While staying at his second home in Phoenix, Arizona, Steve Magus began experiencing an earache after a round of golf with friends. He and his wife, Sonia, were scheduled to return home to Calgary the following day, which also happened to be her birthday.
They boarded their flight without incident, though his earache persisted. Hoping for relief, he purchased ear drops. However, after landing and going through Customs, he noticed the pain in his ear had worsened significantly.
Photo credit: Steve Magus
Steve decided it would be better to get it checked out rather than wait for it to get even worse, so they went to an urgent care centre and waited to be seen by a doctor. While in the waiting room, his vision became blurred, and he had a terrible headache. When the doctor saw him, he noted that he had a severe ear infection and prescribed him freezing drops and medication to help with the pain.
They went home that evening and on February 19, 2024, Sonya started to worry when he hadn’t woken up by 10:30am. She went to check on him and found him delirious, mumbling and slurring his words.
“I couldn’t stand on my own. I didn’t really know what was happening. My daughter came by and did the stroke test on me, but I passed it. They realized they wouldn’t be able to get me into a car, so they called 911 and the fire department and ambulance came,” Steve recalls.
He was taken to Foothills Medical Centre and brought to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). It was determined by physicians that the best course of action was to put him in an induced coma. The following day, they ran a multitude of tests on him, trying to figure out what was wrong. Physicians were able to perform surgery to remove the ear infection and put tubes in for drainage, but he was still not improving.
More tests were ran on him, and they discovered that Steve had contracted Strep A Meningitis and it covered the left lobe of his brain. He was scheduled for an emergency brain surgery, where his skull cap was removed and neurosurgeons cleaned out the infection.
News of Steve’s condition travelled fast through his friends and family and by the time he was out of surgery, there were 40 people in the waiting room for him.
The surgery was successful and when his wife received the news, she was relieved but was told that he was not out of the woods yet.
“She asked the surgeon what my chances of survival were, and they said 50/50 at this point in time.”
The next 72 hours were deemed critical for Steve’s survival as they waited to see how he would respond to the brain surgery and if his body would start fighting the infection. The timeframe passed, and there was little improvement.
After a week in the hospital, he was still in a coma and was showing no signs of response – his white blood cell count was starting to skyrocket, indicating that his body wasn’t fighting the infection. Doctors were concerned he would go into sepsis.
“At that point in time, they contacted my wife and said she should start getting my affairs in order. If I went into sepsis, I would for sure die. They changed my prognosis to a 30% chance of survival.”
After receiving the devastating news, within about 24 hours, Steve started to respond. His white blood cell count started to drop, and everyone was hopeful he was going to turn a corner. He was taken out of a coma and his ventilator was removed. He remained in the ICU, but his medications lessened as he began to improve.
“When I woke up, I honestly had no idea what had happened. They told me I had brain surgery and that didn’t really resonate with me. Everyone kept telling me how much better I was doing so I just put it in my mind, that I would just keep getting better.”
Steve was eager to return home, but ended up being in the hospital for 22 days. He recovered in Unit 112 and will be forever grateful for the incredible care he received from all the healthcare professionals that helped him through his recovery.
Steve had to learn how to walk again, how to climb stairs, and be able to use the washroom on his own before it was deemed safe for him to go home. He was steadfast with all of the work it took to get there and took every physiotherapy appointment seriously. He is sure that nurses grew tired of him asking when he would be able to go home, but it only bolstered him to work harder to ensure that he would be home as soon as possible.
He struggled with his short-term memory and recalls being able to describe a word but not being able to say what the word was.
“I’d say, it’s a fruit, it grows on a tree and comes in red or green. You can make pies with it – but I couldn’t tell you that it was an apple.”
While his recovery felt long, the day he was able to go home was triumphant. Steve couldn’t return to work right away, something that was very difficult for him as he runs an engineering firm with his brother.
His message to those who have had to use the healthcare system or may not have needed it yet is simple: “Just keep giving back if you can. When I made the donation to Calgary Health Foundation, I wanted to give it to all the people who were involved in my care, and there were so many of them. Without the neurosurgeons, nurses, physiotherapists and the people in the early discharge program, my recovery would not have been possible without them.”
This year will mark his one-year anniversary from his health scare and he is grateful for the second chance at life he’s received. He was able to walk his daughter down the aisle for her wedding and golf over 80 games last summer. One thing he says he’ll never take for granted again and will be forever grateful for is his health. Donate to give people like Steve the best chance of surviving a health crisis at givehealth.ca
