Update

Last week was ridiculously emotional for me. It started out on a very high note. On Monday, after 39 hours of labor, my sister had her baby! It is a boy and his name is Nolan. He is probably one of the most adorable newborns I’ve ever seen — usually they’re all wrinkly and sort of odd looking but he’s just so beautiful. I absolutely cannot wait to go home and meet him. Last night my brother in law face-timed me and I got to see tiny little face in action. Sort of. He was kind of sleeping. Added bonus: I got to see my sister, mother, and brother in law. So being a first time aunt was phenomenal.

Tuesday started the steep decline. M (the co-worker I asked for positive vibes for about a year ago after he had a heart attack) was transported to a heart center in another city after being in the hospital here for a few weeks. He was transported to begin testing for a heart transplant. On Tuesday M (his wife) told me his doctor’s had called and that he had deteriorated and that she needed to be there the next day so that his medical team could talk to her — that they needed to decide whether he would be a candidate for an L-VAD implant while he waited for a transplant (because it was looking like he would not survive the wait without some help). I drove her there Wednesday morning and she met with the doctors — at this point they said he would either have to get the L-VAD implanted or he would have to undergo an emergency transplant (somehow he would be elevated to the top of the list and have the opportunity for the transplant in a relatively short period of time). She wanted to leave and come back here before they were done with their meeting, so we did. We both had experiments to deal with when we came back, and the doctors called while she was still in the lab with me. They decided his condition was too weak and he would not be able to survive any kind of surgery. He had between 24-48 hours left.

She didn’t want me to drive her back that night, so we waited until the next day. Their daughter flew in (and her flight got delayed.) and I picked her up and drove both of them down there on Thursday. He passed away on Friday afternoon. My PI drove down there and picked them up afterwards. I cannot imagine how M is feeling. He was really all she had here. A few weeks ago she had invited me to their house and she proudly showed me M’s father’s paintings (he was apparently a professor of art in Russia), and M’s paintings. They were beautiful. We sat at their kitchen table and had a small glass of wine and she told me the first time she and M had that kind of wine was on their wedding day, 32 years ago. Their anniversary is/was coming up.

M was a wonderful person, a good friend, and an excellent mentor (even if he technically wasn’t who paid me). He taught me so much of what i know. Even if he wasn’t always the clearest person to explain things, he still did it. He was always willing to help — and his enthusiasm about doing science is truly a rare thing. He didn’t care about funding, other than he needed it to do what he was doing, he wanted to do experiments because what we were doing fascinated him. He was funny, and he always had a passion about whatever it was he was doing — whether it was talking about food or where phallotoxins came from. ("Sarah. They come from toad poop! The paper said it comes from toadstools!!" He still thought it was hilarious when I corrected him and told him toadstool is another word for mushroom in English). It doesn’t seem fair that such a great person is gone. 

Oh, there are the tears I’ve been holding in.