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Tuesday February 10th the world lost a great man. Anthony Ciccarello founder of The Toy Soldier Gallery, Soldiers of the World and Armies In Plastic, passed.

Towards the end of October Tony started feeling weak in the legs and it was hard for him to get around the house. On October 30th we decided it was best to have him checked out and see what was going on. Since I was unable to get him in the car, we called the ambulance to have him take him to the ER and my mom and I were shortly behind in the car. We arrived at the hospital and went to the front desk to see when we would be able to go back and sit with him, and they said they would call us back when we could. Another 1.5-2 hours went by, and I went back up to the desk to find out what was going on and they said they didn’t have any rooms in the ER so they were going to wheel my dad out to us to wait in the waiting room. That never happened but about a half hour to 45 min later they called us back and told us that they had put my dad in a wheelchair, did not watch him and he fell asleep and fell forward out of the wheelchair and hit his head. Upon us getting back there he was in a hospital bed and neck brace and pretty well out of it. They did a brain scan and found he had a brain bleed and throughout the day were talking about possibly drilling into his skull to relieve the pressure or do full cranium surgery. Both were risky given his age and various health issues most people his age have.

 They decided to wait it out and see what would happen because the bleeding seemed to have subsided. At 2:30am while getting an MRI they found the bleeding was significantly worse and they had to do emergency cranium surgery. This would go pretty well, and he was cognitive pretty quickly with commands to move his arms and legs and nod to questions asked even though he was sedated. As the next few days went on, we saw some good progress and things were looking up. The next Friday they decided to take out the breathing tube and he was ok for a few hours breathing on his own but then he stopped breathing and his heart stopped. It was stopped for a total of 35 minutes and he was in V fib, they did CPR on him the whole time and after shocking him 8 times and various meds to get him going he came back!! At the time we didn’t know how well he would respond, or if he had any brain damage. I had asked the doctor if she thought we were good to go or would it happen again quickly. She gave him about an hour and didn’t expect him to pull through or have any normal brain function. Crazy enough he was ok and she used the world miraculous as he was again responding to commands and could hear what we were saying. I asked him jokingly if he wanted a diet coke to see what his response would be and he nodded and smiled while still sedated. WOW what a crazy turn of events! Expecting to arrive at the hospital to say good bye to him and then being pretty ok! Over the next few days he rested and they kept testing him to remove the breathing tube again but they weren’t confident he would be ok. So they did a tracheotomy as this would be the best avenue to assure he kept breathing without the breathing tube inhis mouth. Another few days went by and he was transported to a special breathing hospital to monitor him, and as the days went by he was getting better and better! More awake and able to move his lips, I could read his lips pretty well so we could have some nice conversations. 

He was there for about 7 weeks and he had a few setbacks, some with his kidneys reacting to the antobiotics in a bad way and also one time he had a mucus plug and stopped breathing because the air way was blocked in the trache as he was too dry from them drying him out with Lasix to protect his kidneys. He kept fighting through all of this still improving and getting off the ventilator with quick progress. In the beginning of January, he was well enough to go to a skilled nursing facility where he continued to improve his brain function, start talking with the speaking valve and start doing some PT! Everyone was very happy with his progress after all he had been through. I thought with just a little more time he would be able to come home but it wasn’t meant to be. It was an unbelievable fight, but it was just too much for him to keep going. He as well as my mom gave me and my sister a perfect life as kids and I know he was proud of us. In 2021 my dad and mom moved themselves and the business to Ohio to teach me the ins and outs of how the business was run. We came up with some great new products with 3D printing and found new ways to run the company more efficiently day to day, I will continue that going forward. It’s been a hard few months, but I at least got to see him progress and fight as he was a very strong-minded person!! RIP Dad we Love you!!!