Stanwood Coach Returns After Near-Fatal Stroke -- Chandler Makes Remarkable Recovery

STANWOOD - Mike Chandler never made it a habit to schedule regular checkups with his doctor.

So, even when he noticed traces of blood in his urine last June, Chandler didn't think there was cause to make an appointment.

He wished he had.

The blood, as well as flu-like symptoms, later were diagnosed as early warning signs of a stroke that nearly killed Chandler, a longtime softball coach and teacher at Stanwood High School.

Doctors gave him a one-percent chance to survive the brain hemorrhage, but Chandler's recovery was remarkable, as he escaped paralysis, brain damage and worse.

Only nine months later, Chandler has returned to teaching and coaching. But last summer, on June 21 and for several days thereafter, he teetered on the verge of death.

One-percent chance

Chandler had been feeling sick for a few weeks. His back hurt. He guessed he had a cold.

"I've never been one much for going to the doctor," said Chandler, who, aside from slight hypertension, was a healthy 45-year-old who rarely missed a day of school. But the pain and symptoms worsened, and Mike's wife, Becky Chandler, and their 24-year-old daughter, Rachael, took him to the emergency room at Skagit Valley Hospital in Mount Vernon that evening.

"(The doctors) thought it was just high blood pressure, and they were trying to get it down and thought they could take care of it," Becky Chandler said. "They thought they had him stabilized."

Reassured, Becky and Rachael left the hospital at 11 p.m., some five hours after he'd been admitted. When they arrived home 20 minutes later, hospital officials called with bad news.

"They couldn't wake him up," Becky Chandler said. "He had so much pressure on the brain, and they couldn't figure out where the bleeding was coming from."

At 2 a.m., Chandler was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Normal blood pressure for people over 18 is 140 / 90 or lower. Chandler's was 320 / 210, and hospital officials didn't think he would survive the flight.

As Chandler was carried by helicopter, his daughter and wife of 20 years arrived at Harborview at 4 a.m. Five more hours passed as Chandler underwent surgery and an MRI to determine the cause of the bleeding. To relieve some of the cranial pressure, doctors drilled a hole into the front of his skull.

When Becky finally saw her husband again at 10 a.m., he was hooked up to dozens of machines and "he had tubes coming out his head."

"The doctors said he may not make it through the day, and that was when it really hit," she said. "I was in shock, and I kept thinking, `What am I going to do without him?' "

Jim Piccolo, Stanwood's athletic director and a close friend of Chandler's who was at Harborview that morning, shared the helpless feeling.

"Here's a man that is very physically strong and strong-willed," said Piccolo, who began teaching in the Stanwood School District 21 years ago, the same time as Chandler. "Here was a good friend sitting there, and he's helpless. He was in another person's hands."

Three days passed before Chandler awoke, and doctors warned Becky he might never fully recover.

"They told me that people with this kind of head injury usually don't come out ever the same," she said. "But they said there was always that one-percent chance that he would wake up and be fine, and he turned out to be that one-percent chance."

Outlook at lot different

Dozens of former and current athletes and co-workers from Stanwood visited Chandler at the hospital and then at his home when he was discharged 3 1/2 weeks later. He'd lost 50 pounds and could barely see - his vision was 20/3700 - but their presence inspired him.

"My outlook on life is a lot different now, in that the things that I used to see as important don't matter," Chandler said. "Having friends and their support, seeing them visit me, that really meant a lot."

After he was discharged from the hospital, Chandler underwent 2 1/2 months of rehabilitation at Providence Seattle Medical Center. The slight drag of his right foot when he walked eventually disappeared, and his eyesight is nearly perfect again.

Chandler, who played basketball and ran track, graduated from Stanwood in 1968 and returned in 1976 as a woodshop instructor. Three years later he began the Spartans' first softball program.

His impact on the school, as well as the community, has been tremendous.

"He's got a really soft, soft heart for the girls and athletes," Piccolo said. "He's a real gruff man on the outside, and he barks at the kids once in a while, but he's got a heart like a teddy bear on the inside."

Piccolo also praised Chandler as a teacher.

"He's developed one of the top woodshops in the state, and in doing so, he has built an outstanding rapport with the students and community because of his leadership abilities in the classroom," Piccolo said.

Through diet, exercise and medication, Chandler has been able to control his blood pressure, and has shown no signs of hypertension in recent weeks. He walks three to four miles each day and also lifts weights.

Chandler, who has displayed his student's projects at the governor's mansion and at the state capitol, resumed teaching, part time, near the end of January, but his return to the softball field was questionable.

"At first, his energy level was down, but he's getting stronger every day," Piccolo said. "It's his drive and fear of letting the kids down that keeps him going."

It's that same drive that kept him alive.

"In the past, I was burning the candles at both ends, and I was kind of a hyper guy that would just go, go, go," Chandler said. "But the wins and losses aren't important anymore. It's the support, care and concern that were given to me that counts."