CAUTIONARY TALE
Live Oak couple dies within days of each other; family urges others to be vigilant about their health.
LIVE OAK — In their public lives, Live Oak Councilman Anthony Brooks and businessman Phillip Tsai-Brooks were a wellknown couple, dedicated community leaders proud to contribute to the San Antonio suburb they called home.
In private, theirs was a lateblooming romance that was supposed to have a happily ever after ending, growing old together. It was not to be.
The couple, married barely five years, died within days of each other in the same hospital, victims of the deadly novel coronavirus.
Family members see it as a cautionary tale.
“We urge EVERYONE to stay home! Stop the spread! You don’t want to go through what we are going through. Rest in peace, Tony and Phillip. Still in disbelief,” reads a Facebook post by Anthony Tsai, one of Tsai-Brooks’ four brothers. He lives in San Antonio.
Brooks, 52, an Air Force veteran, was a resource analyst at the Army Medical Command at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston. He first was elected to the Live Oak City Council in 2015 and was re-elected in 2017 and 2019.
Tsai-Brooks, 42, was the owner of Extreme Opulence Hair Studio just outside Shavano Park. He was on the board of the Live Oak Economic Development Corporation and previously had served on the suburb’s zoning board of adjustment.
Started in mid-March
Brooks and Tsai met at a friend’s party in Houston and hit it off from the beginning, family members recalled. On March 29, 2014, they were married in San Francisco.
They settled into their home in Bridlewood subdivision in Live Oak. Tsai-Brooks’ mother, Pacita, moved in and, by all accounts, the three got along famously.
“It’s so amazing to see how impactful Phillip and Tony’s love (was) for the community, friends, and all those people that crossed their path,” said Alfred Tsai, another of Tsai-Brooks’ brothers. Alfred lives in Malpitas, Calif.
The family traces the start of this difficult time to mid-March, when Brooks returned from an out-of-town conference, feeling sick. But he already was depressed and upset because his ailing father, James Brooks, had just died March 12 — his mother, Littie Brooks, had died Jan. 21 — and he wasn’t paying much attention to his health.
A few days later, Tsai-Brooks started feeling sick, too. But there were work responsibilities and family duties to carry out. He and his mother helped make funeral arrangements for his father-inlaw, and a viewing was held at the funeral home March 18.
Tsai-Brooks already was keeping up with news about the pandemic, noting developments and posting memes on his Facebook page, talking with his family and friends about how it was affecting business.
On March 20, he went to the Northeast Methodist emergency room, suffering chills and body aches.
The doctor thought he might be having a bad reaction to a whooping cough vaccination he had recently had and gave him medications, ordering him to “lay off for 11 days … no work, quarantine for those days,” as Tsai-Brooks noted on Facebook.
But on March 26, he was back at the hospital’s emergency room with a fever of 102.9, short of breath, vomiting blood. This time, he was given a test, and it was positive for novel coronavirus.
“Be here for a couple of days,” Tsai-Brooks wrote in his last Facebook post, “then quarantine 14 days.”
He never came home.
Brooks had continued to feel poorly. At one point, he did go see a doctor, his in-laws said. He was diagnosed with pneumonia and given medication. But after that, Brooks refused to seek medical treatment, his in-laws said, even after Tsai-Brooks was diagnosed with COVID-19.
“Despite multiple attempts to get Tony to go to the ER, he refused to go,” said Robert Tsai, another one of Tsai-Brooks’ brothers, who lives in San Jose, Calif. “I don’t know if he thought he could fight through his symptoms.”
Neither Robert nor Alfred could come to Texas because of coronavirus travel restrictions.
On March 31, Brooks wasn’t responding to calls from his Fort Sam colleagues, so they called police and requested a welfare check. Officers found him unconscious on a living room sofa, TsaiBrooks’ brother said. He was rushed to Northeast Baptist Hospital, where he tested positive for novel coronavirus.
“He was in a critical state and admitted to their COVID-19 ICU,” Robert Tsai said.
The next two weeks were a blur of talking with doctors and nurses by long distance, because Alfred had Brooks’ power of attorney, arranging for transfers for each of the men to Methodist Hospital Metropolitan downtown, and approving of rare medical techniques in hopes of saving their lives.
Both men “were on ventilators and were given the hydroxychloroquine cocktail,” Robert said, referring to an experimental coronavirus treatment. Brooks underwent ECMO, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, an advanced life support technique used for patients with life-threatening heart and/or lung problems.
Meanwhile, Pacita Tsai was back at the Brooks home, where she had self-isolated in her bedroom because of her son’s illness since late March. She, too, has felt ill but has not had a fever, her sons said. Her other sons would bring her food and leave it outside her door.
Difficult Easter
Easter morning, Robert Tsai said, his brother seemed to be progressing.
“He was responding to the nurses and seemed to be in good spirits. Overall, we thought he would make it,” Robert Tsai said. “We were given the opportunity to video chat with Phil on Sunday early evening. By the time I was able to join the video chat Phil had a little trouble breathing so the nurse cut the session short.”
But Brooks wasn’t doing well. Later that evening, Robert Tsai fielded a phone call from the hospital’s night shift doctor, sparking concerns about Brooks.
“I immediately thought something happened to Tony,” Robert Tsai recalled. “It was actually about Phil.”
The doctor told him that when he made his early rounds, TsaiBrooks had given him a thumbsup sign.
“A bit later, Phil’s heart stopped. They tried for 38 minutes to resuscitate him, but weren’t able to do so.”
Tsai Brooks died Sunday night. Brooks, who had improved some after the ECMO treatment and a plasma transfusion, stopped responding. He died Tuesday night. Alfred Tsai said he doesn’t know whether Brooks knew that the love of his life was gone.
His brothers-in-law and mother-in-law, they say, take solace in the thought that the two men are together.
“Tony Brooks and Phillip Tsai loved each other so much, and they left this world together,” Alfred Tsai said. It’s a love story that ended too soon in this world, but in heaven, it will last for eternity.”
A thank you
Alfred Tsai said the city of Live Oak has been exemplary with the family, especially his mother, who remains isolated in the house as she recuperates.
“Live Oak has stepped up, they really have, they’ve helped us in every way they can,” Alfred Tsai said. “They are proof that Live Oak is an amazing place to live.”
Live Oak City Manager Scott Wayman said Brooks served the city well during his terms on the council.
“Anthony had worked for the city of San Antonio for several years, for the budget office,” Wayman said. “He was someone who knew his way around a budget. He had a good idea of how cities function, because he knew of those intricacies from his time in San Antonio.”
Wayman said Tsai-Brooks had served on the Economic Development Corporation for nearly four years.
“Being a small business owner himself, he was always insistent on helping small businesses in the city,” Wayman said.
Phillip Tsai is survived by his mother and four brothers, Alfred, Robert, Edwin and Anthony Tsai.
An only child, Brooks’ only survivors are in his in-laws.
Services are pending with M.E. Rodriguez Funeral Home in San Antonio.
Tsai-Brooks’ brothers seek to remind others about the importance of trying to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus.
“It’s just so sad that Phil and Tony died without loved ones there with them. It’s sad that even though my mom feels better, my brothers who live in San Antonio can’t go to her and give her a hug,” Robert Tsai said. “It’s sad that my family and Alfred’s family can’t just jump on a plane and be with them. It’s just the reality we live in today.”
“It’s sad that my family and Alfred’s family can’t just jump on a plane and be with them. It’s just the reality we live in today.”
Robert Tsai, Phillip Tsai’s brother