[Beth Denysenko]

It is with a very heavy heart I am posting this.

My beloved Alex suffered a severe stroke Friday night. We were at dinner with a good friend of ours when it occurred. Knowing his family history, I had long ago educated myself on the symptoms of stroke and knew almost instantly what was happening. The owners of the restaurant we were at were also friends of ours and knew something was wrong immediately and came to our aid. They called an ambulance, and knew that some of their customers were medically trained and brought them over to keep things calm until the ambulance arrived. We got Alex to the hospital in time to get the time-sensitive medication to bust the clot and give him the best chance of getting back to normal.

Alex was in ICU until yesterday afternoon, we have been moved to a regular room now, and we expect he will be in the hospital until at least Tuesday or Wednesday. He has some pretty severe blockage in his neck and we won’t know until today or tomorrow if it’s too severe to be treated. The holiday is messing up some of the timing of information and planning of next steps. He might have surgery, he might not. Regardless, he is in for at least a few weeks of rehab in-patient (though Alex currently planning on going to open his shop tomorrow morning, please don’t tell him he’s not going to be able to). The hospital is one block from our house, so I have been able to walk back and forth, take short little breaks to take care of our pets, grab a bite to eat, etc.

We are going to need continued prayers and good thoughts for a little while as it’s going to take a lot of hard work, strength and discipline to get him back into tip top shape, but I believe if anyone will do it, it’s him. He has proven his unbelievable stubbornness over and over from the start of it all this weekend and never before have I been so thrilled to see it – usually it’s quite the opposite response from me – LOL But I think we finally found a good and appropriate outlet for it. And he has some great incentives to get better. That race car of his is going to drive him to success as much as he has driven it into the winner’s circle.

Tony, his son, is available to help run the shop in his absence and Alex is communicating very well to help direct him, no issues at all with memory or thought processes. So though it won’t be business as usual, we should be able to keep Moneymaker Racing open for business.

The moral of this story however is to live each day with your loved ones as though you might never see them again. We have always lived this way and so glad we have. Even though we have never taken each other for granted, this was still quite a wakeup call.

If you have the inclination to send a card, the funnier the better, I would really appreciate it.
Alex Denysenko
1707 Washington St.
Michigan City, IN 46360

Thank you to all our racing family, Beth