The following is an account by Greg and Sean leading up to the discovery of Dad's tumor.
Saturday/Sunday July 9: Dad was in Colorado for the birth of Lindsey's new baby {cause he's an awesome Dad like that.} Packed up and drove home to Utah. He was feeling fine. On Saturday he ran an 8 miler, took the boys to their baseball game, made a Costco run, moved some couches for us... you know, the usual Dean stuff:) Left Sunday morning for Utah leaving Mom in Colorado to help Lindsey.
Monday July 10:Dad had a normal day, went running, went to work, and did everything as usual.
Tuesday July 11: Dad woke up and ran 6 miles and came home with a splitting headache. He went to work but came home around 5, went out with Whitney and did some shopping even though he had the headache. He came home around 6 and went to his bed and rested for 2 or so hours. When Dad got up at 8, he went down stairs and was talking with me (greg). When the two of us were talking, I noticed that he was acting slow, he wasn't responding quickly and would kinda space out during a normal conversation.
As a matter of fact, it felt like i was talking to Grandpa Bullock. The dry humor was there, it just took a while for him to spit it out. It was as if he had aged 30 years in 20 minutes. I suggested that he take some tylenol for the headache, so he went and grabbed some pills. After he came back into the living room to sit down and watch TV, I asked him if he had taken them and he responded yes....after waiting 10-15 seconds, he turned around and saw that the pills were still on the counter in the kitchen, he kinda chuckled and walked over to take them. He bent over and slurped the tylenol off the counter (that is totally normal and something he would do, so by doing that it really calmed my nerves and made me feel like he was still acting like Dad and nothing was seriously wrong. After taking the tylenol Dad was ready for bed, so I took him upstairs and helped him lay down.
I still didn't feel comfortable with how he was acting so I went and talked to Whitney about it. Me and Whit had a pow-wow up in Dad's bedroom and asked him if he was ok many times, but he just said it was a bad headache. Thinking it was his pride that was getting in his way, we decided to call Dr. Duncan (our brother-in-law) to see what we were gonna do about it. After we did some simple stroke tests on Dad, we thought it would be fine to let him go to sleep, but just to check on him before we went to bed and to check on the headache in the morning. Whitney and I both checked on him before we fell asleep and nothing seemed wrong.
Wednesday July 12: When Dad woke up feeling a little bit better he decided to bike 14 miles. Even though he told Mom that he wouldn't (tisk tisk father). When he got home, he told Whitney that he didn't.. He loves his exercise and decided he really wanted to go. He hadn't had much of an appetite, so Whitney made him promise that he would go to lunch with me (we work together at FlexTech and I can always manage a few lunches per week.. on his dime of coures). Around 1pm, we hopped in the car and went to McDonalds, he seemed pretty normal to me so i wasn't super worried. Dad ordered 2 hamburgers to go and we went back to his office to eat them. As soon as we got back, i dug in and devoured my chicken nuggs but for 20 minutes he wouldn't touch his burger. I eventually unwrapped one of them and watched him eat two bites before I had to go back and work. Some of his coworkers thought he was acting odd, but not completely bizarre. He was working with his light off, and wasn't responding to emails or phone calls, but they just assumed he wasn't feeling well. The next time I saw Dad was later in the evening around 9 or 10. He was already getting ready for bed. I asked him how he was feeling and he said the headache wasn't super painful but it was definitely there. I thought he seemed ok, so i let him go to bed without any fuss.
Thursday July 13: Dad woke up with a the headache. But Dad being Dad, he still wanted to go and exercise. He started out on a run, but never actually got to running. He ended up walking about 2 miles, and it took him 40 minutes(not his average mile pace.. usually he pushes a 7 minute mile when he runs) He never stared to run because his headache was hurting so bad and ended up going home because of the pain. I saw him as he got home from his run as I was leaving to work. I asked how far had he run and he told me 2 and said he felt fine. He again seemed fine to me and I didn't worry at all. I saw him again after he arrived at work around 10. He still had one of the hamburgers on his desk from McDonalds on wednesday. I laughed at him and told him that it was pretty gross. He grabbed it and felt if the bun was stale or not. He looked at it like he might eat it, but i told him it wasn't a good idea so he just threw it away with smile on his face. That was the last time I saw him before he was in the Hospital. Sean has his part of the story now.
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