55who Visits Eric Again in the Hospital What Does He Ask for

Eric Dubke'south family arrived at the hospital in separate cars.

His wife, Julie Dubke, was first. She'd been with him when he collapsed in the garage trying to make his way to their auto and was doing CPR when the ambulance crews showed up.

Get in the firm, the EMTs said. Y'all can't be here. Get in the house.

Information technology was all and so confusing. Julie had been sick, as well, though nowhere near as sick as her hubby. She followed the ambulance.

His sister Michelle Voineag, and her married man, Robert Ruokolainen, who alive in Northville, arrived afterward that. They were close, Michelle and Eric. They celebrated birthdays together. They endemic an Up North cottage together. They shared responsibility for taking intendance of their brother, who has special needs and lives in a grouping home, and for their mother who is in the late stages of Alzheimer'due south.  They'd cried together when they arranged for her  to move into a retention care domicile. Despite his low-key nature, Eric wasn't afraid to weep.

His girl Erica Dubke, his namesake, was the last to get in to the hospital. She drove to Beaumont Hospital in Trenton from Ypsilanti, where she attends Eastern Michigan Academy on a rowing scholarship, something that thrilled her father, himself a one-time college athlete.

Erica had called several times from the road to ask for details. We don't know anything still, her mother kept saying. Drive carefully.

But as soon as she pulled her Jeep into the parking lot, Erica knew something wasn't right. Her aunt and uncle and two one-half brothers and their partners stood a distance from each other, surrounding the machine where her mother sat in the forepart seat. She doesn't remember who told her that her begetter was dead.

She joined the remainder and there they stood, crying, wondering, hoping to exist allowed into the emergency room, which had restricted access considering of the coronavirus. They wanted to come across the human being they all loved, the human being who never slept in, the man who cheered his kids when they played sports and enjoyed making Thanksgiving turkey for the family. They were united in their love for him and yet they were lonely in their grief. Social distancing prevented them from reaching out and holding hands or comforting each other with an embrace.

For their family unit, for then many, that is how expiry looks now, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. People with COVID-nineteen, the affliction acquired by the coronavirus, go to hospitals for treatment and, often, end up never seeing their loved ones again. They die lonely with nobody to stroke their mitt and tell them what beautiful souls they are. And their loved ones? "You lot just take to kind of awkwardly look at each other," twenty-yr-old Erica said.

It's lonely and it'southward not off-white. But nothing about the coronavirus is off-white.

Information technology looked like the flu, at first

Eric Dubke, 55, who lived in Gibraltar and worked as a supervisor at DTE  was every bit quick with a joke as he was to help others. "Yous could probably call, easily, 1,000 people and they would tell you lot well-nigh the time Eric went out of his way for them," said his stepson, Jacob Duncil, who is xxx.

A guy with seemingly unlimited energy, Dubke savage ill on March 8, 2 days before the state of Michigan reported its first coronavirus example.

Concerned about his fever and chills, he went to the doc on March ix. He had a flu test. The results were negative. He was told to become home, get rest, drink plenty of fluids and take Tamiflu, an anti-viral flu medication.

That awful cough — Julie thought information technology sounded like a barking seal — started March 11. The doctor ordered a chest 10-ray. It showed no signs of pneumonia. Stay home, fluids, rest and now, antibiotics. Don't go to the infirmary unless yous accept difficulty breathing.

Past then, 57-year-old Julie was ill, too — no cough only chills and temperature that would somewhen reach 102.5. It was loftier for an developed, though at 103.4 Eric's was higher. They wanted to exist tested for the coronavirus but their dr.  said neither of them met the requirements for testing gear up past the U.S. Centre for Disease Command and Prevention.

Eric grew weaker, his back hurt, the cough and fever wouldn't become away.

Practise you lot want to go to the hospital?, Julie asked.

They're not going to do anything, Eric said.

By March sixteen, his breathing was so labored that he inverse his mind. I'll go to the hospital, he said. But first, some piece of work: "I have to do my guys' time cards. I need to brand sure they get paid."

It took him two hours to finish; he kept nodding off at the computer.

"Do you want me to telephone call an ambulance?," Julie asked.

"No," he said. "Let's get."

Standing up was difficult for Eric. He walked a brusk distance toward the door that leads from their house to the garage and had to sit down and rest. He shook his head, equally if he was frustrated.

He got up again, just was and then unsteady "he was like Jell-O," Julie said. He saturday downwardly on the garage stairs and fell over onto his face.

Julie rolled him over and started CPR..

The ambulance arrived and the EMTs told her to stay inside the firm. She did, reluctantly, and chosen her children — they all knew Eric and Julie were sick and had been staying away from their firm.

Not allowed within the emergency room, Julie waited outside for news.

Afterward what felt similar an eternity, a doctor arrived. "I"m sorry, your hubby's gone," he said.

"What happened?," Julie asked.

Processing the coronavirus test administered afterward his death on March xvi took several days. When the results finally came back, they were just as Julie had suspected: Eric had COVID-19. Which meant he died ii days earlier the Southgate man the state counts as the showtime person to die from the coronavirus.

If only he'd been tested when he was ill, thought Julie. "I think he'd however be alive. I don't think he would have gotten to the indicate of difficulty breathing."

A selfless husband, begetter

Eric was a big man — tall, heavyset. He golfed with such a strong swing it sometimes looked as if the ball might travel for miles. He loved hockey, which he connected playing long subsequently his college career at University of Michigan-Dearborn ended. He was the goalie, his team'southward last line of defense.

He and Julie were married for 22 years. They met at a bowling aisle in Trenton, the Bel-Mar II. He was in a league. She was visiting her friend who worked a second job at the alley'south bar. Eric sabbatum down next to Julie and they started talking. A year and a one-half afterward, he proposed at the same bowling alley, hiding the band in her bowling shoe.

Julie had three boys at home from her previous marriage, including one who is developmentally disabled and in a wheelchair from a stroke he suffered as a baby. "(Eric) took on not only me, but my three children and i was special needs. (It) takes a superman to do something like that," she said.

Until he got sick, Eric woke upwards early every morning time to shower and dress his stepson, who is at present 33, earlier eating breakfast together. He coached the boys' sports teams. And when Erica was born a couple years afterward he and Julie married, he did the same for her.

 "He was probably my biggest supporter in everything," Erica said. "He was always at my sports stuff and he pushed me harder than anyone to accomplish my full potential. ...Track, baseball, softball … gymnastics, cheer, rowing." He served every bit president of the rowing team'due south booster society and pulled the equipment trailer behind his motorcar to meets. "He," she said, "was the best."

Jacob, who lives in South Rockwood: "He never really put himself showtime. ... I can't really ever recall him being selfish. This virus did quite a number on him. Merely fifty-fifty at that signal, he wasn't worried about himself, he was worried almost others. ... Like getting his guys paid."

Julie: "He was our rock. He was our everything."

At long terminal, Julie, her sons and Erica were immune into the infirmary to see Eric. They wore masks. The residuum of the family had to stay behind.

Someone had pulled a sheet up to his neck. He had a tube in his mouth from being intubated. He looked blue. "No," Julie said, "this can't be happening." She rubbed her husband'south chest. "I love yous," she said. "I'one thousand sorry."

She, as well, would end upwardly testing positive for COVID-19, though by the time of Eric's funeral, she was symptom-free.

It was just a small affair, the funeral which took place ii weeks later Eric's death.

Most 30 people — family, close friends, a couple co-workers — sat in the same room as the casket. Eric's mother, who is on lockdown in her retention care dwelling house, wasn't there. She doesn't know her son is dead. "Whatever she's thinking, I don't want her to be thinking about losing him," Michelle said. Information technology had felt weird, making the decision to not tell her mother. She and Eric usually talked through issues surrounding her mother and her care together.

Others watched the Facebook livestream Erica sent up.

Michelle spoke, telling stories well-nigh their vacations Up N with Eric and their adventures at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. "Things weren't supposed to finish this mode," she said.

Erica spoke, too. Her voice wavering, she promised she would practice everything in her power to brand her father proud.

Jacob spoke. A co-worker spoke. And then did a neighbor.

The group — along with others who had been keeping a distance, idling in the parking lot, waiting to join the procession, 38 cars in all — followed the horse-drawn carriage that carried Eric to the nearby cemetery.

They watched equally workers lowered Eric's burial vault into the ground.

Afterward, they went their carve up means, back into quarantine.

Contact Georgea Kovanis: gkovanis@freepress.com

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Source: https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/04/12/michigan-coronavirus-death-grieving-funeral/2969834001/

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