stfrank
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Another great story from Russo on The Athletic.
'The guy’s a fighter’: Brock Boeser at his dad’s side through his toughest battle
Michael Russo 1h ago 14
One month after he stopped breathing, one month after a pulse couldn’t be found on him for more than 15 minutes after a piece of a blood clot broke off in his groin, traveled to his pulmonary artery and triggered heart failure in his Burnsville, Minn., home, Duke Boeser is on a feeding tube directly into his stomach and a breathing tube directly into his windpipe.
He’s not supposed to talk, yet a few days ago on the day he was being transferred to Bethesda Hospital in St. Paul, the man they call “Miracle Duke” looked at his hockey-playing son and softly whispered, “I have to pee.”
“Which was … amazing,” Brock Boeser, the Vancouver Canucks young star and Minnesota native, said, smiling. “My mom broke down crying. A month ago, they were doing chest compressions on him for 10 minutes, he turned blue on us for like 15 or 20 minutes. Then, we get him to the hospital, and they lost his pulse again and he ends up in ICU for three weeks.
“But now, we’re starting to see these encouraging signs. Yesterday, when I was leaving the hospital, I said, ‘Love you,’ and he mouthed back, ‘Love you, too.’ I couldn’t believe it.
“The guy’s a fighter and it’s truly amazing what he’s been through. Whenever you say it can’t get worse, something worse has happened to the guy.”
That would be an understatement.
Brock Boeser has two heroes.
One is his mother, Laurie, who has worked several jobs to help the family make ends meet. The other is his dad, Duke, who used to coach him as a mite and worked in the construction and painting business and delivered packages for UPS. One of the coolest sights at Da Beauty League — the Minnesota summer hockey league popular with NHL players, now in its fourth season — each year is seeing Duke behind the bench “coaching” his son.
“Everyone loves when he’s around on the rink,” Brock said. “I find it hilarious when I come back to the bench, don’t score and he’ll tell me where to shoot. All the guys love him. He’s definitely my biggest supporter.”
In March 2017, after ending his collegiate career at the University of North Dakota, Brock Boeser fulfilled his dream by making his NHL debut against his hometown Wild at Xcel Energy Center. The Canucks surprised Boeser by having his mom and dad announce the starting lineup in the visitors’ dressing room.
In the most touching of moments, Duke Boeser said, “Starting on right wing, I can’t believe it, Brock Boeser.”
Right before Boeser took the ice for the first time in a game he would ultimately score his first NHL goal during a Canucks’ victory, Boeser, wearing a white No. 6 Canucks sweater, hugged his dad.
Duke said, “Brock, did you know I was No. 6 in high school?”
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"And starting on right wing, I can't believe it, Brock Boeser!"
Duke and Laurie Boeser read the #Canucks starting line-up Saturday.
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In 2010, the same year his mom died of lung cancer and his dad died of pancreatic cancer, Duke Boeser was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. In 2012, a half-mile from his home, Duke was in a major car accident that left him with a traumatic brain injury, several broken bones and a lacerated spleen. In the spring of 2017, Duke was diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer and underwent radiation, chemotherapy and an operation that removed part of his left lung.
By that September, he was cancer-free, but this past June, Duke, now 58, received the news that his lung cancer had returned, only it metastasized to his liver and spots were found on his ribs and sternum.
“That was really tough to go through because the guy’s been through so much,” Brock, 22, said. “Like how much more can somebody take?”
Brock’s dad was approved to begin taking a chemo maintenance drug that’s purpose is to attack mutant genes before they turn cancerous and spread.
Laurie Boeser works full-time at Twin Cities Orthopedics in Burnsville in an administrative position.
Last month, as a means of getting Duke out of the house during the day, interacting with others and in a safe environment, Duke was to start attending an adult daycare center.
This was going to be a big weight off Laurie’s shoulders because Duke can’t drive anymore and has short-term memory issues, so she worried about her husband remembering to take the necessary medications to treat his Parkinson’s and cancer.
“Duke’s a very social person, and being at home wasn’t really, I think, stimulating enough,” Laurie said. “And so I thought, well, let’s give this a try, and he agreed. It was going to maybe be motivating for him to meet new people because it’s not like he’s in his 70s or 80s dealing with this. He’s a relatively young guy.”
It was July 29, Duke’s first day in the adult daycare center. Laurie picked him up in the late afternoon, and Duke had this big smile on his face as he got in the car.
“We were laughing coming home because he was with a lot of very elderly people, so he had some funny things to share,” Laurie said.
“He was cracking jokes and thought it was just hilarious that he was the youngest guy there,” Brock said.
“So we walked in the house and we were still giggling about his day,” Laurie said.
Duke and Brock Boeser
Duke and Brock Boeser at a wedding just a week before the July 29 incident. (Courtesy the Boeser family)
Duke walked up to their bedroom and Laurie began talking to a contractor in the kitchen who was redoing their flooring. That’s when she heard a big, loud thump.
Because of his Parkinson’s, Duke did have a history of falling, so Laurie rushed to the bedroom expecting to see that he had simply fallen over.
“Instead, he was laying on the floor convulsing, which he’d never done before,” Laurie said. “I kind of got him to snap out of it, and I sat him up. And then all of a sudden he said, ‘Here it comes, here it comes again.’ We still don’t know what that sensation was that he was having, but he began convulsing again and fell over my arms.
“I laid him down and could tell he wasn’t breathing. And so I started CPR on him, and then the contractor relieved me after several minutes. Then, I resumed until the ambulance and the EMTs arrived and took over.
“They couldn’t get a pulse. It was probably 15 minutes when they finally got a pulse. They transported him to Fairview Ridges in Burnsville to stabilize him, but once they got to the hospital, his heart stopped again.”
Brock was golfing when his 24-year-old sister, Jessica, called in a panic.
Boeser sprinted to the hospital and arrived to a horrifying scene of his dad in dire straits.
Laurie gave permission for doctors to use TPA, a stroke “clot buster.”
“If a person’s having a stroke, if they can get this drug within the first three hours, it can save your life,” Laurie said. “So I signed off for them to give him that drug, and that worked, thank the Lord. And then they got him stabilized enough to get him transferred to the U’s ICU. And then it was four weeks of riding the tide at the University of Minnesota.”
The first week was critical and survival was literally hour by hour. In the weeks since, there have been improvements but several setbacks, too, from pneumonia to other maladies.
Laurie and Duke Boeser, during morning skate before a Canucks-Wild game in St. Paul in January 2018. “May take awhile, but I believe we’ll get to another game with (Duke),” Laurie says. “I truly do.” (Michael Russo / The Athletic)
“But amazingly, despite not breathing for so long, there was no brain damage and his kidneys started working again,” Brock said. “I mean, not having any brain damage is truly a miracle considering he already has Parkinson’s. That was our big wait for the first 10 days of everything.
“We’re seeing, we’re waiting, he’s laying there and obviously he’s on so many drugs and stuff. Can’t talk. And he’s not awake or anything. So, that was the big question was if there was brain damage or not. So that was a big relief and that was the first scenario. And obviously then there’s battling his pneumonia. A lot of my big concern was, ‘When can we get him back on the chemo meds to stop his cancer from spreading?’ Finally, 3 1/2 weeks in, I think, we got him back on those.
“It’s been a long month. I went to the hospital every day for the first, what, three weeks. But he’s showing us some good signs lately, which if you know Duke, is very much like him. He’s getting his color back. He’s looking around, moving around. At first, his cough was so weak. Now it’s super strong. Nothing can beat this guy and we’ve now transferred him out of the U into Bethesda’s (long-term acute care hospital). Maybe he recovers from this and is stronger. That’s very much like him.”
The goal now is to get Duke off the trach, and he has been showing signs that it’s possible he could soon breathe on his own.
“He’s just made steady, subtle strides in the right direction,” Laurie said. “We are so thankful for the fantastic care we got at the U. Oh my gosh, at Ridges Hospital, they were awesome. I mean, we have a lot of people to be grateful for.
“Obviously, he has to recover from this, but then he has the cancer to deal with, too. … What the future holds, we don’t know. We’re just thrilled for today, that we still have him.”
Brock, one of three siblings, is a private person, but so desperate for help and support, earlier this month, Boeser revealed that his dad was in critical condition and asked for prayers on his Instagram account.
The response he said was overwhelming.
“Just people writing and messaging and …,” Boeser said, shaking his head. “Our Vancouver fans, our family and friends, North Dakota fans, it’s been unbelievable. The prayers and everything, it was really amazing.
“People, you know, there’s some that believe in God and stuff like that. And I reached out on social media because I’ve read stories where prayer works and miracles can happen in situations. Obviously, you never know what could happen. It’s sad, but … you can just feel the energy.
“So that’s why I reached out. I just felt I needed to.”
Boeser owns a home on Prior Lake. He had four friends living with him this summer.
It started out with two, but it increased to four, he said, with a laugh. Every night, there will be six or seven of his buddies over at his house hanging out.
“What I’ve gone through this summer, I am just very thankful I’ve had so many friends around me supporting me,” Brock said.
Boeser just doesn’t understand why his father can’t catch a break after all he has endured over the past decade.
“I mean, talk about a warrior,” Boeser said. “It’s just always some sort of battle. I don’t think anyone can explain the pain and everything he’s gone through. He was having some serious pain this summer. And we were trying to get his pain management under control.
“Maybe it was because the cancer came back, I don’t know, but the guy just doesn’t give up. It’s truly amazing. Him and my mom are my inspirations. Everything they’ve gone through and what my mom goes through all the time. And what she does for the family. I wouldn’t be able to handle all this and everything I’ve gone through if it wasn’t for her.”
As a teenager, Boeser was overseas representing the United States in a tournament when he received a call that four of his friends were in a car accident. One friend, Cole Borchardt, was badly hurt, another, Ty Alyea, was killed.
It was devastating for Boeser.
“You don’t want to go through situations like this in life, a lot of situations, but I think I’ve learned how to deal with adversity,” Boeser said. “Obviously, in high school I had a big learning curve with what was going on with my dad and what happened to Ty and Cole. I just feel like I look at life a lot differently than a lot of people, me and my friends and just the stuff I’ve gone through.
“You kind of live and learn and understand that everything happens for a reason. God always has a plan. You just have to trust that even though there are times where you definitely don’t understand why. Without the support I’ve had, I probably wouldn’t have been able to live with all this stuff. That’s why I’m so close my friends and everyone. I’m just so thankful for them. My friend group is amazing.”
Earlier this month, Brock was not handling this latest bout with adversity well. His mom sat him down.
“I’ve tried to make him realize that there’s so much good, and then there’s some that’s bad,” Laurie said. “And that there’s several people in this world who could sit and tell you stories, just like we’ve experienced. So, it’s just, this is what our lives are like. This is what we have on our plate, and we’re not the only ones.”
Not only is Boeser dealing with the stress of what’s going on with his dad, he is one of several high-profile NHL players who are currently unsigned with training camp for this upcoming season only a couple weeks away.
Boeser’s agent Ben Hankinson and Canucks GM Jim Benning last spoke Wednesday and the two sides are not close to a new deal.
“I’m a kid. I don’t want to miss camp at all,” said Boeser, who has scored 59 goals and 116 points in 140 games and two years ago was the All-Star Game MVP and a Calder Trophy finalist. “That’s just not the type of person I am. But you have to do what you have to do. I feel that we just want to get a fair contract done. I feel like we’re not asking for too much. But there’s everything that goes into signing a guy. Cap stuff and all that stuff.
“I’m just staying patient and hopefully I can be there for the first day of camp. I’m just taking everything a day at a time and making sure I continue to train hard. And get in good shape so whenever I do sign, I’ll be ready to go.”
Brock Boeser
On the ice, Brock Boeser is still unsigned as training camp looms next month. One of the brightest young talents in the game, he has 59 goals and 116 points in 140 games for the Canucks. (Dom Gagne / USA Today)
One way of looking at this tough situation with Vancouver is if he does happen to be late for camp, it’s just more quality time he’ll get to spend with his father.
As much as Boeser is looking forward to the season, it’ll be very difficult for him to leave Minnesota and especially his mother behind.
“I’ll probably have my friends come to Vancouver a lot this year to keep me company, but not being able to come back and help my mom will be very hard,” Boeser said. “I don’t know. It’s something I’ll have to deal with when I get there.”
Leaving Dad’s side to travel 1,800 miles away to Vancouver will be excruciating for Brock, and “this is on my mind every single day,” Laurie said.
Laurie wants Brock to leave for the other side of the continent in peace. And she doesn’t want Brock’s play this season to suffer because of distractions and worries and the stresses back home.
She is thankful of how “amazing” the Vancouver, North Dakota and Minnesota communities have been with their support and has set up Duke’s Caring Bridge page as a place all fans and reporters go to receive updates on Duke’s situation. This way, she hopes, hockey can be Brock’s haven and he won’t have to answer constant questions when he’s at the rink.
“I just want him to clear his head and get after it,” Laurie said.
Duke’s one strong, courageous man, and Laurie and Brock pray Duke has yet another miracle left in his resilient body.
“Brock has a job to do, and he has to put the faith and trust in me to continue to do my best on behalf of our family, and that he can go and get going, and start another hockey season. And we can FaceTime,” Laurie said. “And, God willing, Duke will be at a game. We’ll get there. May take awhile, but I believe we’ll get to another game with him. I truly do.
“Duke will see Brock play again.”
< Message edited by stfrank -- 8/30/2019 11:10:39 AM >
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