WPCNR MAIN STREET JOURNAL. John Bailey Interviews Louis Cappelli at home. (C) 2009, White Plains CitizeNetReporter. All rights reserved. August 5, 2009: The only inkling Valhalla’s Louis Cappelli had he was suffering from a brain aneurysm in progress was a persistent headache for 72 hours prior to his being hospitalized when the aneurysm burst July 20. He was operated on for eight hours for the condition at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital July 21. Wednesday evening, Mr. Cappelli recounted the story of what happened to him to WPCNR.
Louis Cappelli of White Plains and Valhalla in April. The man who created the City Center, the Ritz Carlton Westchester, New Roc City has returned home and shares this personal account of his experience.
He never lost consciousness prior to going in for his operation.
At 6:30 P.M. Wednesday evening Louis Cappelli, thoughtful, clear of voice, and philosophical, sensitively told his story to WPCNR of his brush with fate in a 25-minute telephone call from his home.
Mr. Cappelli said he is being monitored every two hours for his blood pressure and with various technological “windows” because he is considered still at risk for a stroke. He told WPCNR he is hopeful of returning to his offices in White Plains next week and that his company had managed terrifically without him. The WPCNR-dubbed “Super Developer,” told an emotional, thoughtful narrative to WPCNR — the story of how his life changed forever just 20 days ago in an interview from his home tonight.
WPCNR: What are your feelings on weathering this horrible thing?
Louis Cappelli: “John Bailey. It’s good to hear your voice. Did you ever think that the new and improved me would ever say that? I’ve had complete reconstructive brain surgery and here I am, just the same old Louis. There you go. That’s great news.
WPCNR: Do you feel comfortable talking about this?
L.C.: Of course.
WPCNR: Was there any inkling this was about to happen to you?
L.C.: No. None. My advice for anyone out there today, don’t ignore any signs that your body gives you. My signs were just a simple nagging headache that was unusual for me because I don’t get headaches. Two weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago, maybe Friday (July 17), I started in Long Island having a few nagging, throbbing, aching headaches, no migraines. Nothing that would disable me or immobilize me, almost like you drink a little too much white wine in the afternoon, you know, John? Sort a dehydrating type feeling in your head, maybe you need a little more water,kind of throbbing. So I had it on Friday night.
I took a few Advil. I didn’t think much of it. Saturday it persisted. I had a little fever, 99 degrees, 100 degrees, nothing to worry about, chills here and there. Sunday it was still with me in more of just a nagging way.
WPCNR: A 72 hour headache?
L.C.: Yeah.
Then Monday morning (July 20) as I was leaving the Hamptons to come to work here (in White Plains), I was in the shower and I bent over to pick up a shampoo, and my head felt like it essentially exploded, a complete pressure throughout the entire top of my head when I bent it 90 degrees.
Whether it was gravity that caused that, I’m not positive what it was. But at that time, 9 o’clock Monday morning (July 20), I decided (and my wife certainly decided for me), that I was going to get a CAT scan done, and I went right to Southampton Hospital at 11 A.M.
WPCNR: So you never lost conciousness?
L.C.: I never lost consciousness. I had a CAT Scan done and they saw a minor abnormality but nothing that troubled them. They asked me to hang around for three hours to do an MRI. Of course, I said No. Of course my wife chained me to the car.
WPCNR: Good for her.
L.C.: Yes. I waited three hours (at Southampton Hospital). Did an MRI. They then came out to the parking lot as I was waiting out there on the cellphone of course, Blackberry, and they said to me they were bringing an ambulance for emergency surgery that needed to be done at Stony Brook Hospital where there was a neurosurgical team waiting for me to do an emergency brain operation on a brain aneurysm that had burst. Of course I said I’m not going to Stony Brook, I’m going to Manhattan
The ambulance showed up and they said they wouldn’t take me to Manhattan because my blood pressure was 210 over 110 and they wouldn’t put me in the ambulance because they didn’t think I would survive the trip at 6 P.M. from Southampton to Manhattan an hour and a half later.
They took me to Stony Brook. At which point I signed some additional forms. They gave me some blood pressure reducing medicine to take me (my blood pressure) down to 140/150. We made the trip to Manhattan in an hour and twenty minutes and I was delivered to Columbia Presbyterian at 8:30 Monday night (July 20) and the operation was performed the next morning for 8 hours.
They cut a nice 2 inch by 3 inch hole in my head. They fixed a hundred percent the aneurysm which had leaked and burst slowly, with 100% effectiveness and permanencey. They clipped it, left it in my poor little brain and they closed me back up.
And I’m home and hopefully getting back to some sort of normalcy in the next few days, but I’m not out of the woods yet.
I’m a candidate at this point, in the window, for a stroke. Because there was some blood that ruptured from the aneurysm. It did get onto part of the brain. But it’s toxic and not supposed to be on the brain, I’m told. And they’re just watching, every minute now, the beautiful brain fluid washing away, hopefully, the crusted blood that might be in the brain, to try and get me past the window and avoid any spasms there that might cause a stroke.
WPCNR: How often do they check you? How do they do that?
L.C.: Basically every two hours, I’m being checked for blood pressure, checked with temperature, with EKGs, and they’re doing all of that stuff every two hours and medicating accordingly depending on blood pressure and depending on a lot of stuff. It’s a helluva a monitoring thing. You really can’t put your fingers on it. I still have some residual headaches today which are of concern to them.
But, I have an 8-inch scar on my head on my head where they cut my head open.So part of the headaches is the healing process.
So the issue is: never think that you’re immortal. Never think that things can’t happen to you. That would have been my thought process. I dished it off as being a nothing. It took three days for me to come to a conclusion it wasn’t a nothing. Even then I wasn’t prepared to accept the information as to what it would be
Because you know, that doesn’t happen to me. It shouldn’t happen to me.
But the people at Southampton Hospital were phenomenal. They diagnosed it perfectly. Ambulance people who got me there in an hour and 40 minutes. The people at Columbia Presbyterian, the top doctors on the planet, who took me under their wing for eight hours. So I’m here. Cappelli lives.
And it happened one day after I got the biggest vote in my life on the Concord, where the (State) Senate voted 58-0 to approve the Concord transaction on Thursday in the afternoon. Twenty-four hours later (July 17) I started having a brain aneurysm. Kind of an irony or some sort of thing there, really. Just when the pressure should have been removed after ten years of work, two years of stress and the vote finally came about and the aneurysm popped, after the vote is received in a positive fashion.
WPCNR: When will you be out of the woods?
L.C.: They’re thinking that I’ll be in the medical world, out of the woods, by the beginning of next week, which will be three weeks from the operation. That would be considered out of the woods as long as the wound heals with no infection. I’m taking medications for infections. We’ll all feel better about this Monday and Tuesday.
WPCNR: When will you be able to deal with the day-to-day business?
L.C.: I’ve been dealing with that the last week and a half. The trusty Blackberry is here. I think for the most part, it really isn’t dealing with the day to day stuff any more. It’s about the intensity and the gravity I give the day-to-day stuff. In the last two and a half weeks, my report card as to what’s grave and what’s not as relates to deals, bank deals, leases, condominium sales, all that stuff that was very grave and stressful in my life two week ago, while all that stuff still exists.
The condo market didn’t change because I had an aneurysm. But the gravity of what more condo sales mean to me as to what more condo sales mean to me or less mean to me, whether hotel occupancy is 85% or 65%, all those things have taken on less importance to me.
I’m dealing with the day to day for the last week and a half. But I’m dealing with it differently. Every day is not crisis management anymore for me. No it is what it is. I’ve had my crisis management two weeks. Right now just is what it is and it will be what it will be and, (Mrs. Cappelli makes a remark). My wife says she’s Nurse Ratchet. She was looking out for me for two weeks. She’s the one who chained me to the car to make sure I stayed for the MRI.
So that’s it, John. I’m back. I’m the same Louis. Right now I have 100% of my motor skills. 100% of my memory, my retention. My skill sets. They’re all here.
What was important to me two weeks ago, probably doesn’t have the same importance to me now. Different things are important to me now than they were two weeks ago. I was given less than a 50-50 chance of surviving the operation. Ninety-five percent of the people in my condition would not have made it to the hospital with a ruptured aneurysm, high blood pressure,would not have even made it to the hospital, let alone to be in a position to have an operation, to have it succeed.
I had my discussions with my wife, my kids and my family before the operation, and we’re all of the agreement that what was important three weeks ago does not hold the same importance today, that’s for sure. That’s a hundred percent positively for sure.
I haven’t read a newspaper in two and a half weeks. I don’t care if I ever read a newspaper again. Don’t know if I’ve been in a newspaper. Don’t care about a newspaper. It is what it is. It was a miracle that I’m here to talk about it . 95% of the time would have shut the lights out on somebody else. It just would have been a light switch that went out.
I said to the doctor how would this have happened? The doctor said to me when your aneurysm broke, ninety-five percent of the time it’s just lights out. It’s not a headache, not some sort of warning.
WPCNR: Going forward, you’re taking this day by day, and so at this point, everything is still on the table in your business and you’re going to proceed with a different perspective?
L.C.: I think that’s a correct statement. My organization in the last two and a half weeks has really shown me a lot of resiliency. Frankly, jeez, I always thought they really needed me. As it turns out, John, they’ve cut back overhead, trimmed the sales, organized things better and my organization, the leadership in my organization is resilient,strong, it’s there. It will be three weeks this Friday that I’m out. They haven’t missed a beat.
We’re parking cars. We’re serving steaks. New Roc’s still there.City Center is still there. We’re finishing up Trump Plaza, Trump Park in Stamford. It’s opening in three weeks. It’s a magnificent building. We’re selling apartments at the Ritz, and we’re selling apartments at the Trump in New Rochelle.
I’m come to the conclusion thankfully, they don’t need me any more. I can take more time off.
WPCNR: We won’t read anything into that, will we?
L.C.: No. But taking some time off isn’t the worst thing in the world. My wife loves that. In my mind I feel like I’m 100%.They’ve given me different ground rules for awhile for a few weeks.
I’ve got the same old challenges that are still there.
I’ve got the Concord closing in the next 10 days to two weeks. I’m looking forward to closing the Concord financing and starting that construction right away. Before fall, before Labor Day.
WPCNR: So the casino, the track will begin going up before Labor Day (September 7)
L.C.: Before Labor Day
Asked about if he had sent in Qualifications for the Winbrook Revitalization project in White Plains, Cappelli said he was not aware of it, and would ask Joe Apicella and Bruce Berg to find out about it tomorrow.
