Remembrance Of A Friend

I lost a friend. A mother and father has lost a child. A brother has lost a brother. He will be missed, but never forgotten.

Awhile back I decided that I would never really blog again, but I truly felt this was worth a unique posting. A posting about Samuel Starnes, and his battle. A battle he won out valiantly and with close loved ones at his side for every moment he faced against his trial of health.

Here is the words his brother gave at Sam’s life celebration after Sam’s passing. My thoughts are thereafter.

“My Story is the introduction to our CaringBridge site.

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In late October of last year Sam began to have headaches, nausea, and vomiting problems. We took him to the doctor who ran several tests and could find nothing wrong with him. On November 10, 2007 at 1:00 am my wife, Penny, found him unconscious on the bathroom floor. There was blood in the vomit on the floor and he was turning blue. We rushed him to the emergency room where ER doctors informed us that he had a lot of fluid around his heart that was restricting his heart’s ability to pump blood and his ability to breathe. He had immediate surgery to install a tube in the sac around his heart to drain the fluid off. Afterwards he spent 5 days in the intensive care unit at Mother Frances. After a week in the hospital Sam was released. The doctors said they did not know what was wrong, but it was definitely not lupus or cancer or bacteriological or rheumatologic.

 

 

 

All went well until February when Sam began to spit up blood. Doctors found the chambers of his heart appeared to have slightly enlarged. He was scheduled to go to Scott and White Hospital on Tuesday, March 11, for additional tests.

 

 

 

After the tests were finished, Sam, his mother and I drove to College Station to spend the night with Lee, his older brother. At midnight Sam had to be rushed by ambulance to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Bryan. The x-rays taken in the ER showed a significant amount of fluid in the sac around his right lung. The ER doctors in Bryan ordered an ambulance to rush him back to Scott and White Hospital in Temple. At Scott and White they determined that his right lung had collapsed and he was rushed into surgery to install a tube in the sac around his right lung to drain the fluid. The doctors also did a bronchial scope of his lungs. The fluid they drained off was all blood so more exhaustive and thorough imaging of all sections of his chest were performed (MRI) to determine the cause, which was found to be a hole in his heart. The pleural sac tube insertion and other tests had taken all day Friday, so late Friday night, around midnight , open heart surgery was done to close the hole in his heart. The heart surgeon finished the surgery around 5 am Saturday.

 

 

 

The heart surgeon told us that Sam had a rare form of cancer called cardiac sarcoma. This cancer starts in the heart and then migrates to the other organs in the body via the blood. The surgeon said Sam’s heart and lungs were covered with the cancer. Repairing the heart was difficult as there was so little healthy heart tissue left to sew onto. He had 9 holes in his heart. We were told the only reason he had survived was because the existing holes were in the lowest pressure part of the heart and that treatment was out of the question since the cancer covered so much of his heart and lungs. Organ replacement would not be done because of the cancer. The surgeon said that Sam was dying and might not even wake up from the surgery and that this cancer is very rare and very hard to diagnose. We were also told that even when diagnosed this cancer is very aggressive and very resistant to all forms of treatment.

 

 

 

Sam was placed on a ventilation machine after surgery. Doctors tried to remove him from it 6 hours after surgery and again on Monday without success. On Wednesday, we were given a choice, leave Sam on the machine until his heart finally gave out or take him off the machine completely and allow him to live or die on his own. If we left him on the machine, he would die without ever regaining consciousness. If we took him off the machine, he might die without regaining full consciousness, or he might live for a few hours to possible a few weeks. With his lung problems, the doctors warned us that if he had a severe bout of coughing it could place too much stress on his heart and cause it to fail. We chose to take him off the machine and prayed he would live a while longer. He regained consciousness Wednesday night and spoke to his mom and dad and brother for the first time since going into surgery the previous Friday morning. It was wonderful to hear his voice again. Sam was moved by ambulance from the hospital in Temple to our residence in Tyler late Thursday afternoon. The hospice people provided an automated bed, oxygen machine, nurse, and all the medication that Sam needs to keep him as pain- free as possible.

 

 

 

 

Hospice has been wonderful. We are in such a weird place, unprecedented, and uncharted. So we proceed—- one moment, one hour, one day—–at a time! -Penny

 

 

On June 28, 2008, at 8:00 AM, Sam passed away peacefully and quietly in the bed of his parents, surrounded by his family. Though he did not deserve the tragic illness which took him from this world, nobody deserved a more complete finish. Sam had the opportunity to express his love for his parents and brother, and they had every opportunity to say goodbye.

We love you, Sam. And we will see you again.”                                                                                                                         -Written by Lee Starnes

When I first heard that Sam had been diagnosed with Cancer, I was literally tear-filled and my gut wrenched. My mind went blank and I stared at the floor in disbelief. My world had just been given a blow from nowhere.

Until that day I had never had a friend given the diagnosis of Cancer, nor had I had ever been told that one of my friends was given a few weeks to live. I didn’t know what to do, how to handle it. I cried. There in the middle of that Wal-Mart that I had come to hang out with a friend of mine, I cried.

All the friends of Sam’s took the news pretty harshly.

Here was a great soul that was our age and just about to finish college to move on to his future and live the life that he had worked so hard towards. A fellow gamer, a fellow ex-GXC associate, a student, a son, a brother, a nephew.

Though, we never got to see Sam after he was diagnosed and started suffering through fight with this vile plague, I did get to speak with him for one last time.

Breath labored and spirit high, he sounded like the Sam I had exchanged words with over the phone. It was a short converstaion but my last words to him were “we’ll hang out again soon”.

Sam and I had always been fighting game fans, and vigorously fought alot of time into the Marvel VS Capcom 2 mahcine at the local GXC. Of course, Sam being the more seasoned fighter, he tended to wipe the floor with me, but I could occasionally come back with an unstoppable Metallic Hulk finish.

Its’s the time with our friends that we need to cherish. Never let a moment slip, dance in the time, grab the experience. This is a lesson you hard learn when you experience losing a good friend such as Sam.

“There is a season for everything”, is what the great book states and maybe the seasons of Sam’s life were cut short or maybe it was his time. That, unfortunately, is a plan that only the inifinite ones will understand but we as humans can comprehend is that the memories and the experiences that we take in here on earth with our friends and family, is what we have and all that we need.

A final word for Sam, my friend:

You will be forever thought of in our hearts and minds. You will dwell in our memories and sustained within our hearts. You will be missed, but never forgotten. Thank you for your friendship.