Bend Man, Mother Suffer Strokes Within Days

They say lightning never strikes twice, but for the Digiacomo family, it seems that saying couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Just shock, to see him like that. It’s like living in ‘The Matrix.’ It’s like, ‘What am I doing here, what is going on?'” said Chris Digiacomo, Rob’s brother.

In September,Rob Digiacomo, 33,suffered a massive stroke. His brother traveled from LA to be by his side.

A few days later, his mother Lily and aunt Grace traveled in from out of state.

“Once we got here it was a lot of bedside vigil, and just waiting, and hoping, and praying that he’d pull through and live,” said Grace Skidmore, Rob’s aunt.

That’s when lightning hit again. This time it was Rob’s mother.

“His mother had an aneurysm about three times the size of her son’s,” said Dr. Ray Tien, a neurosurgeon at The Center.

“It was really hard to look at her,” Chris Digiacomo said. “I was able to stay in the room for about 20 seconds before I had to leave.”

“We were shocked – it was stunning, it was unbelievable, and surreal,” said Skidmore.

Tien was just as shocked. The doctor says for two relatives to have a stroke is common, but for two family members to suffer one just days apart – that’s pretty muchunheard of.

“It’s an unusual situation, one that I haven’t seen before,” saidTien.

“It’s bad enough having the one stroke victim,” Skidmore said. “But back to back, nine days apart, it was a little more than we could all bear.”

Not long after Rob’s mother suffered a stroke, another hit her son. Rob experienced another hemorrhage in his brain.

“It sent him all the way back again to as bad, if not worse, than he was when he initially arrived at Saint Charles,” saidTien.

Doctors say he had a5 percent chance of survival the first time around. Being a normally healthy and active person, he beat the odds.

But now, after another blow, doctors aren’t sure what to expect.

It wasn’t long before Lily was flown to a brain rehabilitation center across the country, having to leave Rob behind,as he has no medical insurance.

“Ideally, in the base case scenario, we would have both mother and son together so they could help each other through the rehab, which again, that’s probably unheard of as well,” said Skidmore.

The good news: Lily is said to be recovering well in rehab, while her son and doctors are fighting a daily battle for his life back in Bend.

“With a lot of care, and with the newer technologies that are available now, what may have appeared to be a hopeless situation in the past actually we can do fairly well,” saidTien.

Thanks to the strength of those around Rob, he is not in a hopeless situation. But he still faces a long road to recovery.

“Life is precious,” Tien said, “and even if you do have some debilitating side-effects, just being around and seeing your family is an important experience.”

Rob’s family hopes to reunitehim with his mother in Philadelphia, at the Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital by Christmas.

Chris Digiacomo has created a page for his brother at http://www.digi-akimo.com/page15/page15.html.

If you would like to help Rob and his family, you can send cards of support or a donation to the Robert DiGiacomo Medical Fund, 1928 N. Beverly Glen Blvd.Los Angeles, CA 90077.