I'M NOT DONE!

The Events of October 16th and 17th

Warning to those who know and love Lisa, this will be an incredibly tough read!!
Do not read it if you do not want to know every detail about what
happened on the morning of October 17th, 2009!!

Friday night, October 16th, 2009 ended very much like any other night in our home. I was home that evening for dinner and I helped put the kids in bed. Lisa and I sat in the living room, I was playing on my computer, and she was watching TV. Eventually she decided that she was going to go to bed and she kissed me goodnight like always. Then she went to brush her teeth. Usually she peeked out into the living room after brushing her teeth one more time to say goodnight before going in to lie down. On this night, she did not. I went to bed a few hours later and everything seemed normal. I'm sure I fell asleep knowing that she was breathing silently beside me because I always had to be sure of her breathing before I could allow myself to sleep. I slept well that night...

Around 5:30am Saturday morning, after a dreamless night, I awoke to the sound of a loud snoring, or snorting kind of a noise. I saw that it was Lisa making the noise and I tried to wake her quietly. I continued to try to awaken her and after being unsuccessful for a little while, I began to shake her and yell out her name. Still snoring strangely... asleep... I began smacking her face and I lifted open her eyelids, but Lisa continued to snore in in that same weird way. I yelled her name again and again. Jayson woke up and came running into the bedroom and asked what was going on. In my panic, I told him to call 911... no wait... no... call 911! I thought that maybe she was choking, so I stuck my fingers in her throat. Nothing... I breathed air into her mouth a few times and that only made the snoring stranger and louder. It was like she was trying to breath, but her tongue was in the way. She was inhaling very rapidly and heavily and it seemed to come less and less often. Jayson came back, he said he couldn't hear the woman on the phone. I took the phone from him and told her what was happening and gave her our address, she said an ambulance was on it's way and then somehow indicated that it was OK for me to hang up. I remember thinking that they never tell you to hang up - don't they make you stay on the line and help you until the ambulance arrives?

I tried CPR on Lisa (I don't know CPR), I remembered to tip her head back, but forgot to hold her nose shut. I breathed again twice into her mouth and tried three chest compressions. By now the girls had awoken too and all three kids were crying and screaming "mommy wake up!" They were out in the hallway just outside of our room watching me through the door while I tried desperately to revive their mother. I yelled to Jayson to go and turn on all of the lights outside and inside, open the door and wave down the ambulance when he saw it. He did it! He yelled "I hear them coming", I heard them too.

The ambulance arrived. I desperately yelled to Jayson a couple of times to tell them to hurry please! It seemed like it took the paramedics longer to get into the house than it did for them to drive to the house. The phone rang, I think I answered it, or was it Jayson; it was a neighbor across the street, she said "Jay! What's going on?" I only said, "get over here now!" and I hung up. The paramedics were inside the bedroom, they kept asking "what's her history?" over and over again, I said "there is none!" They said "diabetes?", I said "no", they said 5 or six other things, I said "NO!". I couldn't think straight! I tried to think of something to tell them... anything... nothing came. The paramedics told me to go to the kitchen table and write down "her information" I found a piece of paper in the computer printer and wrote "Lisa Marie Brune" and her birthday, I couldn't think of anything else to write. The neighbor arrived with one other from another home. I said to them "I think Lisa's dying...". One of them told me that they were taking the kids to her home. She told me to put some clothes on so that I could go with them in the ambulance, I was only wearing my underwear. She and the kids were suddenly gone. The paramedics were carrying Lisa out on a backboard they had her tubed and "bagged" and were performing chest compressions on her. The stretcher was in the living room because it wouldn't fit down the hallway to our bedroom. One of the paramedics carrying the backboard dropped his end in the hallway. Lisa's head fell to the floor. I went into the bedroom to get some clothes and noticed a puddle of urine in the bed. I knew what that meant... She was gone....

I had to ask a couple times if I could ride in the ambulance with them, one of the paramedics didn't want to answer, finally they put me in the front passenger seat. We drove too slowly with lights and sirens on, to the hospital. I looked back a couple of times to see that they were still doing chest compressions on Lisa. I remember thinking "her chest will really hurt bad when she wakes up", and then thinking, "she probably won't wake up"...

We arrived at the hospital and they wheeled her into the emergency room, still giving her compressions. They took her into a private room and closed the curtains. I couldn't see or hear anything. Nothing...

The second neighbor that had come to the house earlier, arrived at the hospital right away. I told her again that I think Lisa had died. I called my mom; through my tears I tried to give her directions to the hospital. She couldn't understand me... I stopped... composed myself and as clearly as I could, I repeated the directions. I called Lisa's parents and gave them the same information. I only remember giving directions, I don't know what else I said to any of them.

I sat on the floor in the hallway against the wall with my knees up and cried... and prayed... I said "Our Father's" and "Hail Mary's" over and over, I knew the stupid prayers weren't going to bring Lisa back to life. I knew the doctors weren't going to bring Lisa back to life. My neighbor stood by me and said "it'll be alright". A nurse showed us to a room nearby where we could sit and wait... and wait...



Time of death... 7:08am



Exactly like you see on television, a young doctor came into the room. He had a very sad expression. He came to me and asked if I was Lisa's husband. He said to me "Mr. Brune, I'm sorry but we could not save Lisa. We had all of the best doctors and nurses in the hospital working on her and we worked for 45 minutes. I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."

He told me I could go in and see her... he explained that she would have tubes in her mouth, and wires, etc... Just like you see on television.

I went in...

She was lying there on the bed with her hair flowing off of the top of it. I spoke to her. I only remember saying, "oh baby... oh baby..." over and over again. I put my arms around her as best as I could and laid my shoulders on her chest. I stood up again, I combed through her hair with my fingers because she always loved that. I rubbed my fingertips back and forth across her forehead; she had always loved that too. She just laid there... too silent... unmoving. I put my head against hers and I smelled her hair. It smelled like coconut. It smelled beautiful! I knew that I wanted to remember this smell forever, so I breathed in the scent of her many more times that morning...

I left the room and told my neighbor that she could go in. Soon after, my mom and Barry arrived and were coming up the hall to meet me. I walked to them and embraced them, I told them that Lisa was gone... My mother was shocked and said it couldn't be possible. We hugged each other and cried together. I saw Lisa's parents arriving. Again, I met them in the hallway and embraced them. I told them that their daughter had died. Her mother said "No", her father let go of me and went to one of the walls, leaned his face against it and sobbed. I went over to him, he only said "why her..", again he said "why her...". Then he said "why not me instead...?" I was thinking the same thing, "why not me instead?". We all cried together.

Lisa's parents and my parents took turns and went into the room where Lisa was. I went in again, once with each of them. My sisters arrived with their husbands and Lisa's brother came also. We spent more time in the emergency room. The doctors came back and told me about some more details of what was going to happen next. They told me there would be an autopsy to find out the cause...

I said, "I have to go tell the kids.."

Someone drove me home and I went across the street to get the kids. Jayson was 10 and the girls had just turned 8 years old 14 days before. I walked back home with them, I remember the exact path we took across the street, but I don't remember what any of us said. I took them into our house, sat them down together on the couch and told them that their mommy had died. The four of us cried together. I told them that mommy's body stopped working and that her soul left it to go to heaven. I said "God wanted mommy to be with him... then stopped. I knew that was the wrong thing to say. I corrected myself somehow, and went on to say that mommy didn't want to leave because she loved us very, very much. I said that we wouldn't be able to see mommy any more, but she'll be with us everywhere we go for the rest of our lives. The three of them and I cried together some more, and I sat quietly with them for a long while.

Everyone that came to the hospital also came to my house that morning. Lisa's sister also arrived there. I asked one of my sisters if she would walk with me. We walked slowly around the block together. My sister said to me "You know, Lisa's up in heaven right now and she's pissed off at God! She's telling him 'I'M NOT DONE RAISING THOSE KIDS! I'M NOT DONE!'". I said "I know... you're right..."