New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
‘I’m happy to be alive’
Wilbur Cross coach McClease back after heart surgery
McClease, 54, is a part of Wilbur Cross royalty. He was a New Haven Register All-State selection during his senior year in 1987 and was a part of Wilbur Cross’ last CIAC state championship in 1985 under coach Robert Saulsbury.
NEW HAVEN — Gerald McClease sits in his usual spot on the bench for the Wilbur Cross boys basketball team: the first seat, a seat he has occupied for years as an assistant coach.
McClease is some 50 pounds lighter than last season. He is happy to be there every day.
He almost wasn’t prior to having heart surgery in September.
“I still get emotional thinking about what I put my wife and kids through, and my grandkids,” McClease said. “I’m happy to be alive.”
McClease, 54, is a part of Wilbur Cross royalty. He was a New Haven Register All-State selection during his senior year in 1987 and was a part of Wilbur Cross’ last CIAC state championship in 1985 under coach Robert Saulsbury.
He went on to play at Division I Iona College. His son, Gerald
Jr., and his grandson, Christian, have come through the program. Christian graduated last June.
In the early morning hours of Sept. 13, McClease said he woke up in a sweat. He sat on the front of his bed, then went outside on his front porch. He was having trouble breathing.
He told his wife, Deborah, to call 911.
“It was hard to breathe, hard for me to catch my breath,” Gerald McClease said.
McClease came down the steps from the porch when the ambulance arrived. “The last thing I remember was them putting an oxygen mask on my face,” he said.
He didn’t wake up until the following week after having heart
surgery.
Deborah and her daughter went to Yale New Haven Hospital. It took hours before Deborah found out that her husband would need to have both his aortic and mitral heart valves replaced. When she saw Gerald, he was sedated and “there was tubing into his chest to relieve the fluid.”
So much fluid had built up in the cavity, “his heart was unable to beat,” Deborah said.
Deborah said she was told Gerald had “coded,” hospital slang meaning he’d gone into cardiac arrest earlier that day. Gerald had heart surgery a couple of days later to replace both valves, she said.
Gerald woke up a few days after surgery. He didn’t realize what had happened until he saw a picture of himself with all of the tubes in him.
“I really didn’t know it was that serious,” Gerald said.
Recuperation took time. First, it involved moving Gerald to a chair in his hospital room. It then became getting him up to walk, then increasing time spent walking.
“He went from taking one lap around the nurses’ station, then the next week, it was three laps,” Deborah said. “When he was ready to leave, it was 19 laps. That was good to see.”
Deborah, in her third season as the Wilbur Cross girls basketball coach, said it was approximately one month after surgery before her husband came home. Even then, Deborah said a nurse would come to their home to administer an antibiotic for Gerald through an IV line and also check to see if his wound from the surgery was healing.
Gerald and good friend Ed Dolan, a former Superior Court judge and — like Gerald — a member of the Wilbur Cross Hall of Fame, would walk around the outdoor track several times to get the exercise to build back his endurance. The many well-wishers also helped with his recuperation.
Gerald, who is 6-foot-6, said he’s lost 55 pounds, dropping from 310 to 255.
“I knew I had a ways to go before I could get back to work,” said Gerald, a student intervention specialist at Wilbur Cross. “I wanted to go back to working with the kids in school and on the basketball court.”
He did go back to work in early December. He also has returned to coaching with the Governors.
“We’re very blessed that he is still here,” Deborah said. “I’m happy that he wasn’t alone or not near a phone or not somewhere easy for an ambulance to get to us.
“It was a lot to see someone used to doing so many things to adjust and start all over. Getting up, walking, not getting tired, being able to watch what you eat, not taking meds to waking up one day and taking eight medications in a day. He handled it very well. He was aware of the things he needed to do to change and give himself a better shot of being healthy.”
The McCleases have been married for 27 years. They have five children and eight grandchildren.
Gerald is thankful for those who took care of him at Yale New Haven Hospital — especially his surgeon, Dr. Robert Patrick Davis — and for all of the well-wishers that still reach out.
“I have a whole different perspective,” he said.