Colleague just died of stroke at 37 :(

[opebo]

Not a close friend, but a friendly face and a solid, decent guy.  A single man, he was missing from his classes for  two days, so his students went to his apartment, where they found him in the bathroom.  He'd been lying there collapsed for two days, and one side of his body was completely paralyzed, so the best guess is a stroke.  After a few days in the hospital on a respirator he died today.

Makes you think.

[opebo]

That is really scary. Could he have survived if help had been called sooner?

Yeah they said they thought that was at least part of the problem. 

[opebo]

If it was a stroke, and he survived for two days, definitely. Speed is everything in treating strokes.

Fancy laying paralyzed in your own bathroom for two days before dying. Not a nice thought.

Yes, and I would really like to know if the shower was running. 

[opebo]

Wow, just 7 years older than me.  Did he have any underlying medical conditions that might have precipitated the stroke or was he a seemingly healthy guy who just got a stroke out of the clear blue?

Don't know, Bushie.  He was a big guy for a Thai - kind of tall and strapping.  Only marginally overweight.  Other than that I have no knowledge of anything.

[opebo]

Just came from the funeral, still all dressed up in black (I feel like a waiter).  Can now confirm that it was definitely a stroke, followed by lung complications due to the long period he lay undiscovered with only one half of his body functioning, in a pool of water (the sink was brought down as he fell, and the tap was running on him for two days!)  Following this there were another several days of poor doctoring during which they focused only on the brain.  He was transferred to a better hospital in another town, where they discovered the lung problem and put him on a respirator, but he was too far gone by then to recover. 

While hospitals in Bangkok can be excellent, and those in a few other of the larger towns can be quite good, there are still plenty of marginally competent ones in Thailand.

[opebo]

first time opebo has used an emoticon?

Perhaps this means they are sarcastically 'cool' now?