I jumped over from 2CPU where I saw this story. I'm not the praying type, but my heart goes out to you and your family. My hope for a very speedy recovery! Congrats on the new addition!

I am hoping the best for your wife, hope she will make a full recovery. And best wishes to your new daughter.

Hey Brian,

I said a prayer for your wife tonight. I truly hope she will be able to make a full recovery.

Best wishes to you, your wife, and the rest of the family.

Jim Decker
aka SOShootME

Prayer is not a one shot deal. True prayer is praying with out ceasing. May God bless all of you who are praying for Brian, Heather and their family.

Brian,

Its been a long time since I have been here; maybe too long....

I heard about your blessing and your misfortunes from OC.com and had to come back and give you my best wishes and hopes that your wife will recover fully.

I too am wanting to contribute to the paypal account so I hope that gets up and running soon...

I havent been praying lately myself but I think it is about time that I start again.

Best wishes to you and your family and do ever give up hope!

Jtroutman

Hey Brian,
Sorry to hear about your wife. I understand what you are going through. I nearly lost my son (11 yr old) in November. Spent 11 days in ICU with him in a strange city over 800 miles from home. It seems like the rest of the world is completely oblivious to your pain when this type of thing happens. Its quite surreal when you see the rest of the world going about its normal business when your world is crashing around you. To me it felt like living the "Matrix" in real life. Like I was the only one awake and everyone else was under its spell. No one can understand this kind of feeling until it happens to them. My son pulled through and is home now, though his condition will soon take his life. He is a trooper and a real computer geek. He plays games on his rig every day. Computers are his only joy anymore. Take care of yourself and your family. We are all here to help. This is a connected community and we can pull all kinds of strings to help those in distress. I hope and pray for you and yours.

Brian, my heart goes out to you and your family. Like you said, don't do harm to yourself, or you will be no good to those who also need you, namely your kids. Please set up a paypal account if you don't have one already, those of us in the community who can I'm sure will help.

My heart goes out to you and your family Brian. Your Daughter is Beautiful.

I'm from NY, I heard about this from DriverHeaven. I hope everyhting works out for you and your family. We are all praying for a fast recovery. God bless.

Hi Brian, i'm coming from Driverheaven, you and your wife are in my prayers, best wishes for your family.

Hey Brian, I'm from Overclockers.com. They posted a link to this thread. Man I am so happy for you on your daughter, and I am so sorry about your wife. My prayers are with you man. Stay strong for your wife and kids, all are prayers are with you.

Hi Brian,

I don’t usually join forums, I don’t usually have the time to keep up with them, but I had to join when I saw your story.

To give you a little hope. I recently watched a program on Discover channel that had a segment with a woman who was a brain specialist at (if I remember right) Harvard Medical. She had a stroke, left hemisphere, and it took her nearly two hours to dial the phone to call her work for help. She said knew what was happening to her but some things, like dialing the phone, didn’t make sense to her. She couldn’t figure out what to do with the numbers. To make a long story short, she made an excellent recovery. They interviewed her and if you just met here on the street you would never know she had a stroke. The brain is an amazing thing, if connections are broken, it starts trying to rebuild those connection and bypass the damaged parts. The right half of her brain eventually took over the functions that were lost in the Left half. That’s not to say there weren’t consequences. She no longer practices medicine, her interests and talents now lie in the artistic side. She makes beautiful pictures of the brain in stained glass. She says her personality has changed some, she is much more artistic and less logical and regimented than she used to be. It was incredible to see her. She was obviously still very intelligent, and was very articulate. It was very interesting and can hopefully give you some hope of a recovery. If anyone can find a way to get it to you, or maybe you could find a transcript or something online the show was the series: Understanding, and was about the human brain.

Your wife has several things going for her.
1. She’s young, the connections are easier to rebuild in young people.
2. She’s female (women naturally use their brains more evenly on the two sides than men, so one side can more easily take up the slack if something goes wrong with the other.
3. She has a loving Husband and Family.
4. She has a new baby she wants to get to know.
5. The fact that she is already talking in complete sentences is a good sign.

Even if she can’t speak or doesn’t seem fully aware of what is going on, she may very well be fully aware, but be unable to express herself normally. Keep talking to her. Talk to her about the good times, funny stories about the kids, things you did when you were dating. Stimulate her brain to start making those new connections, and re-connect to the tings that weren’t damaged but were cut off when the cells around them were damaged. Don’t give up! If you have a bunch of home movies, show those to her, whatever you have to do to get the information flowing again.

Good luck,

You are in my thoughts… (why else would I be writing this at 5:00am)

Linked from HardOCP.

My father suffered two strokes inside of 24 hours, so I understand, somewhat, what you are going through. I do hope whatever Gods are listening give you and your own strength through this ordeal, the courage needed to go on, and will to see all this through.

As has already been stated, if you need anything, let us know. Setup a Paypal account and I'm sure most of us, including me, would donate.

Keep the faith and walk the path my friend.

You guys are amazing! I didn't think it would keep on going, but I'm really encouraged by all your prayers and posts. Thank you!

For all those who have said they would like to donate... I don't know what to say. I'm not trying to post to get money from people (that's not why I share with you all), but I certainly won't turn away any help. So, if Joe, pHaestus, or someone else posts something or sets something up.... that will satisfy my ethics. I never wanted to try to use this horrible event to "get something" from the community. Thanks to those of you who have snuck around and found out my paypal already! I have already gotten an idea from the doctors and insurance company that the bills are going to be fairly large, and it helps.

Brian

I found the link to this thread from 3DGameMan, although I am a registered member here.

My deep thoughts and prayers go out to your wife. I pray to dear God that she will make a speedy full recovery...

I would happily make a donation, although I fear that it would not do so much... but nevertheless, I shall be watching this thread for a link to a PalPal account of some sort...

Again, my thoughts and prayers are with your wife...

Linked in from 3DGameMan.com forums, where I am a member. I'm also linking this thread to Lanageddon.com, where I am an active member.

I am not the religious type but I do wish you all the best and will keep you and your wife in my thoughts.

Brian's paypal address is Brian_Smith@cmicro.com

I want to thank all of you and the websites from which you came to show support. Sometimes our community really comes together and makes me proud.

I hope things will turn out well, my thought's are with you and your family. And i have done my own little praying, wishing you good things..

Regards,

Jakob

:(

Hey Brian I heard about this over at Overclockers forums as well, so on behalf of the staff there and the staff for Overclockedgamerz I wish you wife a full and speedy recovery and would also like to say she is in my prayers. I don't know if you are into country at all but this reminds me eerily of Tim McGraws - Don't take the girl :(

Our thoughts are with you and yours Brian may you stay strong for your wife and your children, if ever you need a shoulder mine as well as I am sure many others, is available no matter what.

J :cool:

Ahh pH posted the linkage already in here, I will get something ont he front page tongiht for ya.


But yes the outpouring of wishes and support is really quite amazing. I thank everyone for pitching in when a fellow geek is having a something like this go on!

Ive posted this on the front page of MWL, and have personally thanked a couple webmasters who have posted this on their sites also. THANKS!

I am here from OC forums as well...
I'm really sorry to hear about the complications...you are in my prayers. Hope things pick up soon.

I'm amazed I hadn't read this thread yet. My sympathies are with you Brian. You seem to be holding out stoically, given the situation.

My thoughts are with you and your wife.

Linked in from 3DGameman too... remember, we are all with you on this, and wishing, hoping, praying for a recovery. Whatever happens, people are here for you. Always.

You all will be in my thoughts.

It never even crossed my mind that you were looking for charity, and that's not what this is. Sending a little something to you is a way we can reach out across the miles and give you a pat on the back, just like we would do if you were standing right beside us. Prayers are great, and your getting a lot sent your way, but cold hard cash can take you and your kids out to dinner and provide some needed distraction. ;)

Brian, you have my deepest sympathies.

What you are going through is a terrible way to realise how much you love someone. Know that God does have a plan for every event, even though sometimes it feels otherwise.

I am 30 years old. Last July I was diagnosed with acute heart valve failure; for unknown reasons, my mitral valve had almost completely seperated from the cordae tendonae (the cordlike tissues that hold the valve closed when the heart beats), and I was living on (and had been for some time) less than 20% blood flow. There is no sign of heart disease or any degenerative illness in me, and my family history of heart problems does not go beyond mild valve prolapse (a condition which can cause a murmur but generally causes no health problems at all). I had open heart surgery to remove my damaged valve and implant an artificial valve in August. I am still recovering from this, and have recently lost my job as a result of too much time off (unfortunately, FMLA does not cover you unless you have been employed for one year or more, and I had started a new job only 2 months before being diagnosed).

In October, exactly 2 months after my surgery, my third child (first daughter) was born by emergency C-Section. Fortunately, all went well there. However, due of course to the nature of C-Sections, my wife and I were now both not working.

I have chosen to take these events in our collective life as an opportunity to grow spiritually. I have been given a second life, as it were, where some others are not. It is therefore my responsibility to channel my efforts to aid whenever and where ever I can. I have nothing monetary I can give you, but I can pray.

My children, and my wife and I will pray for both you and your wife today, and whenever we have opportunity. I will not pray for your wife's recovery, because that may not be God's will. I will instead pray that God's plan for you and your wife be exectued in the most merciful fashion, that His will grants you the strength to hold on to your family in this time of trouble, that His will saves your wife from any unnecessary suffering and gives her peace, no matter the outcome.

I do not know what your religious beliefs are, and I hope you are not offended by mine. I am Roman Catholic, as is my entire family. I will be contacting my Grandmother, who belongs to a prayer group, to organize a novena (9 days of the Holy Rosary) to be prayed for you and your wife.

My prayers and best hopes to you.

Nick McDermott