Drone Bee of AAW

A message from Jackie, Stephen's Widow:

Stephen was born October 29, 1946, in Brooklyn New York. He grew up there with one brother Alan Eber who lives in the Los Angeles area. Stephen's father died early in life and his Mother brought them up.

Stephen graduated college and for a short while taught science at a junior high school in New York. In 1970 he joined the Air Force. They first trained him as a Laboratory Technologist and then cross trained him as a Nuclear Medicine Technologist. After eight years in the Air Force he left as a Staff Sergeant.

I joined the Air Force in 1972 and was trained as a Lab Technologist. Stephen and I met at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio Texas when I was going through my training in the Lab. We got married September 23, 1974.

We both left the Air Force in 1978 and went back to college in San Antonio. I became an accountant and Stephen got a Nuclear Medicine Degree and a Law Degree. I found work in Houston and Stephen followed. When he first got sick he was working as the head Nuclear Medicine Technologist for a Cardiologist. He loved his job. We have been in Houston since 1982.

Five years ago (June 1998) Stephen got a bacterial infection in his legs that went to his blood and destroyed his aortic heart valve. After the infection cleared up they did heart surgery to replace his valve. It took him seven weeks in the hospital to recover from the heart surgery when it should have taken him one week. He never fully recovered and was not able to go back to work.

Stephen's new work for the next five years was taking care of me and our house and garden. He was a wonderful cook and always had a great dinner ready when I got home from work. He also spent a lot of time on line and made lots of friends there.

On June 2, 2003, Stephen again entered the hospital for a bacterial infection in his blood. His artificial aortic valve was destroyed but he never got to heart surgery this time. His liver and kidneys failed from the infection and he was put on a ventilator to breath. He had a stroke early in this hospital stay and on his last day (June 26) a seizure where part of his infected heart broke off and went to his brain. Later that morning his heart stopped and they could not revive him.

What I look at now as a miracle is that the day before he died Stehen has a very good day. It was the first day in three weeks that he recognized me and we able to communicated with him nodding and shaking his head and shrugging this shoulders. He died the next morning sometime before 4:00 AM.

Stephen will be buried today, June 27, 2003. He was 56 years old.

Mrs Drone
Jackie

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