Sibling Bond Gets Brother with Large Brain Tumor the Best Care

Gary Colon suddenly had trouble speaking. He kept repeating the numbers “0-1-4” and the name “Becky”. While the numbers did not mean anything at the time, Becky is Gary’s younger sister. Becky always looks out for her big brother. So when Gary learned he would need a complex surgery to remove a large brain tumor — which was causing his speech problems — Becky sprang into action to make sure he got the best care possible. Gary traveled from Florida to Connecticut to be with his sister and have brain surgery at Norwalk Hospital.

Losing the ability to speak

Every other Monday morning, Gary and his girlfriend, Susan, go on a date: they donate platelets (red blood cells) for cancer patients, and then they go out to breakfast. On one of these Mondays, Gary felt odd after donating platelets. At the restaurant, he could not order breakfast. He attested this lapse in speech to being famished, and his hemoglobin (a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout the body) being lower than normal after donating platelets. He ordered breakfast by pointing to what he wanted on the menu, and went home thinking he was better after having eaten. Susan thought otherwise. She began to worry when Gary could not have a normal conversation with her.

“I didn’t want to go to the emergency department, even though Susan wanted me to,” said Gary. “I’ve been really healthy my entire life — I eat organic, I exercise, and I’m the same weight as I was when I was in college — so I didn’t think anything was truly wrong with me.”

Susan videoed Gary so he could see that he acting abnormally. Gary watched the video and saw that at times, he could not say his name, or the names of his dog, Hopper, or cats, Miss Pretty Kitty and Willa. Gary called Becky for help.

“When Gary called me, he was talking funny, which was unusual because he’s usually very articulate. I could tell by his voice that he was nervous. I asked him to send me the video immediately,” said Becky, a radiology patient access manager at Norwalk Hospital.

After Becky watched the video, she began to worry that Gary had a serious medical problem. She understood Gary’s hesitation to find out what was going on with him, but she urged him to go to the emergency department.

“Don’t make me come to Florida to bring you to the hospital,” Becky, who lives in Stratford, Connecticut, had said to Gary at the time.