on may 1st, 2022 at almost three in the morning i got a text that my brother went into cardiogenic shock. before i had much time to respond my phone started ringing. a woman began speaking very quickly about what had happened and what needed to be done. there were details of an invasive surgery mixed with medical terms i had to pretend to understand. i was in a daze. she talked about the possibility of amputating his right leg and i began to snap out of it. the call ended abruptly with the assurance that they were going to do everything they could to save his life. that's when the severity of what was happening finally began to sink in.
immediately i began to pray. i didn't know what else to do. i wish i didn't feel so embarrassed admitting that, or that there weren't any weird connotations attached to it, but that's what happened. i prayed for four hours without stopping, repeating affirmations that he would survive and that i would still have a brother the next time my phone rang. that was the most that i could do in the moment. the doctors, capable of so much more, worked meticulously through the early morning.
i finally got the call that he had survived. a victory that felt so enormous, but taken away too quickly as the doctor continued to talk. she spoke carefully but bluntly about what i should expect moving forward. it was only then i realized that, through all the confusion and fear, i hadn't fully understood what the procedure was even for. they had successfully put him on full life support.
i didn't know anything about cardiogenic shock at the time. i had never even heard the term before. well, i know a bit more about it now, and in layman's terms; if we imagine cardiac arrest as the heart suddenly stopping, cardiogenic shock is when it… slowwwwss. it weakens to the point that it can't keep the body alive. to further simplify things to the point that i'm almost certainly getting them wrong, there's also something called an "ejection fraction" that measures how well a heart is pumping blood through the body. a normal ejection fraction is anywhere between 50% to 70%. my brothers was only 15% when going into the hospital, and after going into shock it dropped to just 3%.
and that's where he was after his procedure. with the state of his heart being, as his team put it, non-functioning. kept alive entirely by three separate machines.
i hated having calls with his team. i hated it so fucking much. a couple of them were notably more optimistic than everyone else and i clung onto them tightly as a lifeline. the rest delivered bad news in such a slow and somber manner that it made me physically sick. and i know it wasn't their fault, i knew it even then. what choice did they have when confronted with a panicking family member and no good news to give him? the best they could offer me was a sorrowful tone and the assurance that they were giving him a fighting chance. and still, i hated it. i hated hearing that. more than anything, i think i mostly just hated myself for not being there. i hated hearing it all through a zoom call.
it was the same when losing dad. i don't really talk about it openly because of just how ashamed i am of it, but that's the truth. i could not bring myself to visit my father in the hospital when he got sick. it's such an ugly and horrible truth, so ugly and shameful that i mostly try not to remember it. how i begged him to let me call the paramedics to come help. how quickly they arrived. or, more than anything, how alone i felt standing in the road as i watched the ambulance pull away and eventually disappear to somewhere my mind told me that i couldn't go. sometimes i dream about an alternate reality where i chase after it as fast as i can. running toward it, waving my arms and trying to stop it. i don't always catch up, i think sometimes just running toward it is enough. anything but just standing there. but that's what i did, i just stood there. the ambulance took him away, and turned the corner, and that was it. i never saw my dad again.
the sickness in my brain has taken a lot from me. but that, by a painful and significant margin, is the worst. it's a hand dealt so unfairly that it doesn't feel real to me. it is the most i have ever been robbed of something and i still struggle with it very much every day.
i spent the majority of may on the phone with doctors and family, doing everything i could despite everything i couldn't. i was responsible for making medical decisions when my brother was incapacitated, so aside from the daily updates the hospital also called anytime they needed consent of any type. from blood transfusions to a heartbreaking DNR order. it was a difficult role that i was happy to play, if just to combat the guilt of not being there. to feel like i was playing a role at all. to feel useful.
he was allowed two guests per day and i did my best to make sure there was someone with him whenever we could manage. his girlfriend at the time was there most days, so was the mother of his first child. and billie, being the amazing wife that she is, went to the hospital frequently to see him physically and give me updates. my sister even flew down for a week and stayed with us. getting to see her was an enormous blessing. we kept it together pretty well around each other and even managed to have some fun while she was here. the house felt full of love even though, every day, i was very afraid.
throughout the month my brother saw many ups and downs, fighting battles he doesn't remember as his team of doctors continued adjusting his machine and monitoring the results like a delicate game of chess. they told me repeatedly that we just have to take it day by day, and that's what we did. through every procedure with an uncertain outcome. through a persistent infection that wouldn't clear, alongside a fever that wouldn't break. or, my least favorite, through the stillness of a day that didn't bring any update at all. the moments between each call were a strange but terrifying calmness.
sometimes i would sit and close my eyes, and my heartbeat would feel like waves lapping against my chest. the feeling of it sloshing around inside me made me sick. and still, through the sickness i waited. or distracted myself. or prayed.
one distraction i used was video games. we plugged in billie's childhood playstation and i found myself sitting for hours in front of it playing games my brother and i used to play together as kids. transfixed on the screen, refusing to look away, allowing the sounds and images to transport me to a different time. eventually i began speaking to him like he was beside me, and with tears streaming down my face i begged him not to leave me here alone. i'd tell him that i loved him, and most of all, that i was sorry.
i haven't gotten into it yet, but the reason my brother was in the hospital was because of alcohol and drug abuse. it was a problem that he was able to manage for years until our dad passed. that was his breaking point.
you see, while it's true that i wasn't able to be there with our dad, my brother was there with him every day. he held his hand and made every difficult decision thrown at him by a very negligent hospital staff. i don't say that lightly, either. these people were truly awful. on one occasion a nurse was explaining to my brother that our father had no brain activity, then to illustrate his point he slapped our dads forehead. my brother completely lost it. he leapt at the nurse and managed to pin him against the wall before other staff rushed in and kicked him out for the day.
when our dad passed away it affected us both so deeply, but i didn't immediately realize just how differently it ate away at him. it took him some time to admit to me even some of the horrors he had to endure. like how different and unfamiliar the medication made my father's hands feel as he held them, or the visceral way he gasped for his final breaths. or that my brother now drank himself to sleep every night to fight off the night terrors. he stood in front of that trauma like a bullet aimed right at me, and he did it without even considering anything else because protecting people has always been his number one priority. that makes him, to me, one of the strongest and courageous people i have ever met. he is a hero to me regardless of how he dealt with the ramifications of his bravery.
after years of trying to help him and failing i became frustrated. my own problems got in the way and i lost sight of everything i had learned about addiction. i was stressed out and overwhelmed and i only saw his behavior as selfish. i begged him to go back to detox. i told him i would pay for it all again.
"nooo no no. i'm not letting you spend that money." he said.
"it's totally fine," i told him. "i want to pay. the money doesn't mea—"
"no no no no." he cut me off.
back and forth i went with him. pushing against slurred speech, trying to get to the end of a sentence. back to promising that i don't care about money, only to be repeatedly cut short.
he interrupted again. "do you know how much all that shit costs?"
"oh, like you give a fuck," i finally snapped back.
"you think i'm an idiot?"
i started speaking louder.
"every month it's another thousand dollars that you swear you'll pay me back and you want me to suddenly believe you give a fuck about my bank account?"
now i'm shouting.
"i'm twenty grand in the hole just from picking up these stupid fucking phone calls!"
it all started coming out at once. i began to unload all of my frustrations onto him. pointing out every flaw, every shortcoming. every misguided, unfair thing you can say to someone struggling with addiction. finally, i told him that i didn't want him in my life unless he was sober and hung up the phone. he still tried calling every day, leaving me voicemails, trying to see how i was. it was only weeks after that his heart failed.
every day he was in the hospital i was sick with guilt. i couldn't bear the thought of losing him after shutting him out and telling him such awful things.
one night while waiting for an update i logged into facebook. why not, right? neither of us had used facebook in years, but there it existed as a time capsule. i started reading an old, forgotten conversation he and i had about ten years prior. i was in my early twenties and feeling insecure about my music, questioning if it was even worth releasing on vinyl. it was such an investment, and i was making so little money at the time. he told me with so much confidence and clarity that i needed to. that people will buy my record because my music is incredible and it speaks to people.
i hated myself for not remembering that conversation because i knew that he definitely remembered it. he had always been such a big supporter of my art, and even during his lowest points, it's all he talked about. i've heard it from so many of his friends. he could be in a dilapidated house with perfect strangers, he'd tell them about who i was and how proud he was of me. i get very emotional thinking about that. the idea that even when his life wasn't going well he still managed to pull joy from the idea that mine was.
i think there's something very beautiful in that escapism, i just hope that he didn't feel too alone when he was out there. or maybe, while he floated there in the ether, i'm grateful of how often he thought of me. because god knows i was thinking of him.
"get through the day
to the other side
to another night
and when you run away
do you close your eyes
and pretend to fly"
i don't like talking about it even now because of how genuinely bad it all makes me feel. just know that, throughout all of may, all i could think about was how much i needed him to survive.
on may 21st billie went to see him. the updates from the hospital hadn't been great lately. he was still fighting that infection, things seemed to be at a stand still, and i really wanted her to talk to a doctor in person. i was already anxious when she left and i quickly realized that she hadn't responded to any of my texts since arriving. twenty minutes passed, then a half hour. i was worried. something must have happened. "this is it," i kept telling myself. this has got to be the bad update i had been prepping myself for all month. suddenly she calls and my heart sinks. she pauses for a few seconds then says, "hun… he's awake."
the next hour is a whirlwind, with doctors coming in and asking him to blink and nod. they tell us that his infection finally cleared and that they want to try extubating him right away. bam! more doctors and specialists come in. some are congratulating him and asking if he's ready for his "graduation", a cute term i now know they use when someone is coming off of a ventilator. another doctor is letting billie know the risks of extubation, explaining that for every day someone spends on a ventilator, it takes them at least a week to bounce back. my brother had been on a ventilator for over three weeks.
before i know it they were counting down and encouraging him to cough as much as he can the moment the tube is out. they tell him that it'll feel wrong to breathe on his own at first but to push through it. i can barely understand what's happening over the phone, it's just scattered voices talking over one another. then suddenly… i hear coughing. more scattered voices, then more coughing. i'm trying my hardest to decipher what people are saying, or at least the tone that they're saying it in. finally billie's voice cuts through and tells me that he's breathing on his own. i immediately burst into tears.
"jonny! can he hear me? jonny!" i shouted. "i love you, man! can he fucking hear me?"
i could barely speak. i was hysterical, pacing my bedroom and repeating myself. "it's mitch, man! i love you. fuck, can he really hear me? somebody tell him i love him!"
i repeated it over and over again. "i love you. i love you, man. i fucking love you."
then, in the softest, most broken whisper, i hear my brother say, "i love you, dawg."
on friday, may 27th, my brother came home. he called and told me they were letting him leave as long as he had a safe place to go. and, even though i wasn't expecting it to happen that day, i immediately agreed and got to work. we had just hours to prepare a room for him. i was ecstatic. we set up a bed, got a tv, a water cooler and mini fridge so he didn't have to walk upstairs. it's hard to describe the joy that i felt as i ran around that room. i didn't want to stop moving. it felt like everything we placed brought us closer to a reality where he was there in the room with us. suddenly my phone vibrated and that was it, he was standing in my driveway. it felt like i was in a dream, but there he was. 100 pounds and shaking. propping himself up on a hospital walker, wearing a medium sleep shirt that used to fit him. he asked me how he looked. i laughed and told him, "pretty fuckin' rough."
we hugged, and i brought him inside.
please believe me when i say that this next part is written with so much love, and with so much pure hearted honesty, and that not a single bit of it is meant with any sort of evangelical intention. but god is good and praying helped me. whether or not it helped my brother is up to you, but i'm letting you know that it helped me so much. i feel it everyday. i feel it when i hear my nieces downstairs wrestling with their dad. i'm not attempting to convince you of anything. i'm just acknowledging that, for the rest of my life, i am happily indebted to something much larger than myself. something i've always felt. whatever that may be.
i don't know. i don't exactly know what to call it or how to put it into words. i honestly don't even know why i'm trying to. all i know is that i feel more awake and clear headed than ever. and more willing to tell people that i love them because i really do. i love jonny, and billie, and all of our friends and family. i love the people who reached out online and told me they were praying along with me, and the doctors who kept him alive. i love you for listening to my music and reading this blog. it means everything to me.
since everything happened a lot has changed. jonny quickly got his strength back but i always kind of knew he would. he's sober, on heart medication, and making great improvement. the doctors call it a miracle. billie helped me file for an s-corp so that all three of us can use flatsound to pay ourselves a salary. jonny now fills all the orders in the flatsound shop. we got a real family business going here.
throughout the years, from the moment i was able to, i've always used the earnings from flatsound for such helpful things in my life. those things have only grown more impactful with time. from finally having enough money to go to therapy to taking care of my dad during the last years of his life, and now this. this music project has given me so much, and it is one of the many honors of my life to know that it has helped you in any way. it's helped me, too.
thank you for reading all of this and, one more time, i love you. thank you.
