“One night, about ten months ago, there was a pretty heavy snow storm in my area. All of the roads were closed and a curfew was issued for everybody except emergency medical personnel.

I had been shoveling snow for most of the day and was dead tired come nightfall. Didn't have the energy to do much of anything besides eat dinner and lay down. I fire up some OG Star Trek and begin to doze off.

A couple of hours later, around 1AM, I hear the sound of a door rattling and a slight whisper saying my name, "vladimir_pwnin". I sit up a bit and realize it's coming from my parents' room, becoming fainter with the passing time. After 10 minutes or so, I gather up the courage to see what the hell is going on.

Shitty folding knife in hand, I peak out into the hallway and don't see anything. The noise is still coming from the room next door, the rattling becoming more rushed as I approach. Cautiously, I open the door and sneak inside. It's pitch black and I can't see anything.

My eyes are taking entirely too long to adjust to the darkness. I'm shuffling forward, and all of the sudden, something grabs and pulls on my leg. At this point I was so freaked out I jumped back. As the whispers continued, I recognized my dad's voice. He was asking me for help.

He had a stroke while walking to use the bathroom around 1AM that night. After he fell, he was able to use his left foot to rattle the door to his bathroom. My mom fell asleep on the couch in the living room and wasn't around to help or hear. I was able to grab the house phone and call 911, and despite the weather, the police and an ambulance arrived within 10 minutes.

That was the scariest night of my life. The doctors told us there wasn't much hope for my dad before going into surgery, since he had a hemorrhagic stroke and there was a massive amount of bleeding.

Fast forward 10 months and my old man is cognitively the same, just paralyzed on his right side. He had every infection under the sun while in the hospital, but he staved them off and is still with us today. He was my best friend before the incident, and my hero after.”