from Aaron Portzline of The Athletic,

The coma lasted 40 days. Odelein had a multi-organ transplant in a single surgery that spanned nearly 24 hours, the likes of which had never been recorded in medical history. When he began to emerge from the coma in late April, another horror surfaced. Odelein was paralyzed from the neck down, with no promise that he would fully recover.

Former NHL teammates who somehow found him at Allegheny Medical Center — the family kept this private, too — recalled sobbing at Odelein’s bedside, shocked that he’d fallen so far so quickly and devastated that their visit was probably a goodbye.

“I don’t remember a lot of what happened,” Lyle Odelein told The Athletic late last month, fighting back his emotions. “I’ll be honest with you. … I’m not trying to remember everything. I’d rather not, actually.”

But Laurel Odelein remembers it all.

For her, the details are too vivid, an unsettling reminder that even the most vibrant life — even one of the toughest men under the sun — is subject to the whims of fate and the reality of mortality.

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