6 Minutes Wrestling with Life

Every Breath Is Gold

What every long shot,
Come from behind underdog
Will tell you is this,
The other guy may in fact be the favorite,
The odds may be stacked against you,
Fair enough.

But what the odds don't know is
This isn't a math test.
This is a completely different kind of test.
One where PASSION
Has a funny way of trumping logic.

No matter what the stats may say,
And the experts may think,
And the commentators may have predicted,
When the race is on all bets are off.

Versus Commercial

August 22nd, 2009

When you Google brain injuries you will quickly learn the grim statistics: a patient has 28 days to recover from the initial injury or their chances of a full recovery drop to less than 1%.

I immediately take inventory of the situation and my mind quickly translates it into a sports metaphor; that is just how my brain operates.

"I have just been sacked at my own 1 Yard line. There are 28 seconds on the clock and we are down by 8."

"Down by 8?" I ask myself.

"Yes, Down by 8." I answer.

"Ok, ok – down by 8." I accept the challenge and immediately start putting a plan into action...

"What we need to do is to go into our two-minute offense, drive 99 yards for a touchdown and then convert a two-point conversion to put the game into overtime, and win it there." The thought goes through my mind as if I were the quarterback in the huddle giving out instructions to myself on how I was going to take my daughter from a 1% chance of survival back up to a 100% chance again.

"Doug Flutie did it – right?" I say to myself.

"Why can't I?"

My mind immediately replays the ending of the infamous 1984 game in my head. I have watched this video more than a hundred times over the years.

"Here we go... here's your ballgame folks."

"The ballgame is on the line. Flutie and Boston College are on the 50 yard line with :06 to go, down by four."

"Three wide receivers out to the right..."

"Flutie takes the snap. He drops straight back, has some time, now he scrambles away from one hit, looks, uncorks a deep one to the end zone, as :00 seconds flashes on the screen.

Phelan is down there.

Ohhh he got it, did he get it?

He got it.

TOUCHDOWN! TOUCHDOWN! TOUCHDOWN! TOUCHDOWN Boston College.

He did it!

He did it!

Flutie did it – he hit Phelan in the end zone.

I don't believe it!

Oh my Goodness. What a play – Flutie to Phelan for 48 yards with no time on the clock.

Boston College wins 47-45," Dan Davis the announcer says.

I remember seeing an interview with Gerard Phelan, the Boston College wide receiver who caught the winning Hail Mary pass thrown by Doug Flutie.

I remember him saying, "When we were in the huddle, I don't think if you asked anybody they would have said this game is over. I think if you would have asked everybody they would have said,

"Hey, wait a minute – we got another play. We got another chance to score a touchdown. And everybody went to work."

This is exactly what I am going to do.

There is still time on the clock.

I'm going to fight.

I'm going to win.

As soon as I got to the end of my mental imagery of the whole Boston College football team swarming Gerard Phelan in the end zone, I am brought back to reality when Jess's Neurologist summons me,

"Mr. Passaro, may I speak with you for a second?"

He has Jess's CT Scan results in his hands.

I walk over to him.

He extends his right hand out and invites me to shake hands.

I accept.

He extends the shake and puts his left hand on my forearm for affect.

A few seconds go by.

He is still gripping my hand.

The shake is no longer a shake, but rather a brace, as he holds onto my arm and says,

"Mr. Passaro, have you ever heard of Karen Ann Quinlan?"

I immediately, and not very politely, remove my hand from his grip, just like George Bailey did when he almost made a deal with Potter in "It's a Wonderful Life."

"Yes I have."

"Well, Mr. Passaro, I am sorry to inform you that I have reviewed your daughters CT Scan and she has no brain activity, just like in the Karen Ann Quinlan case. At this time, I want you to start thinking about the quality of her life."

"What do you mean – "Start thinking about the quality of her life?"

I slowly and reluctantly inquire.

"Well, Mr. Passaro, she can stay attached to those machines in there for a long time. Would you really want that?"

He said this, as he nudged his head in the direction of my daughter's ICU room where Jess has so many tubes attached to her I could barely recognize her.

"Doctor, I believe it is my job to fight for my daughter's survival, not prepare for her death. Isn't that what I, as her father, am supposed to do? Isn't that what you would do?"

"I don't agree, Mr. Passaro, I believe you should really consider the quality of life your daughter will have, and prepare yourself to make some very difficult decisions."

I look into Jess's room; I see numbers flashing on my daughter's machine screens, and I think to myself,

"There is time for another play."

Beaten up and battered, I walk back into my daughter's ICU room and in frustration, I walk up to Jess's bed and I say to my daughter,

"Jess, if you don't start moving pretty soon I am going to check your body for tattoos!" She knew I was not a fan of tattoos, especially ones that may be on her body.

The numbers on Jessica's computer monitor, which monitored her heart rate, start increasing.

128

142

156

166

"Does anyone see that?" I ask.

"I guess she doesn't want you to know." The nurse says as she is bending over putting some supplies in a cabinet.

"Know what?" I reply.

"That she has tattoos," she says as she moves towards Jess.

"I saw them when I was changing her. You see, here they are," she says as she picks up Jess's hospital gown to show me.

"The first one on her left side is of a beautiful owl."

"And the second one..." she starts to say.

"The second one?" I disbelievingly utter.

"Yes, the second one is some writing under her right breast over here."

And there it was, my answer to any internal conflict of whether or not I was doing the right thing by fighting for Jess's life.

There on Jess's ribs were the words,

"Every Breath is Gold."

It is time to find my Gerard Phelan in the end zone.