Where Daddy Go?
Yesterday as I opened up the door to Mikey’s classroom at daycare I see Mikey running towards me asking “Where Daddy Go?” In this whine. Almost as if daddy was right there and now he’s gone. I told him that he knew where daddy was, that he was in the sky with the stars and the moon. And he said “NO!” because he full on knew that what I was telling him was a lie. Then he proceeded with the whine again “Where Daddy Go Mommy? Where Daddy Go?” All I could answer was with a “Please don’t ask me this”. That’s all I could think of. How am I supposed to explain to a 2 year old that his daddy is gone for good and isn’t coming back. He has no idea what death is at this age, but he does realize that his daddy is gone and hearing him whine asking for his daddy just breaks my heart.
When are you guys trying for #2????
Ummmm yeah that’s the question I got today from my ob/gyn. I had the pleasure of going in for my yearly visit. Little did she know that since the last time she saw me my husband was officially diagnosed with lymphoma, underwent chemo, got pneumonia and D-I-E-D. My doctor walked into my room and flat out asked “When are you guys trying for #2?” Ummmm yeah my response “Well not for a long while”. And then I proceeded to explain why. As I retold the horror story that is my widow-hood I got all choked up. As if waiting in a waiting room full of pregnant women with their significant others wasn’t hurtful enough for me I get that question. I love my doctor and I don’t hold anything against her. She’s not psychic so how would she know really? But still that just burns.
Last words forever by my heart
Over the weekend my mom decided to go to the mall to look for something that could be engraved with the last words I heard Gary ever say “My wife, I love her”. Well she found the most perfect heart charm and got it engraved immediately. It’s not quite my style but I could care less because it means the world to me to just have those 5 words with me at all times.
Those are 5 words I’ll never forget. I can picture him saying it and I hear him in my head. Just wish I could hear it again just one more time.
Somehow moving on
Yesterday was by far the LONGEST day ever. I was so glad for it to be over. We had lots of very sad moments, one of the most touching was the moment when I got home and told our dog, Max, that his daddy was gone. He sat there and tried to comfort me like he understood. He’s been super depressed and later last night I sat on the floor with him (he’s a golden retriever if you haven’t met him) and he cried and cried. I’ve heard him whimper before but this was a dog sobbing. It broke my heart. I told him that I promised to take care of him just like his daddy would want me to. And to not worry because he’s in good hands.
Then probably the saddest moment was when we arrived at my parents house because they refused to have me, Gary’s mom, Mikey, and Max stay alone at our house. Well Mikey all of a sudden got really sad. He just wanted to be held and at one point just started crying. I don’t think he understands what happened but he sees the sadness. You can’t help but crack a smile though when your little 2 year old tells you to “Don’t cry mommy”. He’s the one that will keep me going. I told Gary that I will make him proud of his little man. Mikey will know how great of a person Gary was and how many lives he has touched.
Today we went with one of Gary’s coworkers, Amanda, to the funeral home that we liked to finalize everything. Here are the details just in case anyone wants to come, everyone is welcome:
Location: Boyd Panciera
6400 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, FL 33024
#954-983-6400
Date: Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
Public Visitation: 2-4pm and 6-9pm
Service: 7:30pm
In lieu of flowers the family would prefer a donation in honor of Gary T. Zullo to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Here’s the link with info on online and mail-in donations. Donate Here
For mail in donations you can mail it to:
Leukemia and Lymphoma Society
Two Oakwood Blvd.
Suite 200
Hollywood, FL 33020
Thank you all for your support. Gary was very blessed to have everyone care so much about him.
RIP my sweet Gary
This morning I got the call I was afraid of. My alarm was going off like it had every other weekday morning. I hit snooze seeing that the phone hadn’t rung and all was good for me to sleep a few more minutes. Then at 6:20 my phone rang and I woke up with my heart pounding. I picked it up and it was the hospital, no surprise there. They told me to come immediately and I did. I got there within 5 minutes and they were performing CPR on him. The ER doctor came out to tell me what they were doing and told me that they were going to try for 20 more minutes because they could only do it for 30 minutes.
At 7:10am (twenty minutes later) the doctor came back out and I knew what they were going to say. My husband and best friend was gone. He put up one hell of a fight, but now as he had always feared I’m left picking up the pieces.
My heart is aching, and the only reason why I’m even bothering with a blog post is because I know there were so many friends pulling for him to come out of this healthy.
Are we ready for 2010??
I sit here typing this on my phone while celebrating New Years Eve in Gary’s room at the ICU. Such happening accomodations. My original plan was to stay until midnight so that we were together but with his oxygen so low I’m so afraid to leave him because I’m scared to see tomorrow morning’s number.
All night I’ve hoped his oxygen numbers would go back up to the 90′s but it hasn’t. It goes between 81 and 85 (if I’m lucky).
I cannot beleive we are a little over an hour away from ringing in 2010 and my poor Gary has no clue 
This is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through. I don’t care if it’s New Years Eve. I just want him healthy. I just want him to live to see Mikey graduate and get married and make us grandparents. Is that too much to ask for?
We’ve been through a lot in 2009. I never imagined we’d end it like this.
A crappy New Years Eve
UGHHHHHHHHHHH I knew going into this that it was a day by day type of thing and at times hour by hour. But still nothing sucks more than having your loved one in icu basically in a medically induced coma on New Years Eve. As crappy as today was just because of the holiday it really turned to shit from the moment I got to the hospital. Gary’s oxygen levels were in the 80s ALL day. That’s with the machine giving him 100% oxygen saturation.
I learned from the oncologists’s physician assistant that he’s got a fungal infection in his lungs called Aspergillosis. The test just came back positive for it so they started treating it immediately. How he got it no one knows but it obviously does affect those with weakened immune systems and it can be deadly (go figure right?).
I’m at home trying to have some bonding time with our little man while Gary’s mom takes over hospital duty. I’m so thankful for Mikey. He somehow manages to bring a smile to my face even though I feel like my insides are falling apart. All I want is for his daddy to come home.
Today is just one of those days that I’m really hoping we get to tomorrow. It’ll be huge if we do because tomorrow will be the beginning of a brand new year too. It’s GOTTA be better than 2009, right?!?!?!?!
A good day :)
Last night I left Gary with his oxygen level around 95. I was happy with that. I went home and didn’t even bother to turn on my laptop because I was BEAT. I was so tired that as soon as my head hit the pillow I passed out. No need for an anti-anxiety pill for sure. I went in this morning and like I do every morning as I get out of the elevator I do a good number chant. As I get out the nurse manager is actually walking towards the elevator and he tells me that he’s holding on at 98! I walk super fast to get to him and low and behold he was holding on at 98 and I finally got to witness with my own eyes his oxygen reaching 100! That is HUGE!!!! I knew it was going to be a good day. And it sorta was.
I learned that early this morning, around 2am, they were able to take him off of one of his blood pressure meds. He was holding in the 90s without it. Once I got there they started talking about reducing the oxygen saturation on the ventilator. I was anxious to see how he’d do. Within an hour he went from an oxygen sat of 100 down to 75, while maintaining his oxygen level at 95. He started having some trouble so they bumped it up to 80, then 85, and finally 90. But this is expected. Most patients end up requiring this after the first drop. I’ll be happy if I get in tomorrow morning and he’s still holding in the 90s with his oxygen sat at 90%. And if it is at 100% then so be it, we’ll get him back down again.
Today Gary got some fancy footwear to wear in bed. He apparently is so swollen and is retaining so much fluid that he has blisters forming on his feet. So he has these socks and then boots that pad his feet so that the blisters don’t burst and he hopefully doesn’t get new blisters to turn up.
His nephrologist was happy about the dialysis. His kidneys are still not working and he doesn’t expect them to until his blood pressure increases. His pulmonologist was happy with today’s progress to. He also said that his chest x-ray was starting to look better, so we can only hope that he has made that turn for the better. He may need to be on the vent for another week or so, but I’ll take that if it means that Gary will overcome this really bad hiccup in his health.
Probably one of the highlights of my day was getting an email with this pic:
This is a pic of the “blood bank” created at the company that Gary works for (Ultimate Software). As soon as they heard that his platelets were low and that you could donate in his name they jumped at getting the blood mobile to come out and they created stations in a conference room for people to donate their platelets for Gary. There were apparently a number of individuals that were not eligible to donate platelets so they ended up getting the actual van out so that they could at least donate whole blood. Even though Gary doesn’t need whole blood they could always strip platelets from that or just give it to someone that does need whole blood. Regardless it was the most amazing email to see come in. As soon as I got it I told Gary about it. I can’t wait to show him the pic. He is NOT going to believe it one bit, but we’ve got proof 
I wanted to thank all of the visitors we’ve had, those that have come to either bring me food or take me out of the hospital to get food, those that have sent me emails and those that just follow my blog for the Gary updates. It is amazing to know that we have soooooooooo many people pulling for him. I know he doesn’t expect in a million years the number of people that are rooting for him to pull through this, but it is the most touching thing ever. I cannot wait to tell him about all of this, he is going to be floored! 
He’s still kickin
Last night I was so beat that I chose to not turn my laptop on to type up a blog post regarding how Gary did yesterday. So sorry if you’ve been waiting for an update. He’s still holding on!
Last night he maintained an oxygen level in the 90s and this morning I came in seeing it start at 98 and even go to 100 a few times
Because he’s doing so well they started reducing his oxygen saturation. Within an hour he went from 100 to 75% and his oxygen levels are still in the 90s!
Clearly Gary is one hell of a fighter!!!
And the rollercoaster begins
Yesterday was a good day so that means by default today would be a bad day right? Right! It started off with me arriving and being told that they want to paralyze Gary so that the machine will take over all of his breathing because even with being sooooooo sedated he was still fighting the machine. Then I noticed his hands were swelling and I couldn’t get his wedding band off. Which meant the inevitable. They had to cut the wedding band that I placed on his hand 5 years ago off. Thankfully I wasn’t in the room when they did it but just knowing they had to do it brought me to tears.
I also broke down when his phone rang and it was his oncologist’s secretary calling to remind him of tomorrow’s appointment. Sadly he would not be there. I started crying because instead he is in icu fighting for his life. Something NO one expected. We did get a bit of good news today. His ommaya tap came back clear for infection AND lymphoma. So the delusions were not caused by anything in his CSF. Also his kidney doc was happy to see some of his numbers go down. They are practically normal, he just now needs to pick up his urination.
Right now we are living hour to hour, day to day. As his current oncologist said today, the hardest part of pneumonia in a cancer patient is the first 48 hours because that’s when its the most critical. He said that if he’s talking to me again in 72 hours that means Gary is improving. I sure hope I get to see him on Thursday.
More importantly tonight I hope for NO phone calls. I haven’t had any yet but the time when I’m at home scares me to death because its the only time I’m away from Gary. I would never forgive myself if something were to happen to him if I was away. I know he understands that I need to go home and rest. I wouldn’t expect him to stay all day and night at the hospital if the roles were reversed, but still, you have that guilt.
Till tomorrow!
A recent widow and single mom doing my best to survive on my own.
Last year I told Gary that I'd raise $1k at the 2010 walk, please help me reach my goal. This year Gary is one of the Honored Heroes for the walk so its even extra special to me. :) Just click on the Sponsor Me image to be taken to my fundraising page. Thank you!!!
Help me get to my 1st Half Marathon in Walt Disney World where I will run in memory of Gary :)
