Brochacho

Last night I had a fantastic time watching my brother and some other family members from one district play a softball game against another district in the metropolitan area where they work. My bro is one of those guys who had the potential to play professional baseball but just didn't want to. Anyway, it was a great time, but had a scary few minutes. Bro was running to third base and knew he was going to mow over the third baseman, so he jumped to go over him. As bro jumped, the guy started to stand up which then launched my bro about five feet in the air. He promptly landed on his right side and I watched in horror as the side of his head literally bounced off the dirt. He lay there writhing for a minute and all the police there started to gather around him.

I am a very overprotective LITTLE sister. It took everything in me to NOT run out to the field and lift him up like Shera and take him back to the dugout. It was rough watching, but then all the guys scooped him up and put him back on his feet. My bro, the nice guy he is, just laughed and waved to everyone and said he was fine, only his pride was hurt.

It made me think back to September 30, 1999. He was then 23 years old. One night at 3am my phone rang. And yes, this is back in the day before I had a cell phone or caller id. This is back when, if the phone rang that time of night, you knew something was wrong.

Bro called and sounded concerned because he woke up to some really bad chest pain. I asked him for the details (I was in nursing school at the time) and decided I should come pick him up and take him to get checked out. I drove like an idiot to get to him, scooped him up curbside and drove 90+ to the hospital while trying to watch him but not crash at the same time.

I squealed up the ER doors, practically carried him over my shoulder into the ER and they hooked him up and did an EKG and some labs immediately. He was awake and talking to me, actually laughing about how the ER Doc had the same last name as one of the Simspons characters.. (go figure).

The Doc came in a minute or two later and as we were giggling about how this would probably turn out to be bad gas, the Doc said very abruptly, "You're having a heart attack right NOW".

The giggling stopped. NO.FREAKING.WAY. He was 23 years old and the poster child for healthy living. Worked out 5 days a week, ate healthy, etc.

Doc said the things he had going against him were being male and smoking cigarettes. Anyway, long story short, I vaguely remember walking next to him as they wheeled him up to the coronary care unit and the next day they did a cardiac cath on him. I was so terrified for him.

Turned out there was about 5-6% damage to his heart and the Doc said if he quit smoking and maintained a healthy lifestyle that it would probably never effect him. I breathed the hugest sigh of relief. I couldn't leave his side until he was released a week or so later.

That was eleven years ago. Even though he is a big tough Policeman now, I still can't help but worry like crazy about him whenever something happens. When he made it back to the dugout I gave him two ibuprofen, a bottle of water and a towel to wipe off the dirt with.

I am SO thankful he was ok. I watched him like a hawk for the rest of the game and then called him later on to make sure he was ok.

He's my Brochacho. I love him. (sigh)