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The undying love of Matt and Tara
Published July 7, 2008
When Matt Way saw his wife lying in the Angleton Danbury Medical Center emergency room after the 24-year-old pregnant woman suffered a crippling stroke, he wept knowing there was nothing he could do for her.
“I grabbed her hand and said, ‘Sweetie, what’s wrong?’” said Matt Way, 26. “She rolled her head at me, her eyes rolled back and she couldn’t say anything. I immediately began crying out to God, asking Him to help me. As soon as I started praying out loud, one of the nurses put a hand on my arm and started praying with me.”
Tara Way had a massive stroke May 29 while working as a receptionist at Gulf Coast Auto Park in Angleton. Just more than six months pregnant with her first child, Tara had been healthy and happy, co-worker David Lackey said.
“She was at work like a normal day and she just fell,” Lackey said. “Everybody rushed over and called the ambulance. She wasn’t supposed to be at work that day but was filling in for somebody.
“Thank God she was up here and not at home alone,” he said. “Even then, she wasn’t expected to make it.”
Tara developed preeclampsia, a condition which can cause seizures after the 20th week of 2 percent to 10 percent of pregnancies, said Aaron Mohanty, assistant professor of neurosurgery at UTMB. The condition becomes eclampsia if seizures are present, and that led to Tara’s stroke, Mohanty said.
Strokes occur in 34 in every 100,000 preeclampsia or eclampsia deliveries, which is three times higher than the rate they occur in normal pregnancies, he said.
The condition is not well understood, but researchers believe a person’s genes, diet, blood vessels and neurological factors might play a role, according to the National Institutes of Health Web site.
Caused by a blood clot in the brain, Tara’s stroke came without warning, her husband said. The mother-to-be was the picture of health, never having a serious medical problem in her life.
Until that day.
She went to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston by medical helicopter and Matt followed on the road. When he arrived, the prognosis wasn’t encouraging.
“One of the neurologists pulled me into ICU and began asking me questions,” he said. “Before I knew it, I was in a consulting room with a team of surgeons. I had all these doctors talking to me and consent forms to sign. It was like a whirlwind. They said it was a life-and-death situation and as they were talking to me, they were already wheeling Tara up to pre-op.”
Dr. Joel Patterson performed the surgery to save Tara’s life.
“She was taken to the operating room for the evacuation of a blood clot deep in the left hemisphere of her brain,” Patterson said. “The baby was delivered immediately after.”
Still another operation was done to remove post operative bleeding related to a low platelet count and blood clotting abnormalities, Patterson said.
Within 72 hours, Tara had survived three major surgeries. Since Myla was delivered following Tara’s first brain procedure, the infant was weak, said Myla’s doctor, Karen Shattuck.
“When Myla was born, she was in critical condition,” Shattuck said. “She was very premature and lethargic due to Tara’s need for emergency surgery with general anesthesia.”
The survival rate for an infant of Myla’s gestation, between 24 and 26 weeks, is about 50 percent, Richardson said. The rate for babies born over 26 weeks is about 90 percent, she said. The heart and lungs of an infant that young aren’t developed enough to work on their own, and a premature baby at 26 weeks might not be able to maintain sufficient blood pressure.
“They said her chances of survival were slim,” Matt said. “When the doctors left, I began crying out to God again. For the first time in our lives, there was nothing I could do for Tara.
“I was broken before God,” he said. “I prayed, ‘I give them to you, Father. Do Your will.’”
LOVE STORY
Five years earlier, Matt had seen in Tara what he’d always wanted in a wife.
Raised in Lake Jackson by Pastor Jim Way and his wife, Brazosport College librarian Gay Way, Matt attended Brazosport Christian School, where he played football and basketball.
Tara grew up near Damon, with parents Robert and Rosemary Kuban. A Needville High School graduate, Tara is an outdoors girl who loves swimming and hunting.
The pair met in English class at Brazosport College in 2003, but they didn’t date for almost a year. Each planned to major in kinesiology and teach, and they had a lot in common, but Matt didn’t want a run-of-the-mill romance. He saw something special in Tara. She had fire, natural beauty, a strong sense of humor and loved life, he said.
“She was beautiful,” Matt said. “I wanted to do this one right. We were friends at first and got to know each other. She’s even more beautiful on the inside than the outside. I fell in love with everything about her.”
An odd freckle on both cemented Matt’s thought Tara was the girl for him.
“We both have this,” he said, holding his and Tara’s left middle fingers together. Each has a small brown spot in almost the exact place, below the first knuckle.
“Without a doubt in my mind, I knew God created Tara for me,” Matt said.
And him for Tara, she said.
“I liked him,” she said, taking a break from rehabilitation and smiling while concentrating to recount her feelings.
“The day he proposed ...,” she said, suddenly not self-conscious of her speech, but pausing until the words came.
“To me, he had rose ...
“Rose petals everywhere.”
On that day — November 19, 2004 — Matt left Tara a video camera with a recording proclaiming “Matt and Tara Day.” The couple spent the day shopping and built a stuffed Koala at “Build -A-Bear” in Houston. The toy had a recorder inside on which Matt said, “I love you, baby,” and Tara, “I love you.”
At his parents’ house in Sweeny, Matt sang Tim McGraw’s “Watch the Wind Blow By,” serenading Tara on guitar. He proposed, giving Tara a ring he designed with a jeweler, based on her description.
They were married on May 21, 2005. They lived in a travel trailer near Sweeny and had planned their future. But plans have a way of changing, and they did early this year, Matt said.
Since both worked part-time — he at the Sonshine Book and Gift Shop in Lake Jackson and she at Gulf Coast Auto Park in Angleton — and were attending the University of Houston, they hadn’t made the decision to have a child.
Tara was five months pregnant before going to a doctor. She suspected she might be two or three months along and was surprised when the gynecologist said five.
“We knew we had to do something, so we bought a mobile home,” Matt said.
The home was placed a few hundred yards from the rural home of Matt’s brother, Jeremy Way.
BAD SHAPE
One month later, on May 29, Jeremy Way was out mowing when he got news that would change the lives of his family.
“My wife came driving up like a maniac,” he said. “She jumped out of the car and ran toward me, waving her arms. She said, ‘Tara had a stroke.’”
Jeremy headed to Galveston.
Latosha Windham was already there with her own premature daughter, Peyton, when Tara was wheeled in.
“She was in bad shape,” Windham said. “And the baby was so tiny.”
Since UTMB professionals care for about 1,000 premature infants per year, neonatal nurse Karen Garcia wasn’t terribly concerned for Myla. Tara was another story.
“We have the best of care for babies,” she said. “I was more upset for the mother. She didn’t look good.”
As many as 24 percent of patients Tara’s age who suffer a stroke don’t go home. When they do, it’s with complications and a long road to recovery, Dr. Mohanty said.
“Approximately half of the patients who survive with pregnancy stroke are left with neurological deficits,” he said. “Usually these improve, but most of the time patients have a residual deficit.”
Those “deficits” can include paralysis, loss of speech and memory, weakness in arms or legs, tremors and other conditions.
“It was pretty wild,” Matt Way said. “It started off as a normal day to my precious wife having a stroke and delivering our little girl. But through it all, we kept our faith in God. He’s the reason Tara is alive.”
Four days later, the Monday after the May 29 surgery, Tara woke up in a hospital room, unaware of where she was, or why. She rubbed her stomach wondering what happened to her baby but couldn’t speak.
Family members, including Matt, were there to reassure her everything was going to be all right.
And so was a familiar friend.
“I brought her the koala bear we made on the day I proposed,” Matt said. “She kept pushing its paw and listening to our voices.”
I love you, baby.
I love you.
John Lowman is a reporter for The Facts. Contact him at (979) 849-8581.
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DONATE
An account is set up at Texas Dow Employees Credit Union. To donate, call the Lake Jackson branch at (979) 297-1154 and ask about the Tara and Myla Way benefit account.
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