Love, Care Keep UConn’s Eli Thomas Going
Mary Beth Turner, the mother of UConn football player Eli Thomas, didn’t exactly know what she was headed toward on Oct. 10 as she and her son’s longtime girlfriend, Katie, made an emotionally excruciating, five-hour drive from Elmira, N.Y., to Hartford.
“She drove and we both talked to people,” Turner said this week, occasionally pausing to compose herself while retracing a family’s terrifying ordeal. “We sobbed. We pulled it together. Then we sobbed some more. Every time I talked to another doctor, we were in disbelief and we said many times, ‘Is this going to be his life?’ ”
First off, No. Thomas, who suffered a stroke while stretching in preparation for a workout on the Storrs campus, is expected to make a full recovery. He left inpatient rehab Friday, returning to his Elmira home from a facility in Williamsport, Pa., and he is at the outset of a long outpatient program that will mainly address his impaired speech.
This situation could have been much worse, and yes, the worst was feared throughout a drive that Turner said felt like a 72-hour nightmare.
That’s what it is for a parent when a child is helpless, unaware, surrounded by neurologists and radiologists, on the operating table, in intensive care. It’s a damn nightmare.
Turner was driving toward the unknown. Yet she was also driving into something beyond the damn nightmare that should make us all feel damn good.
Thomas, 22, is alive and well because everyone around him at UConn and at two hospitals did their jobs and did them well.
He is alive and well because his stroke occurred while he was surrounded by teammates and staff members and not when he was alone or asleep.
His future is bright because he is an otherwise exceptionally healthy young man already making significant strides in recovery.
His future is bright because he clearly has the backing of two loving communities in UConn and Elmira, who remind us that athletics, even at the elite college level, are as much about family as anything else.
After Thomas had the stroke — never collapsing, just going silent and immobile — UConn assistant athletic trainers Anthony Salvatore and Caitlyn Van Wie had an ambulance on the scene in three minutes. He was rushed to Windham Hospital, diagnosed and transferred to Hartford Hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery to remove a large clot in his cerebral artery.
From stroke to ICU recovery, the entire process lasted just four hours. All the while, Turner and Katie were in the car, with Turner giving doctors permission for surgery and treatments and receiving updates on her son’s condition until she arrived to embrace him.
“To see your child struggle with something that is so basic … speech,” Turner said, breaking up while recalling seeing her son for the first time on the day of the stroke. “Speech is so basic and certainly something we take for granted. To see him struggle and not understand what was happening to him, it was truly a mother’s worst nightmare, other than, believe me, I’ve counted my blessings over and over and truly have not stopped because the other side of this could have been devastating.”
Thomas, a junior linebacker who has overcome three torn ACLs, is expected to be able to eventually continue his education.
For now Thomas is — get this — running hills and doing lunges during therapy. He is not on medication. He is feeling fine, physically, his mother said, adding that there are quiet times of frustration because sitting through speech therapy is torture for a guy so used to going full throttle. Thomas spent nine days at Hartford Hospital and six more in Williamsport.
“The doctors and therapists in Hartford and [Williamsport] were amazed at his determination and grit,” Turner said. “The therapist said, ‘He doesn’t stop until he gets it or we make him stop.’ Now the hard work begins.”
A rehabilitation timeline is impossible to nail down, but a year is generally a good starting point. In a comforting coincidence, one of Thomas’ sisters-in-law is a speech pathologist and she plans to work with him.
Turner said she hopes for Thomas to recover in full by the six-month mark. She even hopes — hopes, doesn’t expect — Thomas can re-enroll at UConn in January.
Thomas, an applied and resource economics major who spent two years at Lackawanna (Pa.) College, would like to become a high school principal. He has six tackles in four games this season, including a sack on the final play to preserve UConn’s only victory, 56-49 over Rhode Island.
Less than a month later, he was in emergency surgery. The clot was removed without complications. Doctors “went over that boy with a fine-tooth comb,” Turner said, but no origin of the stroke was identified.
When word spread of Thomas’ situation, two communities showed what they’re made of.
UConn coach Randy Edsall cut short a recruiting trip. Teammates played in his honor during a loss at South Florida. Numerous members of the UConn medical and football staffs have been in constant contact with Turner.
“There is nothing that UConn could do that they haven’t done,” Turner said. “They haven’t been amazing just from, ‘Oh, he’s one of our students.’ They have been amazing because they clearly love him. They have been devastated as we have been. Randy was at the hospital multiple times. The team doctor [Deena Casiero] was at the hospital multiple times and I’m still in very close touch with her. I can’t even tell you how many staff were there many, many, many times. As corny as it sounds, they’ve become like family in a very short time and they’ve cried right along with us.”
Nearly 20 family members traveled to Connecticut to be with Thomas, including his father, Willie Thomas, and several of Eli’s eight brothers and sisters. A couple of former high school coaches and close friends made it, too.
Back home in Elmira, friends of the family have planned a spaghetti dinner for Nov. 11 to raise money to help defray costs of recovery. Thomas was a standout player at Elmira High School, where players last week wore No. 22 decals on their helmets and carried his No. 22 jersey onto the field before a game.
“People love him,” Turner said. “He has touched people in ways that I didn’t [realize]. He’s good. He’s humble. He can be in any setting and be comfortable and make the people he is with feel special. He’s truly an amazing human being. I’m not saying that because he’s my son. If you came to Elmira tomorrow you could find 500 people who would say the same thing. The support is overwhelming. I’ve actually gotten completely overwhelmed and emotional on many occasions since this thing started.”
It began with missed calls, numbers Turner didn’t recognize. She soon spoke to doctors at Windham, and the whirlwind, the drive and the panic began.
“There are no words to adequately describe this nightmare,” Turner said. “We didn’t know what we were going to find.”
She found her son awake but confused, exhausted.
She found out days later that he will be OK.
And past the nightmare, she found out how many people are there for him.