Montgomery was diagnosed in 2016 with epilepsy. Doctors never did find out exactly what caused the epilepsy in the first place. Even more weird is that I also have epilepsy. But, mine is from a head injury. He never had anything like that. I’m only mentioning that because I know what it feels like when he has a seizure.
Since his diagnosis in 2016 he has had at least 1 seizure every 3 months. 2018 was, by far, the worst year for the most seizures he would have. That year, he could only go a few weeks between each one. His last seizure this year was 4/16. He hadn’t had one since, until “that day”.
Quick background. My ex (Daniel) & I were married for 20 years before divorcing. Our son lived with Daniel because his 2 best friends lived in the neighborhood. In fact, one lived directly across the street (Josh) and the other one (Louie) lived on the street behind him. They were called the “Three Stooges”. They have all been best friends since elementary school. That’s why I couldn’t ask him to come live with me after the divorce. He already had so much taken from him because of the epilepsy, I just couldn’t do that to him. He never learned to drive, have a girlfriend, have a first kiss, stay in high school with his friends. He had to attend a different school that could meet his medical needs. Which he did. He started off the 2019/2020 school year as a junior. He worked hard that whole year. Enough that he was able to graduate this past May 2020. He was very proud of that. As he should have been.
Back to “that day“.
On 9/4, Montgomery, Daniel, Candice (stepmother), & Lance (stepbrother) were all getting ready to leave for Daniel’s family reunion. Montgomery had gone into his room around 3 PM. He told Daniel that he was going to play video games until they were ready to leave. Daniel said they should be ready to leave in about an hour and that’s why he noticed the time. When they were finished loading the vehicle, Daniel went in to Montgomery‘s room to get him to leave (4:15pm). Daniel found Montgomery unresponsive. He was completely faced down. From his face to his feet. Daniel went to him and found that he was not breathing & had no pulse. Daniel has been a police officer for 22 years. He knew how to find a pulse and he knew how to preform CPR correctly. Enough that he knew he wouldn’t be able to continue CPR until the paramedics arrived. He told Lance to go across the street and get Josh’s Dad (Abe) to take over CPR when Daniel couldn’t go on. Which he did. Abe was doing CPR when the paramedics arrived. The paramedics were able to get a pulse back with a round of epinephrine. During transport they lost his pulse 2 more times. This time they had to give him 2 rounds of epinephrine to get his pulse back. When he arrived at Shannon (San Angelo, TX/our city) he was hardly breathing. They had to immediately put him on a ventilator. Once that was done, then they could determine what was going on with him. As it turns out he was having continuous seizures that was not stopping. Unfortunately, Shannon does not have sophisticated enough machines to make any further diagnosis of his condition. The doctor’s wanted to fly him to San Antonio. But he was to unstable that evening to even attempt a flight. It wasn’t until the next afternoon that they could finally stabilize him long enough to attempt the 45 minute flight (I think that’s how long they said?)
So on 9/5, the flight was arranged to take place. They had so much trouble stabilizing him though that his flight was originally supposed to leave at 2 PM but didn’t until 4:45 PM. San Antonio is just under 200 miles from our city. Daniel didn’t leave for San Antonio until he watched the helicopter takeoff. I was already on my way and beat the helicopter there, because of the delay. As soon as Montgomery arrived in San Antonio, and the doctors assessed him, the preliminary reports alone showed that he had significant brain damage. Meaning that it would either lead them to believe he would be in a vegetative state or become brain dead. They were leaning more towards brain dead. We didn’t leave the hospital that night until 2 AM. Before we left we had to make a determination, with the doctors, of what we wanted done if he coded while we were gone getting settled into the hotel. We already knew how significant the outcome was going to be and we opted to not to have any lifesaving measures taken. Amazingly, he made it through the night.
On 9/6, the doctor was ready to talk to all of us. And pulled us into the family room. He described what has happened to Montgomery and that tentatively he was brain dead. Only tentatively because they could not classify him as brain dead until they perform the brain death tests. The doctor described the damage to his entire brain. All of the white and gray matter of his brain and the brain stem was irreversibly damaged. The doctors gave us some relief in saying that it probably happened within a couple minutes of him going into his room and that he didn’t know what happened. The doctor surmised that there was enough electrical activity in his brain to keep his heart pumping. Along with Daniel and Abe performing CPR was the other huge factor for the paramedics to be able to regain a pulse. Otherwise, he would have been considered DOA when he arrived at Shannon. The fact that there was no pain or suffering is a big relief. The doctors continued to explain the process that they had to do to classify him as a brain dead. Those tests would take a little over a day to complete. There are several tests to run, time between test and those tests have to be repeated again.
Because of Daniel‘s profession we had already talked about organ donation. Obviously, not for our children. We have two kids. Montgomery and Victoria, who is 21. We immediately asked about organ donation. The doctor was relieved that we brought it up because they are not allowed to do that themselves. The family has to do that if there is not already a organ donation directive in place. Being young and healthy, it wasn’t even a thought to not do it. I know for a fact that Montgomery wouldn’t want it any other way. He had such a big caring heart. He always tried to make people laugh. He was very respectful to adults. In fact, his friends would tease him because he would always say “yes ma’am”, “no ma’am”, “yes sir” & “no sir”. But that’s how Daniel & I raised him. There are many other stories that I could go on about him but this is already long enough.
On 9/7, Montgomery was officially declared dead at 8:45 AM from SUDEP (Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy). That was the last day we would be with our boy. After finding matches for his liver, pancreas and both kidneys, organ harvesting was performed that night. Because of COVID-19 those were the only organs we were allowed to donate. Which still makes me mad to this day. Because he was so young and healthy and could have saved so many more lives. We were grateful that he was able to save 3 lives. The pancreas and one kidney went to a female high school student. She received his pancreas and one of the kidney's. She was able to come off of dialysis and return focusing solely on her high school studies. And, continue with her dream of becoming an EMT. Montgomery would have loved that. And, that those parents would not have to go through what we are going through. That would have made him very happy. Which makes his passing a “little bit“ easier. That his death wasn’t in vain.
On 9/10, we followed our boys body home and laid him to rest in San Angelo, TX at Lawnhaven Memorial Gardens.
