And, you know, we have to add a two-year-old into the mix. I'm telling you,
it's a very heartbreaking story.
And we're going to try to just go into it as organically and naturally as possible.
And if you guys could find value in this, great. We want nothing from this podcast.
(01:09):
And maybe we could find a nice spot for Maurice to, you know,
find a way to smile again through the pain, which is why we titled this podcast
Smiling Through the Pain.
So this is Maurice, and I'm not sure if he even knows where he would pick up in this story.
(01:29):
But I would just say, I think people need to get to know you a little bit better. A brief introduction.
And I think you should talk about the first night that your life completely changed.
So, yeah, let them know who you are. Yeah, well, like Vath mentioned,
(01:51):
I'm Maurice, and I thank you for the generous introduction there.
Yes, we have known each other a long time. In fact, we practically grew up together
in our 20s in our own way and together as well.
And hopefully this series of episodes will be able to provide cathartic,
(02:12):
therapeutic experiences in my journey.
And so I don't really know what to expect from this. I don't even know how to really...
Conduct myself in this new platform. But like Vath said, I think it starts from somewhere.
(02:32):
So we're going to just kind of jump into it and then see where this goes.
So let's just do that. I'll talk about the night, the day that changed my life.
So it might be hard to talk about.
So I'm going to try to organize my thoughts and take some time to talk about it.
(02:53):
But so life, as I know it, is basically, you know, you go to school,
get a job, raise a family, and then, you know, there's this next phase of your
life where you just, you know, get to enjoy,
reap the benefits of the hard work that you put in beforehand to make the life that you want later on.
(03:14):
And so we were at a point where, you know, I was working, my wife was working,
and we had a very young son.
At the time, he was eight months old.
Having a relatively young son and child, he was really basically a newborn.
(03:41):
You know, he doesn't give you feedback. He's just very needy.
So there's a lot of stresses in your life there, just that alone.
And so I think for us as newborn parents, we were very stressed out.
I know my wife was working hard and stressing or overly exhausted,
(04:01):
as a mother usually is, by nurturing for the child and everything like that.
And I was exhausted because I was also working and trying to take care of my family.
And so this day started out regular like, you know, many other days in the past
eight months that we had our son.
(04:22):
I, you know, took him to school, but then that day, I didn't feel well yet.
I took him to school that day.
I was not feeling too hot. I was feeling under the weather, and I thought maybe
I should take the day off.
I saw my wife out the door. She went to work, and then after a couple of hours,
after I got home of taking him to daycare, I was like, I better take the day
(04:46):
off. I don't feel too well.
So I called into work and said, hey, not feeling well.
And this was, mind you, this was during the pandemic, shortly after I decided to take a COVID test.
And sure enough, I tested positive. So I'm like, okay, well.
Just got to, it's going to be, I've got to hunker down and hopefully get past
(05:08):
this. So I might be out a few days.
So that was already kind of like, you know, a downward slope in the day already.
A few hours later in the morning, my wife called me, texted me rather,
and just kind of said, hey, I'm not feeling well.
I've got a headache. Can't really focus.
You know, and I just cordially say, cordially, don't tell her,
(05:29):
oh, it's one of your headaches.
You know, maybe take some Tylenol or something like that just
kind of comforted her and and then as the
day progressed maybe another hour came by she was
like you know i don't feel i can't focus whatever now that
well i'm off you know i can go pick you
up from work which was you know about 40 minutes away 35 40 minutes away and
(05:50):
i was like i'm not feeling well but you know duty calls i've got to take care
she was escorted it out by some colleagues because she had stability issues
she couldn't really stand on her own.
Almost not completely disoriented but she just needed you know assistance to
the car so she got my car we got home and she expressed that it's like any other
(06:14):
day that she has a headache it'll pass let's let's you know maybe i just need
to sleep it off or something like that so,
so that being said i wasn't feeling well she wasn't feeling well we got back
to the house house and we just kind of both knocked out.
Luckily, fortunately, my son was in daycare, so I didn't have to be an active
(06:34):
parenting role or parenting duty at that moment.
Closer to the time I had to pick him up, I knew I had to get up.
I checked on my wife and she was kind of really in pain.
It's really hard to describe, but the image is seared in my memory and in my
(06:55):
head of that fateful night but she was really in pain,
but I had to go pick up our son so I put myself together gathered the strength
and I told my wife I'll be right back let me go get him picked him up and at eight months,
(07:15):
any parent would know that you know they're very needy They can't quite walk yet.
They're wanting to be carried. So at that point, I was on active parenting duty.
So I was trying to handle him, manage him.
And then at the same time, my wife was in the bedroom laying down.
(07:37):
And all the while, I was trying to manage both of them. I was trying to also nurture myself as well.
So essentially, I was taking care of three people that night,
which was really, really tough.
And as the minutes and hours passed by, my wife was not getting any better.
(07:59):
She was cold. She was feverish. She was shaking.
I checked her pulse. I checked her blood pressure.
All seemed normal, but yes, she had this massive severe headache.
What I come to also find out that she was also on her menstrual cycle,
and she didn't have the fortitude to really take care of herself or change because
(08:24):
she was really in pain, so she was bleeding out.
And so one hand I had my son crying, and the other I had my wife more or less crying as well.
I really had to carry my arms to the tub and try to take care of her,
(08:44):
try to clean her up because she was just in so much pain.
But I noticed that from the bed, so I cleaned her up.
Then I moved her to the floor because it was a lower it was a lower spot where
you know you know maybe it was easier to maintain or take care of her down there and then I,
(09:07):
she was cold so I covered up in blankets and stuff like that as the hours pressed
on I also had to flip-flop between my wife and my son so I get on my son and
he you know he needed to dinner, he needed a bath,
just normal things.
And at that moment of time in his age, sometimes they cry and you don't even know why.
(09:31):
And so you're doing everything possible trying to figure out why,
because they can't communicate yet with you.
So in all that, in all that that was happening, I reached out to several people
trying to organize or manage my next steps.
Which was trying to get somebody to watch my son so I can take my wife to the ER.
(09:59):
Eventually, I did take her to the ER, and as you'll quickly find out how,
through this journey, how frustrated I am with the healthcare system and some
of the healthcare workers,
and sometimes things don't get done fast enough, sometimes things don't get done.
Maybe I'll save that for another session, but I found out that she was bleeding
(10:24):
in the head through a CT scan.
And I saw her from
a coherent state when I picked her up to her deteriorating through the day until
the night where she just had restless leg syndrome and she lost her ability
(10:46):
to really control herself and to really,
you know, compose herself in any way, shape or form.
She was really in pain, and she was involuntarily making movements.
Restless leg syndrome was one of them.
So we rushed to a trauma one center that can do an emergent cranionotomy to
(11:15):
evacuate the hematoma, which is the brain bleed.
At that very moment, a lot of things went through my head.
You know I think there was a moment in the the ER,
from the surgery she's she may not come out of this she may not make it if you
(11:37):
want to perform the surgery you got to sign this right now you have to approve you have to,
confirm to which I did of course,
So I went through the procedures to perform that and spent hours in the waiting room with my brother.
Fortunately, he was in town at the time.
(11:58):
And he's also a doctor in his own right, so he was confiding and kind of helping
me, giving me a play-by-play action of what to expect, what to come.
So the hours that we were in the waiting room just was beside myself.
I just, this had to be a nightmare. I couldn't imagine this happening to us.
(12:21):
So after a bit while there, wrecked with anxiety and whatnot.
The surgeon came out, told me the procedure went as expected and now it's just a waiting game.
So she was...
(12:45):
You know, in the ICU and I guess unconscious and intubated.
And at that point, it was, you wait until she wakes up or until there's any
vitals that presents itself to be meaningful.
(13:07):
I mean, that was, and that's pretty much, it's a shell of the day for me.
There's a lot of, I guess, little things that, details.
I'll say for another time, but, but yeah, that's, that forever started the journey
that we're on now, which is recovering and finding our way back to.
(13:32):
You know, before you continue on, I think, I think we should touch on who Cindy is actually.
And I'll just say what I have to say briefly, you know, I know her through you.
And I've always been so impressed with her heart.
(13:53):
There's, she's as witty as they come. She's hilarious, you know?
And she loves puzzle games and stuff like that. And, you know,
she's always been a good match for you.
So I used to live in Texas. Now I live in California.
We went to go visit you when you had Hudson and it's,
you know, so I still
(14:15):
picture us around that dinner table she's cracking
jokes you're cracking jokes which is having a good time having
a few beers everything was beautiful and we
have a snapshot of that and it i
feel for you man it's i because cindy's she's gone through like just just before
all this her life wasn't easy health-wise i struggled with really publicizing
(14:42):
you know who she is what she's about about, what our family's about.
I've always had this kind of like, I mean, not that I'm any sort of celebrity
or anything, but I've always had this private life where I've kind of have it
guarded in certain ways.
But I know that, you know, Cindy, if I could talk about Cindy a little bit,
(15:02):
which is a lot to say about Cindy.
I have a lot to say about her because I know her for many, many years.
And I adore her. Obviously, I love her and and I respect her. She herself...
You know, loves like no other. She has a heart of gold.
(15:24):
She has unconditional love for people that she knows and the people that she doesn't know.
She has immense empathy for people.
She was a healthcare professional.
She cared, you know, she's the first responder that cared for others.
She had patients under her care. and she wore her heart on her sleeve she expressed
(15:49):
herself and she always questioned.
The integrity of love for others
so she never she was very unselfish she never she never talked about self or
never you know it was hard for her to take a compliment because Because she
(16:11):
did not let whatever she was going through,
whatever condition she had, define who she was.
She was very, and maybe it's because she was born with a congenital disease
that she had to struggle through life and become a better person because of it.
(16:34):
And so in my time that I have known her and fallen in love with her is because
of many of the things the aspects the qualities that you have mentioned she
is very witty she's very quick wit.
You know, she's very funny. She's, you know,
she could be completely professional and cordial one end and then just flip
(17:00):
the coin and she's completely ghetto funny the other end.
You know, she has the virtue of not ever holding a grudge.
It didn't matter if you didn't reciprocate to what she offered or what she did for you.
(17:23):
She did things for you because that's who she is. She was not expecting anything back.
I can tell you that sometimes when I
look at myself I look at her I find fault to
myself because I find myself saying
you know why do I keep on doing this when no one cares and she was just she
(17:48):
says like well it doesn't matter who cares matters that that's what you want
to do so there's There's a lot of things to unload about who Cindy is and over
the course of this series,
right here, maybe you'll get to
hear tidbits and piece it all together and really get to know who she is.
(18:09):
But I can't imagine somebody... The question I have is why do some people have
to suffer more than others?
And that's hard to really come to
terms with especially when they don't deserve it that's the truth life's unfair
(18:31):
i mean if you ever met her just think about the warmest person you've ever met
in your life and that's probably cindy you know never had a bad word to say about anybody,
lived life because she actually knows what life you know she knows how it would
be to have things taken away because of her health, right? Her congenital health issues.
(18:54):
So she actually was teaching basically to appreciate things that she knew how to appreciate.
I mean, when you said that she doesn't know how to hold a grudge,
that's beautiful, you know, because a lot of us petty, right?
Like anything we think about, like sometimes I'm reminded of the saying is like,
would you still be mad at that on your deathbed?
(19:15):
Like you argued with your wife, your significant other
would you still be mad at that at your deathbed or
would that seem so frivolous and most of the stuff that we worry over is so
frivolous and i i like to say that she made me a better person you know a lot
of people say that but she definitely made me a better person because in the
(19:36):
course of time that you know i knew her and more so when we.
United in marriage, I think that I had to be more for her because what I wanted,
was a partner that made me better.
And I wanted to be somebody that made her better too.
(19:59):
I wanted to be somebody, I just wanted, I wanted us to be the best version of ourself.
And I felt like I have found that in her i mean you know like granted you know
i don't believe that any relationship marriage or anything is perfect but this
is pretty damn near perfect because,
(20:20):
you know you know at my worst she was there and now she's at her worst and i'm here so,
so if we can get through this yeah if we can get through this then we can get through anything and,
And, you know, I've grown through this whole process.
(20:43):
I thought I would stop learning and growing, you know, in my 30s and,
you know, leading up to the 40s.
But this traumatic incident in our lives that has altered so many aspects of
my life from my career to my work to my parenting to my relationship.
(21:11):
Has made me grown and it certainly makes you appreciate
things and see things in a different light for
the listener to go on this journey with you
it wouldn't be complete if if we
didn't start with that day that you
text me that you needed to call
me i remember when i finally got you on
(21:31):
the phone which was probably a day or two
later you know because you everything around you
was falling apart yeah i think that man i
said everything was falling apart on one
end everything was coming together and then the stark contrast
of like then now your world fell apart i mean we're finally going to have a
(21:52):
family we're going to you know like you and i we could do like family things
you know you have a son now i mean i have a son now and you have a son that's
much older Carter is much older than Hudson.
And we could hopefully do things together.
And then that stark reality changed that fateful night.
(22:13):
And I can't remember exactly, but I know during that period of that one week
or two weeks, I was discombobulated. I had so many things being thrown at me.
I had to, because Hudson care doesn't ever end.
Being a parent never ends, especially at that young age. So I couldn't pause.
(22:35):
The only thing I could pause was my work.
I immediately said, I can't work right now.
And, you know, thankfully, you know, a lot of people were understanding and helped me out.
But at some point during this crisis you know I had my family around I had my
(22:57):
brothers, my sister my in-laws around at some point.
I don't know if I needed to vent, shout, or cry, or all of the above.
But I was really reaching out to people who would want to know,
(23:21):
who cared and loved for Cindy and for us, who might want to know what's going on right now.
Because frankly, the issue at hand is that she may not be here with us.
If you care and love her, this is a very real possibility.
And I felt like I was trying to reach out to certain people that,
(23:43):
you know, have been there for
us or have had, you know, close relationship with us and wanted to know.
And I was reaching out and you were one of those people, you know,
and it was hard. It was hard because I could not compose myself to really text about the situation.
(24:04):
I just know that I probably couldn't even talk about it either.
I just had to say what I had to say and then move on, continue to do the things I needed to do.
So that was me trying to find a comforting hand outside of the circle that I was already in.
(24:27):
I needed, you know, I needed, needed a friend.
I needed, I needed somebody to tell me it's okay when it wasn't.
I don't know. I think.
Some ways this podcast is
the same as me reaching out to you is
(24:48):
it's cathartic i needed to talk about something but there's
there's obviously a different channel
different stream of information that i talked
to you about versus you know strangers or
other people who might or who weren't interested in my my
story but but
yeah it's kind of that is.
(25:12):
What you said it was very difficult
to really be myself as you
knew me to you know
in every conversation we had was there was
always some stream of humor or
joke mingled in our conversation but
(25:32):
this was a definitely a different tone this has never you know
been yeah i didn't
recognize you when when you finally called i
did not recognize you it was almost like i was telling
talking to a telemarketer it was very strange
like you were just telling me boom boom boom
boom our our dear cindy and
(25:55):
it was a real possibility because
that that we wouldn't have her anymore because the doctor
actually believed right that she wasn't
going to pull through like i don't know
if they were trying to convince you so that you would not take it
so hard but it was something they actually believed
because of her condition i i think right well i'll say this i have a love-hate
(26:21):
relationship with doctors i've been surrounded with medical professionals most
of my life a lot of my friends and family are part of the healthcare system.
I mean, Cindy, you know, she was part of the system, right? She was a healthcare worker.
So I, you know...
(26:42):
Going to say that science isn't science sometimes, right? You should take it for what it's worth.
And what happened to us, the sentiment between, if this happens to you,
you know already that you're not going to have one doctor.
(27:02):
You have a series of doctors with different specialties that are on your case.
And everybody has different sentiments. Everybody has different opinions.
Everybody has a different prognosis, you know, but I would tell you that the,
the doctor that was solely responsible in saving Cindy's life also had given
(27:24):
me, given us a poor prognosis to the tune of,
if you know what her, her wishes are,
I think you should respect it.
You know now cindy was unconscious you know she wasn't responsive and she was unconscious for,
(27:46):
40 you know 24 hours 48 hours then 72
hours and you know and so on and
so forth and every day that passed the sentiment got stronger stronger about
you know the likelihood of us seeing any close close resemblance of who she
was was farther than you would realize.
(28:12):
And short of saying she's going to be a vegetable.
It was pretty much saying that the outlook is very grim and you should start
making preparations and plan and talk about what's going to happen and in the next few days.
(28:33):
And this was in the course of maybe a week at the ICU.
So, yeah, and that, and with everything just crumbling,
I was presented, and no one should ever be asked to, you know,
make a decision like that, which is, you know, hey, do you want to,
you know, pull the plug or not?
(28:56):
That's... You know, it's... Mm-hmm. so there
i will also tell everybody who's listening
that there's very logistical details
in every decision you make has a
different result or different option available to you therefore after so you
(29:19):
know so i had to weigh a lot of different things i had to you know i i built
a a team, a close-knit circle of team,
which I called Cindy's Medical Team,
which was comprised of family.
Slash doctors that can help me recruit as much information I can to make a decision
(29:45):
I felt comfortable with, whether it was out of respect, love,
or pure science.
I needed to gather all the information and lay it in front of me to give myself the best,
or give our family the best comfort in knowing
(30:06):
how to move forward so so you
know spoiler alert she's with
us here today for the reason that i made the decision
of fighting through it and really what happened there was i believe it was the
(30:27):
12th day of being unconscious where so anybody who's in a icu.
Knows that the doctors usually round in the morning on a regular basis.
It's routine for them to round and look at the patient and examine them.
On this 12th day, the normal neurosurgeon that performed the operation had a fill-in.
(30:55):
Basically, in his group, he was on call for hospitalist care.
So he had another neurosurgeon in his group that came by to do the rotation.
And so when he examined Cindy, he performed something of a different examination.
He had a good exam. And what that means is that she became responsive to an
(31:18):
examiner who would gently, subtly say, Cindy, can you hear me?
You know, open your eyes or can you do this? But this particular day,
this particular doctor that walked in had a very profound voice,
sharp voice, loud voice.
And he did a sternum rub, which most doctors know that kind of agitates the
(31:42):
patients to kind of stimulate them and said and shouted out, Cindy, open your eyes.
And in that moment, when you've kind of been sleeping for so long,
you see, I saw one of her eyes start to flutter.
(32:02):
It was trying to open, and then it opened up for two, I think it opened maybe
two millimeters, and that was enough when the doctor said, he became responsive and says, is.
Suggest tricking her etc etc she's going to
she's responding and that was the
(32:23):
turning point at that point of time a flicker
of hope i said i'm all in do not
we do what we do to support her let's move let's move
forward that's that's it game game changer
i i don't know what state she's gonna gonna be in but yeah you
know dude that was it that that
(32:45):
is that is wild that that was so deep i was like not breathing the whole time
you were telling me that story because i never knew it you know like we haven't
been able to get to details in this at least i haven't been able to hurt it
because hear it because you know i don't want to pry your private life right Right.
(33:06):
But since you, this podcast is your idea as, as maybe self-therapy, right?
You've been going to a therapist and it sounded like a good idea.
And yeah, I'm, I'm pretty overwhelmed with picturing this that you went through.
I mean, as grieving as you were at the time to see an eye flicker it was that's
(33:30):
that's like so momentous right yeah it was you know a lot of the doctors,
12 days is you know maybe 12 days too long for a lot of people to hold on but
i held on as long long as I could and I can look back and say that at least
(33:54):
I made some right decisions and I fought.
I would tell everybody who's listening, if you have a loved one that is in need of serious care.
I would highly have somebody advocate for them.
(34:16):
We don't i mean yeah you
know you can trust the process you can trust the the i
mean it's the professionals but nothing beats
having an advocate there somebody to be by your
side to advocate to manage your care and that's
what i did for her i was there every step away
i'm well informed in every aspect of just
(34:39):
in all decisions that are being made of where her
condition is and so getting her
there still in bed for
the 12th day to allow for the opportunity for her
to respond in that way was almost
never going to happen if i did
not fight tooth and nail against some
(35:03):
sentiments that thought maybe she was
there too long needed to move her along the the
process and stuff like that so i could i could
almost feel i could almost
feel how much kind of resentment you have
for for you know maybe how laxadaisy or some some doctors go because you it's
(35:25):
the rounds right i mean just hearing that is like that's just my rounds until
you got the one doctor that went went a little extra right maybe he cared.
Well i don't think anybody's really i mean
i think people teen
for them right they don't they don't see
(35:47):
anything exceptional like i hate to
say it but sometimes i feel like i've been through this journey and this process
and this experience for so long been in hospitals and facilities and from one
to the other for a good year where you know i think that everybody has has the
credentials to do what they need to do.
(36:07):
But not everybody does it the same way. And it's routine in the sense that... Routine, yeah.
Sometimes I suspect you might get desensitized by the person that's on the bed, hospital bed.
And so you're just thinking of them as, you know, another patient.
(36:28):
And you do the best that you can, you know. but buddy who no you you would want.
Out of and i get it
you know that are you know everybody you're not
i mean you know my wife sydney
she's special to me but is she special to everyone else
(36:49):
probably not right everybody else in every one of those rooms has a special
circumstance that they're in the person the every day every morning every night
that i walk through the halls of
the icu to get from one room to the other room to get to my wife's room.
Everybody had their own problems. And so every doctor that walked in there,
(37:13):
you know, probably just looked at it as a math problem, right?
Because there you're suffering from. So I just think that you can do.
Even your mom's going to go buy a car. If you were by her side advocating for her,
then, you know, not that you don't trust the salesman or
you don't trust the doctor i think that you nobody takes
(37:35):
care of of yourself better
or any loved one better than yourself and in
cases like this and you'll i have many many other stories where if i was not
advocating for cindy then i have seen i have examples of you know of some unfortunate
(37:56):
things that have lapsed or happened to my wife while,
you know, outside of my purview.
And so it is, it is.
Now, if it was too personal or maybe you just don't want to share the story,
but do you have the instances where there was lapses of her care?
(38:18):
Yeah, there was. I mean.
Music.
This is maurice and he's going to tell you
a story that is probably it's going
to be very hard to relate to and if you could relate to these stories then hey
maybe you could find some solace now the point the point of this podcast in
general okay we're not looking for anything we're not not looking for money.
(00:26):
We're not looking for fame.
This is solely product of Maurice going to a therapist and coming out with the
idea of maybe just vocally doing something creative in terms of telling your
story and basically creating a podcast to speak about,
(00:46):
you know, his journey, his story, his wife's journey.
And, you know, we have to add a two-year-old into the mix. I'm telling you,
it's a very heartbreaking story.
And we're going to try to just go into it as organically and naturally as possible.
And if you guys could find value in this, great. We want nothing from this podcast.
(01:09):
And maybe we could find a nice spot for Maurice to, you know,
find a way to smile again through the pain, which is why we titled this podcast
Smiling Through the Pain.
So this is Maurice, and I'm not sure if he even knows where he would pick up in this story.
(01:29):
But I would just say, I think people need to get to know you a little bit better. A brief introduction.
And I think you should talk about the first night that your life completely changed.
So, yeah, let them know who you are. Yeah, well, like Vath mentioned,
(01:51):
I'm Maurice, and I thank you for the generous introduction there.
Yes, we have known each other a long time. In fact, we practically grew up together
in our 20s in our own way and together as well.
And hopefully this series of episodes will be able to provide cathartic,
(02:12):
therapeutic experiences in my journey.
And so I don't really know what to expect from this. I don't even know how to really...
Conduct myself in this new platform. But like Vath said, I think it starts from somewhere.
(02:32):
So we're going to just kind of jump into it and then see where this goes.
So let's just do that. I'll talk about the night, the day that changed my life.
So it might be hard to talk about.
So I'm going to try to organize my thoughts and take some time to talk about it.
(02:53):
But so life, as I know it, is basically, you know, you go to school,
get a job, raise a family, and then, you know, there's this next phase of your
life where you just, you know, get to enjoy,
reap the benefits of the hard work that you put in beforehand to make the life that you want later on.
(03:14):
And so we were at a point where, you know, I was working, my wife was working,
and we had a very young son.
At the time, he was eight months old.
Having a relatively young son and child, he was really basically a newborn.
(03:41):
You know, he doesn't give you feedback. He's just very needy.
So there's a lot of stresses in your life there, just that alone.
And so I think for us as newborn parents, we were very stressed out.
I know my wife was working hard and stressing or overly exhausted,
(04:01):
as a mother usually is, by nurturing for the child and everything like that.
And I was exhausted because I was also working and trying to take care of my family.
And so this day started out regular like, you know, many other days in the past
eight months that we had our son.
(04:22):
I, you know, took him to school, but then that day, I didn't feel well yet.
I took him to school that day.
I was not feeling too hot. I was feeling under the weather, and I thought maybe
I should take the day off.
I saw my wife out the door. She went to work, and then after a couple of hours,
after I got home of taking him to daycare, I was like, I better take the day
(04:46):
off. I don't feel too well.
So I called into work and said, hey, not feeling well.
And this was, mind you, this was during the pandemic, shortly after I decided to take a COVID test.
And sure enough, I tested positive. So I'm like, okay, well.
Just got to, it's going to be, I've got to hunker down and hopefully get past
(05:08):
this. So I might be out a few days.
So that was already kind of like, you know, a downward slope in the day already.
A few hours later in the morning, my wife called me, texted me rather,
and just kind of said, hey, I'm not feeling well.
I've got a headache. Can't really focus.
You know, and I just cordially say, cordially, don't tell her,
(05:29):
oh, it's one of your headaches.
You know, maybe take some Tylenol or something like that just
kind of comforted her and and then as the
day progressed maybe another hour came by she was
like you know i don't feel i can't focus whatever now that
well i'm off you know i can go pick you
up from work which was you know about 40 minutes away 35 40 minutes away and
(05:50):
i was like i'm not feeling well but you know duty calls i've got to take care
she was escorted it out by some colleagues because she had stability issues
she couldn't really stand on her own.
Almost not completely disoriented but she just needed you know assistance to
the car so she got my car we got home and she expressed that it's like any other
(06:14):
day that she has a headache it'll pass let's let's you know maybe i just need
to sleep it off or something like that so,
so that being said i wasn't feeling well she wasn't feeling well we got back
to the house house and we just kind of both knocked out.
Luckily, fortunately, my son was in daycare, so I didn't have to be an active
(06:34):
parenting role or parenting duty at that moment.
Closer to the time I had to pick him up, I knew I had to get up.
I checked on my wife and she was kind of really in pain.
It's really hard to describe, but the image is seared in my memory and in my
(06:55):
head of that fateful night but she was really in pain,
but I had to go pick up our son so I put myself together gathered the strength
and I told my wife I'll be right back let me go get him picked him up and at eight months,
(07:15):
any parent would know that you know they're very needy They can't quite walk yet.
They're wanting to be carried. So at that point, I was on active parenting duty.
So I was trying to handle him, manage him.
And then at the same time, my wife was in the bedroom laying down.
(07:37):
And all the while, I was trying to manage both of them. I was trying to also nurture myself as well.
So essentially, I was taking care of three people that night,
which was really, really tough.
And as the minutes and hours passed by, my wife was not getting any better.
(07:59):
She was cold. She was feverish. She was shaking.
I checked her pulse. I checked her blood pressure.
All seemed normal, but yes, she had this massive severe headache.
What I come to also find out that she was also on her menstrual cycle,
and she didn't have the fortitude to really take care of herself or change because
(08:24):
she was really in pain, so she was bleeding out.
And so one hand I had my son crying, and the other I had my wife more or less crying as well.
I really had to carry my arms to the tub and try to take care of her,
(08:44):
try to clean her up because she was just in so much pain.
But I noticed that from the bed, so I cleaned her up.
Then I moved her to the floor because it was a lower it was a lower spot where
you know you know maybe it was easier to maintain or take care of her down there and then I,
(09:07):
she was cold so I covered up in blankets and stuff like that as the hours pressed
on I also had to flip-flop between my wife and my son so I get on my son and
he you know he needed to dinner, he needed a bath,
just normal things.
And at that moment of time in his age, sometimes they cry and you don't even know why.
(09:31):
And so you're doing everything possible trying to figure out why,
because they can't communicate yet with you.
So in all that, in all that that was happening, I reached out to several people
trying to organize or manage my next steps.
Which was trying to get somebody to watch my son so I can take my wife to the ER.
(09:59):
Eventually, I did take her to the ER, and as you'll quickly find out how,
through this journey, how frustrated I am with the healthcare system and some
of the healthcare workers,
and sometimes things don't get done fast enough, sometimes things don't get done.
Maybe I'll save that for another session, but I found out that she was bleeding
(10:24):
in the head through a CT scan.
And I saw her from
a coherent state when I picked her up to her deteriorating through the day until
the night where she just had restless leg syndrome and she lost her ability
(10:46):
to really control herself and to really,
you know, compose herself in any way, shape or form.
She was really in pain, and she was involuntarily making movements.
Restless leg syndrome was one of them.
So we rushed to a trauma one center that can do an emergent cranionotomy to
(11:15):
evacuate the hematoma, which is the brain bleed.
At that very moment, a lot of things went through my head.
You know I think there was a moment in the the ER,
from the surgery she's she may not come out of this she may not make it if you
(11:37):
want to perform the surgery you got to sign this right now you have to approve you have to,
confirm to which I did of course,
So I went through the procedures to perform that and spent hours in the waiting room with my brother.
Fortunately, he was in town at the time.
(11:58):
And he's also a doctor in his own right, so he was confiding and kind of helping
me, giving me a play-by-play action of what to expect, what to come.
So the hours that we were in the waiting room just was beside myself.
I just, this had to be a nightmare. I couldn't imagine this happening to us.
(12:21):
So after a bit while there, wrecked with anxiety and whatnot.
The surgeon came out, told me the procedure went as expected and now it's just a waiting game.
So she was...
(12:45):
You know, in the ICU and I guess unconscious and intubated.
And at that point, it was, you wait until she wakes up or until there's any
vitals that presents itself to be meaningful.
(13:07):
I mean, that was, and that's pretty much, it's a shell of the day for me.
There's a lot of, I guess, little things that, details.
I'll say for another time, but, but yeah, that's, that forever started the journey
that we're on now, which is recovering and finding our way back to.
(13:32):
You know, before you continue on, I think, I think we should touch on who Cindy is actually.
And I'll just say what I have to say briefly, you know, I know her through you.
And I've always been so impressed with her heart.
(13:53):
There's, she's as witty as they come. She's hilarious, you know?
And she loves puzzle games and stuff like that. And, you know,
she's always been a good match for you.
So I used to live in Texas. Now I live in California.
We went to go visit you when you had Hudson and it's,
you know, so I still
(14:15):
picture us around that dinner table she's cracking
jokes you're cracking jokes which is having a good time having
a few beers everything was beautiful and we
have a snapshot of that and it i
feel for you man it's i because cindy's she's gone through like just just before
all this her life wasn't easy health-wise i struggled with really publicizing
(14:42):
you know who she is what she's about about, what our family's about.
I've always had this kind of like, I mean, not that I'm any sort of celebrity
or anything, but I've always had this private life where I've kind of have it
guarded in certain ways.
But I know that, you know, Cindy, if I could talk about Cindy a little bit,
(15:02):
which is a lot to say about Cindy.
I have a lot to say about her because I know her for many, many years.
And I adore her. Obviously, I love her and and I respect her. She herself...
You know, loves like no other. She has a heart of gold.
(15:24):
She has unconditional love for people that she knows and the people that she doesn't know.
She has immense empathy for people.
She was a healthcare professional.
She cared, you know, she's the first responder that cared for others.
She had patients under her care. and she wore her heart on her sleeve she expressed
(15:49):
herself and she always questioned.
The integrity of love for others
so she never she was very unselfish she never she never talked about self or
never you know it was hard for her to take a compliment because Because she
(16:11):
did not let whatever she was going through,
whatever condition she had, define who she was.
She was very, and maybe it's because she was born with a congenital disease
that she had to struggle through life and become a better person because of it.
(16:34):
And so in my time that I have known her and fallen in love with her is because
of many of the things the aspects the qualities that you have mentioned she
is very witty she's very quick wit.
You know, she's very funny. She's, you know,
she could be completely professional and cordial one end and then just flip
(17:00):
the coin and she's completely ghetto funny the other end.
You know, she has the virtue of not ever holding a grudge.
It didn't matter if you didn't reciprocate to what she offered or what she did for you.
(17:23):
She did things for you because that's who she is. She was not expecting anything back.
I can tell you that sometimes when I
look at myself I look at her I find fault to
myself because I find myself saying
you know why do I keep on doing this when no one cares and she was just she
(17:48):
says like well it doesn't matter who cares matters that that's what you want
to do so there's There's a lot of things to unload about who Cindy is and over
the course of this series,
right here, maybe you'll get to
hear tidbits and piece it all together and really get to know who she is.
(18:09):
But I can't imagine somebody... The question I have is why do some people have
to suffer more than others?
And that's hard to really come to
terms with especially when they don't deserve it that's the truth life's unfair
(18:31):
i mean if you ever met her just think about the warmest person you've ever met
in your life and that's probably cindy you know never had a bad word to say about anybody,
lived life because she actually knows what life you know she knows how it would
be to have things taken away because of her health, right? Her congenital health issues.
(18:54):
So she actually was teaching basically to appreciate things that she knew how to appreciate.
I mean, when you said that she doesn't know how to hold a grudge,
that's beautiful, you know, because a lot of us petty, right?
Like anything we think about, like sometimes I'm reminded of the saying is like,
would you still be mad at that on your deathbed?
(19:15):
Like you argued with your wife, your significant other
would you still be mad at that at your deathbed or
would that seem so frivolous and most of the stuff that we worry over is so
frivolous and i i like to say that she made me a better person you know a lot
of people say that but she definitely made me a better person because in the
(19:36):
course of time that you know i knew her and more so when we.
United in marriage, I think that I had to be more for her because what I wanted,
was a partner that made me better.
And I wanted to be somebody that made her better too.
(19:59):
I wanted to be somebody, I just wanted, I wanted us to be the best version of ourself.
And I felt like I have found that in her i mean you know like granted you know
i don't believe that any relationship marriage or anything is perfect but this
is pretty damn near perfect because,
(20:20):
you know you know at my worst she was there and now she's at her worst and i'm here so,
so if we can get through this yeah if we can get through this then we can get through anything and,
And, you know, I've grown through this whole process.
(20:43):
I thought I would stop learning and growing, you know, in my 30s and,
you know, leading up to the 40s.
But this traumatic incident in our lives that has altered so many aspects of
my life from my career to my work to my parenting to my relationship.
(21:11):
Has made me grown and it certainly makes you appreciate
things and see things in a different light for
the listener to go on this journey with you
it wouldn't be complete if if we
didn't start with that day that you
text me that you needed to call
me i remember when i finally got you on
(21:31):
the phone which was probably a day or two
later you know because you everything around you
was falling apart yeah i think that man i
said everything was falling apart on one
end everything was coming together and then the stark contrast
of like then now your world fell apart i mean we're finally going to have a
(21:52):
family we're going to you know like you and i we could do like family things
you know you have a son now i mean i have a son now and you have a son that's
much older Carter is much older than Hudson.
And we could hopefully do things together.
And then that stark reality changed that fateful night.
(22:13):
And I can't remember exactly, but I know during that period of that one week
or two weeks, I was discombobulated. I had so many things being thrown at me.
I had to, because Hudson care doesn't ever end.
Being a parent never ends, especially at that young age. So I couldn't pause.
(22:35):
The only thing I could pause was my work.
I immediately said, I can't work right now.
And, you know, thankfully, you know, a lot of people were understanding and helped me out.
But at some point during this crisis you know I had my family around I had my
(22:57):
brothers, my sister my in-laws around at some point.
I don't know if I needed to vent, shout, or cry, or all of the above.
But I was really reaching out to people who would want to know,
(23:21):
who cared and loved for Cindy and for us, who might want to know what's going on right now.
Because frankly, the issue at hand is that she may not be here with us.
If you care and love her, this is a very real possibility.
And I felt like I was trying to reach out to certain people that,
(23:43):
you know, have been there for
us or have had, you know, close relationship with us and wanted to know.
And I was reaching out and you were one of those people, you know,
and it was hard. It was hard because I could not compose myself to really text about the situation.
(24:04):
I just know that I probably couldn't even talk about it either.
I just had to say what I had to say and then move on, continue to do the things I needed to do.
So that was me trying to find a comforting hand outside of the circle that I was already in.
(24:27):
I needed, you know, I needed, needed a friend.
I needed, I needed somebody to tell me it's okay when it wasn't.
I don't know. I think.
Some ways this podcast is
the same as me reaching out to you is
(24:48):
it's cathartic i needed to talk about something but there's
there's obviously a different channel
different stream of information that i talked
to you about versus you know strangers or
other people who might or who weren't interested in my my
story but but
yeah it's kind of that is.
(25:12):
What you said it was very difficult
to really be myself as you
knew me to you know
in every conversation we had was there was
always some stream of humor or
joke mingled in our conversation but
(25:32):
this was a definitely a different tone this has never you know
been yeah i didn't
recognize you when when you finally called i
did not recognize you it was almost like i was telling
talking to a telemarketer it was very strange
like you were just telling me boom boom boom
boom our our dear cindy and
(25:55):
it was a real possibility because
that that we wouldn't have her anymore because the doctor
actually believed right that she wasn't
going to pull through like i don't know
if they were trying to convince you so that you would not take it
so hard but it was something they actually believed
because of her condition i i think right well i'll say this i have a love-hate
(26:21):
relationship with doctors i've been surrounded with medical professionals most
of my life a lot of my friends and family are part of the healthcare system.
I mean, Cindy, you know, she was part of the system, right? She was a healthcare worker.
So I, you know...
(26:42):
Going to say that science isn't science sometimes, right? You should take it for what it's worth.
And what happened to us, the sentiment between, if this happens to you,
you know already that you're not going to have one doctor.
(27:02):
You have a series of doctors with different specialties that are on your case.
And everybody has different sentiments. Everybody has different opinions.
Everybody has a different prognosis, you know, but I would tell you that the,
the doctor that was solely responsible in saving Cindy's life also had given
(27:24):
me, given us a poor prognosis to the tune of,
if you know what her, her wishes are,
I think you should respect it.
You know now cindy was unconscious you know she wasn't responsive and she was unconscious for,
(27:46):
40 you know 24 hours 48 hours then 72
hours and you know and so on and
so forth and every day that passed the sentiment got stronger stronger about
you know the likelihood of us seeing any close close resemblance of who she
was was farther than you would realize.
(28:12):
And short of saying she's going to be a vegetable.
It was pretty much saying that the outlook is very grim and you should start
making preparations and plan and talk about what's going to happen and in the next few days.
(28:33):
And this was in the course of maybe a week at the ICU.
So, yeah, and that, and with everything just crumbling,
I was presented, and no one should ever be asked to, you know,
make a decision like that, which is, you know, hey, do you want to,
you know, pull the plug or not?
(28:56):
That's... You know, it's... Mm-hmm. so there
i will also tell everybody who's listening
that there's very logistical details
in every decision you make has a
different result or different option available to you therefore after so you
(29:19):
know so i had to weigh a lot of different things i had to you know i i built
a a team, a close-knit circle of team,
which I called Cindy's Medical Team,
which was comprised of family.
Slash doctors that can help me recruit as much information I can to make a decision
(29:45):
I felt comfortable with, whether it was out of respect, love,
or pure science.
I needed to gather all the information and lay it in front of me to give myself the best,
or give our family the best comfort in knowing
(30:06):
how to move forward so so you
know spoiler alert she's with
us here today for the reason that i made the decision
of fighting through it and really what happened there was i believe it was the
(30:27):
12th day of being unconscious where so anybody who's in a icu.
Knows that the doctors usually round in the morning on a regular basis.
It's routine for them to round and look at the patient and examine them.
On this 12th day, the normal neurosurgeon that performed the operation had a fill-in.
(30:55):
Basically, in his group, he was on call for hospitalist care.
So he had another neurosurgeon in his group that came by to do the rotation.
And so when he examined Cindy, he performed something of a different examination.
He had a good exam. And what that means is that she became responsive to an
(31:18):
examiner who would gently, subtly say, Cindy, can you hear me?
You know, open your eyes or can you do this? But this particular day,
this particular doctor that walked in had a very profound voice,
sharp voice, loud voice.
And he did a sternum rub, which most doctors know that kind of agitates the
(31:42):
patients to kind of stimulate them and said and shouted out, Cindy, open your eyes.
And in that moment, when you've kind of been sleeping for so long,
you see, I saw one of her eyes start to flutter.
(32:02):
It was trying to open, and then it opened up for two, I think it opened maybe
two millimeters, and that was enough when the doctor said, he became responsive and says, is.
Suggest tricking her etc etc she's going to
she's responding and that was the
(32:23):
turning point at that point of time a flicker
of hope i said i'm all in do not
we do what we do to support her let's move let's move
forward that's that's it game game changer
i i don't know what state she's gonna gonna be in but yeah you
know dude that was it that that
(32:45):
is that is wild that that was so deep i was like not breathing the whole time
you were telling me that story because i never knew it you know like we haven't
been able to get to details in this at least i haven't been able to hurt it
because hear it because you know i don't want to pry your private life right Right.
(33:06):
But since you, this podcast is your idea as, as maybe self-therapy, right?
You've been going to a therapist and it sounded like a good idea.
And yeah, I'm, I'm pretty overwhelmed with picturing this that you went through.
I mean, as grieving as you were at the time to see an eye flicker it was that's
(33:30):
that's like so momentous right yeah it was you know a lot of the doctors,
12 days is you know maybe 12 days too long for a lot of people to hold on but
i held on as long long as I could and I can look back and say that at least
(33:54):
I made some right decisions and I fought.
I would tell everybody who's listening, if you have a loved one that is in need of serious care.
I would highly have somebody advocate for them.
(34:16):
We don't i mean yeah you
know you can trust the process you can trust the the i
mean it's the professionals but nothing beats
having an advocate there somebody to be by your
side to advocate to manage your care and that's
what i did for her i was there every step away
i'm well informed in every aspect of just
(34:39):
in all decisions that are being made of where her
condition is and so getting her
there still in bed for
the 12th day to allow for the opportunity for her
to respond in that way was almost
never going to happen if i did
not fight tooth and nail against some
(35:03):
sentiments that thought maybe she was
there too long needed to move her along the the
process and stuff like that so i could i could
almost feel i could almost
feel how much kind of resentment you have
for for you know maybe how laxadaisy or some some doctors go because you it's
(35:25):
the rounds right i mean just hearing that is like that's just my rounds until
you got the one doctor that went went a little extra right maybe he cared.
Well i don't think anybody's really i mean
i think people teen
for them right they don't they don't see
(35:47):
anything exceptional like i hate to
say it but sometimes i feel like i've been through this journey and this process
and this experience for so long been in hospitals and facilities and from one
to the other for a good year where you know i think that everybody has has the
credentials to do what they need to do.
(36:07):
But not everybody does it the same way. And it's routine in the sense that... Routine, yeah.
Sometimes I suspect you might get desensitized by the person that's on the bed, hospital bed.
And so you're just thinking of them as, you know, another patient.
(36:28):
And you do the best that you can, you know. but buddy who no you you would want.
Out of and i get it
you know that are you know everybody you're not
i mean you know my wife sydney
she's special to me but is she special to everyone else
(36:49):
probably not right everybody else in every one of those rooms has a special
circumstance that they're in the person the every day every morning every night
that i walk through the halls of
the icu to get from one room to the other room to get to my wife's room.
Everybody had their own problems. And so every doctor that walked in there,
(37:13):
you know, probably just looked at it as a math problem, right?
Because there you're suffering from. So I just think that you can do.
Even your mom's going to go buy a car. If you were by her side advocating for her,
then, you know, not that you don't trust the salesman or
you don't trust the doctor i think that you nobody takes
(37:35):
care of of yourself better
or any loved one better than yourself and in
cases like this and you'll i have many many other stories where if i was not
advocating for cindy then i have seen i have examples of you know of some unfortunate
(37:56):
things that have lapsed or happened to my wife while,
you know, outside of my purview.
And so it is, it is.
Now, if it was too personal or maybe you just don't want to share the story,
but do you have the instances where there was lapses of her care?
(38:18):
Yeah, there was. I mean.
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