STANWOOD – Jeff Welk dashed upstairs to his son’s bedroom as soon as he heard the first crash.
Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald
Another crash followed. Jeff Welk twice called his son’s name. No answer. When he entered the room, he saw his son, Dan, on the floor, propped against his bed. Dan’s eyes stared vacantly into space. Papers lay scattered on the floor, and a lamp had fallen from a desk.
“It looked like there had been a fight in there,” Jeff Welk said.
Dan Welk, a 6-foot-4, 200-pound senior and two-sport athlete at Stanwood High School, mumbled to his father that he was fine. “No, you’re not,” Jeff Welk shot back and dialed 911.
Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald
Red lights flashing and the siren blaring, medics rushed Dan Welk to Providence Everett Medical Center. Cindy Welk, his mother, sat next to her son, gripping his hand. His father trailed in the family car.
It was approaching 5 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 28.
Dan Welk, just 18, had suffered a stroke.
A 3.5 GPA student, Dan had just completed his final basketball season at Stanwood. He was looking forward to finishing up his classes and graduating.
As a student, teammate and young man, they don’t come much better, friends and colleagues say.
“He’s one of those kids who does the right thing all the time,” Spartans basketball coach Nate DuChesne said. “He works hard. Dan’s real committed to Stanwood High School. He’s real friendly with everybody. He’s a quiet, soft-spoken young man.”
Members of the football team designed a gaudy, glittery get-well card. At the bottom were the words “We love you,” a sentiment decidedly anti-jock.
“It goes far beyond being a teammate or being a fellow student,” football coach Dick Abrams said. “It’s something that was much more meaningful than that. That’s why the words were there. The kids really meant it. We all did. I think when you’re shocked like that, you realize how much people matter to each other.”
ER follies
Susceptible to migraine headaches, Dan was fighting the beginnings of another one that day. He was working on his senior project when it hit.
“I went to sit down in my chair, and my whole right side went numb,” he said. “I fell down and I kept trying to get up, but I couldn’t. I thought if I’d lie down for a while, I’d be fine.”
At the hospital, during a flood of examinations, the thought occurred to him that he might not recover fully. But the thought was only temporary. “I thought I would get the feeling back after a couple of hours,” he said.
Dan was the only one who thought that.
Initial exams led to conjecture of an aneurysm or stroke, of which the family has a history. Adding to the trepidation was the routinely chaotic setting of the emergency room.
“It’s just like that stinking show,” Jeff Welk said. “Right outside his door is a woman handcuffed to a gurney, drunker than a skunk, screaming because she doesn’t know where her kid is. Right beside him was a guy complaining that someone took his pants. And he’s so drunk he can’t sit on the gurney. And we’re in there, trying to deal with this. It was just a circus.”
Road to recovery
Once doctors came to a diagnosis, Dan went into rehabilitation almost immediately. His balance, coordination, speech and strength on his right side all needed work.
For how long, no one knew.
Tears followed. Dan saw his mother weep, and then broke down himself. Most upsetting to his parents was Dan’s intellectual impairment. “The biggest worry was whether we were going to get Dan back,” Jeff Welk said.
“I wouldn’t allow myself to think the worst,” Cindy Welk said, “probably because my mind couldn’t handle it.”
Dan was in the hospital nine days, most of the time in rehabilitation, which was both rewarding and frustrating.
“I couldn’t put together a 10-piece puzzle,” he said. “I could see everything, but it was all kind of weird. I lost all my math skills. I still have a little bit of trouble with math.”
It’s coming back quickly. Days later, he could already help his sister, Krista, with her homework in college statistics.
In the meantime, community support flowed. Cards, food, cookie bouquets and letters flooded in. Many items arrived from people the Welks don’t even know. “Every time somebody did anything and made Dan smile, (it) contributed to his recovery,” Jeff Welk said.
Doreen Schmitt, administrative assistant for the Stanwood High School athletic department, coordinated visits, calls, mail and everything else from the student body. She also served as a sounding board for a family overwhelmed with shock and anxiety.
“When Jeff first called to tell us what happened the night before, his emotions were so raw,” Schmitt said. “I can’t even imagine putting myself in that position. But I just let him talk and I told him, ‘You just tell me what you’d like me to do.’”
A major concern was graduation. Schmitt worked with school counselors and a plan to catch Dan up is under way. His therapists will determine when he returns to school.
It shouldn’t be long. Although his rehab is mapped out for three to six months, his nurses already term Dan’s recovery “astonishing.”
His right side still is weak. He has slight slurring in his speech. Neither his attention span nor his reaction time is what it will be, which is the reason he is not yet allowed to drive.
Otherwise, he appears as though he could dunk a basketball tomorrow. The prognosis is for a full recovery. A chance of recurrence is remote.
No one knows why it happened. It’s possible no one ever will.
At home, Welk sharpens his mind with jigsaw puzzles and chess. He also is learning to play Texas Hold ‘Em.
Schmitt’s son, Jacob, recently visited. He sported a new earring, which was all the ammunition Dan needed.
“Hey,” Dan said, rolling his eyes. “When did ya get the earring?”
Jacob Schmitt giggled, knowing his friend’s stance on such issues.
“So, Dan, when are you getting yours?”
Welk responded by throwing his head back and belting out a you’ve-gotta-be-insane laugh.
The kid’s back.
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