I decided to make today a pay it forward day. I signed up to run for a charity in my favorite race of the season. I paid for a couple of people’s coffee in the line behind me at my local cafe. I walked to the park on this snowy day, excited toddler in tow, wondering about what else I could do as a random act of kindness. Then, I realized the date – tomorrow is a pretty awful anniversary of sorts. After Roman and I got home from the park, I called a local restaurant and organized a huge order of bagels, pastries, fruit, coffee and juice to be delivered to the ICU nurses and staff at our local hospital tomorrow. Here’s why.
Early December 3 years ago, my husband Fran was very ill. What we thought was a nasty stomach bug was getting a little scary. Now his limbs were aching, he was drinking water and ginger ale by the liter but didn’t feel like he needed to pee. His head was so painful it hurt him to blink. We decided we should get to the ER of our local hospital. A year earlier when I had a bad stomach flu, I’d gone to hospital and felt better within 10 minutes of having a saline drip and anti-nausea medication. We took a car service for a trip of only a few blocks, because moving was extraordinarily painful for him.
The admitting nurse asked him a few questions, then sat him down to take his blood pressure and heart rate. She stopped asking questions and picked up the phone immediately. “I have a patient here, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain. He needs a bed now.” She gave his blood pressure reading (which I remember was incredibly low) and his heart rate – 180 beats per minute. Deep down, I think I knew then something was wrong. I don’t remember the admitting nurse being at all alarmed when I was there with a dehydrating stomach bug a couple of years earlier. I remember that being run of the mill.
Fran got a bed in ER immediately, blood was drawn, then we waited. And waited. And waited. Neither of us were terribly worried at this stage. When you’re left to wait for hours, you don’t think anything much is wrong. Later, I found out there had been a couple of cardiac arrest patients who came in at the same time we did, and they needed immediate attention. Fran got shuffled back. Just a guy with a stomach virus.
We passed time, talking and me trying to make him feel better. I was texting with our friend Jeff about the Christmas dinner at his place with his sister and nieces that we were missing because Fran was sick. I told him that we were in the ER because Fran’s stomach bug got worse. Jeff texted a picture of the Fresh Direct boxes of food we were missing out on. Then he texted a picture he had his niece draw of Fran throwing up. Fran and I laughed about it, despite him looking terrible and feeling worse.
Fran had been hooked up to an IV, a saline drip, and an anti-nausea medication for a while at this point. I think it got changed at least once. He looked at me and said, “It’s not making me feel any better. Shouldn’t I be feeling better?” When I had been at that same hospital, the same ER, with the same stomach flu symptoms, dehydrated, feeling like death, unable to keep even a sip of water down, I felt a thousand times better within 15 minutes of being on that drip and he remembered that. We both did. We both expected the same thing to be happening now. A tendril of fear. Why isn’t the same thing happening now? When does the feeling better part begin?
Suddenly there were many, many people at his ER bedside. This must have been once someone checked his bloodwork and saw there was something terribly wrong. Now it wasn’t just one ER nurse checking the IV bag and telling us a doctor will be there soon, and me ineffectually saying, “My husband needs to see a doctor NOW. He is in pain. He is not feeling any better.” Does one lose contractions when trying to sound authoritative? Either way, no-one listened to me. But now, there were lots of people there. A doctor whom I wouldn’t recognize when she greeted me in the elevator to the ICU a couple of weeks later. A resident and another doctor, both of whom were going to become very familiar. Someone with an ultrasound machine. A couple of nurses. It seemed like everyone was asking questions at once. Someone said, “Your kidneys have failed”, as they hooked Fran up to some kind of portable dialysis machine.
Jeff called me, since I’d gone radio silent all of a sudden, to ask how Fran was. I missed the call and then I texted to him, “His kidneys have failed.” I don’t even have recollection of which doctor told us about his kidneys. I just remember that text to Jeff. I think I texted the same thing to another friend, who was sending me equally teasing messages clearly meant to keep my spirits up and make Fran laugh. His kidneys have failed. His kidneys have failed. His Kidneys Have Failed. I remember wanting to know, WHY? Because we all know that if you know what the cause is, then it can be fixed. In my mind, a hospital was a known place. Where you seek and receive help. Where you get answers, not statements that lead to your own questions and fear and unease and terror and unknown.
The ultrasound technician couldn’t see definitively if there was a blockage in his intestines, which is what they initially thought was the problem. They told us he would need to be taken to another floor for x-rays, but I could wait right here. Fran talked to me in the voice he knows makes me laugh as he was wheeled away for an x-ray, trying to make me feel better. “I’ll be right back, baby. All right, baby.” I think it was the doctor who talked to me weeks later on the elevator who looked in on me in the empty curtained space, crying. She said to me, “There’s an 80% chance your husband will be okay. Well, maybe 70%.” Then, probably realizing she’d just said the wrong thing, she was gone. That’s when my friend Maggie found me. I remember seeing her, and wondering how she knew I was there. Did I text her to tell her, His Kidneys Have Failed, too? She was there with magazines and water, and making phone calls to people she knew who knew someone who knew someone at the hospital. I asked her for a hair band. She didn’t have a spare, so she pulled her ponytail free, and gave me the one she was wearing. I remember feeling guilty I took her hair band. I emailed my mother-in-law Elly, to let her know what was happening and that they were going to transfer him to ICU.
They were waiting for a bed to open in ICU, they kept telling us, we’re just waiting for a bed. It never occurred to me that if a bed is opening up in ICU, someone is either recovering quickly, or dying. I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT ICU MEANT. In Australia, we would say ‘Intensive Care”. Never ‘ICU’. I didn’t even think about what it stood for, I didn’t know it was bad. Did Fran? I don’t know. We talk about it, but when we do, it’s him talking about something he thought he remembered, and me confirming or denying his drug-hazed recollections. A lot of his experience is weeding out what was real and what was hallucinated. For me, it’s weeding out the horror from the hysteria from the routine. We lived two different experiences.
One of the doctors came in, with a nurse wheeling a table of surgical equipment. He explained that he needed to put a cannula in an artery and he could not wait until we got the ICU bed so he was going to have to do it right here, in the ER, under a protective, sterile covering. Fran was so, so upset. There was a shroud over him, with a clear plastic window, so the doctor could see what he was doing. I touched the top of it accidentally when I was trying to get my hands underneath it to hold Fran’s hand. Then they had to get a new shroud because I’d contaminated it. A lot of the time Fran was in hospital I felt like I was just trying not to contaminate anything. Scrub hands. Antibacterial lotion. Don’t get in the way. Don’t touch the machines. The nurse needs to get to the exact spot I am taking up, no matter where I am. I was beneath the shroud with Fran, and he was in full panic, from the claustrophobia of it and I was fixated on the fact that with no anaesthetic, no real preamble, this doctor is sewing a tap into Fran’s neck. Under a piece of cloth that is supposed to make him safe from the unhygienic surrounds of a working ER. While I am holding his hand for support. What is happening here? I thought he had a stomach bug!
Finally we were told there was a bed open in the ICU. I was directed to a waiting room, while Fran was set up, for what felt like hours, but was probably 30 minutes at most. There was a couple in there with me, trying to sleep. Someone came to get me, Fran’s first nurse. Finally I was sitting by him, feeling better that this wasn’t ER. He was hooked up to monitors, and he seemed calm. In retrospect, I’m sure they had him on painkillers by now, but to me he seemed better. I remember thinking we’d be out of there within a day. We were supposed to be flying to Australia for Christmas on December 22nd. At one point Fran asked me if I thought we’d still make it to Australia. Our trip was more than ten days away, so I told him of course we were still going.
The idea of even an overnight stay in hospital was overwhelming for me. I remember them threatening me with an overnight stay if I couldn’t keep my liquid down when I was in their ER, and I remember telling Fran that even if I was still throwing up, I would lie to them, because there was NO WAY I was going to stay overnight in hospital. I remember on this night thinking Fran was the bravest human being on the planet. I stayed with him, because I couldn’t imagine being alone if it was me. I remember feeling embarrassed that I was falling asleep, my head on his legs on a pillow, sitting on a fold up chair. The lights on the whole time (part of ICU syndrome is that fact that you never experience darkness) and already I was feeling like I was always in the way. The cleaner needs to mop. I’m holding the arm they need for blood pressure. I’m not sick, but I’m right there. So I’m in the way.
The next two days are a blur. Lots and lots of tests and blood drawing and questions from doctors. They were still trying to work out what was wrong with him. His liver was also not functioning very well at this point. A lot of wonderful friends came to visit. One of his main doctors, a surgeon, explained that Monday morning they were going to perform a small operation to rule out the possibility of a bowel obstruction. I spoke to my family in Australia, and Fran’s mum in Vermont, to let them know what was going on.
On Sunday afternoon, two days after he was admitted to the ICU, he was being visited by his Uncle John and one of his oldest friends, Alison. He’d been complaining all day that he couldn’t catch his breath, so an oxygen tube in his nose had been added to the myriad lines snaking from him. I don’t even remember what we were talking about, but then Fran looked up at one of his monitors and said, “That’s a really weird game of football on this TV.” At first I kind of laughed, then I realized with a sick feeling that he meant it. He was looking at a readout of his vital signs and thought he was watching football. I told myself the painkillers must be really strong. We didn’t know it then, but the reason he couldn’t catch his breath was because his lungs were slowly filling with fluid and he was beginning to suffer from the lack of oxygen. Essentially, he was very, very slowly drowning.
The next morning, they set up to do the exploratory surgery. It had to be done by his bedside, since his condition was too serious for him to be moved. The head nurse of the ICU told me to go for a coffee and come back in half an hour. I don’t remember what I did for that half hour. I went back up to the ICU, but it was still locked up, so I went back downstairs. After another 20 minutes I went back up. This time the door was open a little way, so I pushed it open and saw six or seven people by Fran’s bed. I heard the surgeon say, “If I don’t do this now, this man is going to die.” At that moment, one of the residents looked over and saw me. He came over and took me to a small room just outside the ICU and sat me down. He explained about the fluid in Fran’s lungs. He explained that they had started filling rapidly while the exploratory procedure was happening. He told me they needed to drain his lungs and put Fran on a ventilator now, a serious surgery that again, they were going to have to do bedside in the ICU. I started asking questions and he told me I would have to wait and speak with the surgeon. He took my number and promised to call me as soon as they were done.
I don’t remember how long I waited. I remember feeling very numb. Finally, my phone rang – it was the resident to tell me to come back up, that the surgeon could talk to me. The surgeon was waiting for me in the hallway outside of the ICU doors. He went over what the resident had already told me. He explained to me that Fran was on life support, that he was in a medically induced coma. Then he said, “We don’t know what is wrong with him. But I’m afraid your husband is in a mortal condition.” That didn’t really register with me, because it was such an odd phrase – “mortal condition” – so I asked him when Fran would get better. He told me that in every other case he had ever seen of this severity, the patient had died. He told me that the only thing Fran had in his favor was that he was young. “You should be prepared that he will most likely die.” He told me to call our family and have them come as soon as possible.
The next few hours are jumbled for me. Fran’s mum was driving from Vermont by this stage, but I couldn’t get hold of her. I called my parents in Australia. It must have been the middle of the night there, because I woke them up. I was crying and I told my mum, “They said he’s going to die. I’m going to be a widow.” My friend Jenny, who during all this was on her way to visit and have coffee with me, came into the lobby. I walked over to her, crying, so relieved to see a familiar face. She hugged me and it wasn’t until weeks later that she told me she didn’t even recognize me as I came towards her, because I was so distraught. Our friend Jeff arrived around this time too. Alison was there as well. I don’t even remember the rest of that day. I remember that evening, Fran’s mum arrived and when I saw her I cried and hugged her, I couldn’t even speak. Our friends Maggie, Justin and Jeff walked me home that night, so I could get some sleep. The next night, my parents arrived from Australia. A couple of days after that, my brother flew in.
For the next two weeks, Fran was on life support and a little group of us, friends and relatives, congregated by his bedside in the ICU, with visitors coming and going downstairs to see us. Facebook became a lifeline – every morning I updated his condition on his account and mine. Messages of support came flooding in from everyone who had ever known him, it seemed. Feeling totally impotent, unable to help Fran in any real way, I spent hours every day reading him aloud every single message that we received from Facebook, email, and text. As well as our family, our friend Jeff also spent every single day by Fran’s bedside. He began writing emails to an ever-expanding group of friends and relations to explain what was happening on a daily basis.
It would be exhausting to go into all the myriad things that went wrong with Fran, all the setbacks, all the little victories. All the time, his doctors (he had a team of doctors by now – his surgeon, an infectious disease specialist, a pulmonologist, a nephrologist, two residents and several respiratory therapists) were still testing and trying to find the cause of all this. His case was reviewed by several specialists all over the country.
Two things worked hugely in his favor: One was we had arrived at the hospital at precisely the right time. If we had gone in earlier, one of his doctors told me, they would most likely have sent him home with medication and he would have died. If we had come in any later, his condition would have been too serious to consider emergency surgery and he would have died. As it was, the surgeon had to fight to be allowed to perform the surgery by his bedside that drained his lungs and saved his life at that moment. The other was that the ventilator he had been placed on, one that actually shakes the patient’s lungs as they are intubated, was a revolutionary machine, one of only two of its kind and it just happened to be in this particular hospital in Brooklyn, NY. When we went back to visit the ICU a year later to see the staff, everyone told us that without it, he would have died.
After about ten days of Fran being in a coma, my dad nudged me and said, “The nurses don’t seem all that interested in Fran anymore. I think that means he’s getting better.” Things were looking up. His doctors started to use the word “when” instead of “if”. That’s when I knew he’d live. New Yorkers will remember the snowstorm we had on the evening of December 26th that year when the city was dumped with nearly two feet of snow. “Snowpocalypse” was the headline the New York Post ran with, I believe. I remember it so well because Fran was scheduled to be taken off the ventilator the morning of December 27th. It took nearly 45 minutes to walk 4 blocks to the hospital because the snow drifts were so deep. The hospital was like a ghost town, on skeleton staff. That storm really did shut the city down. After what seemed like forever, the necessary people had all arrived and Fran was taken off intubation and was back in the land of the living. Here’s an excerpt from Jeff’s daily update:
What followed was two more weeks in the ICU, rehabilitation, occupational therapy, then another week in the regular wards. Finally, Fran got out of there. The final diagnosis written on his release papers (although the cause was never determined) was Entero-toxigenic gastro-enteritis with multiple organ failure. Renal failure, liver dysfunction, marrow and cardiovascular failure, acute adult respiratory distress syndrome.
So this very long, very raw, very difficult to write post (I have never written about that experience) is to explain that my small gesture for the staff of the ICU is insignificant, but not meaningless.
Thank you so much for sharing your story, Carly! It’s an amazing testimony, and I think it is wonderful that you are doing something to give back to the hospital staff!
Thanks, Sarah. It’s one of those things where it’s a nice gesture, but it doesn’t really cover the enormity of the work they put in to help him recover, you know?
Thank you for sharing your story. What an amazing, traumatic, event that must have been. It’s definitely scary to hit publish on those types of posts, but you did and I’m so glad!
I can relate, as I was once stuck in the ICU with my past fiance. The experiences in the ER and ICU are such a whirlwind. You’re so right about always being in the way in medical settings… Medical situations always frighten me very much now since I lost my fiance in the ICU. But I have grown stronger since then and now take matters like that a lot more seriously than I ever did. Although it is painful to lose someone or to see them suffer as you did with your husband, I believe all those experiences make us stronger.
I’m so glad you thanked the nurses. I only wish there were some people I could thank now but it’s been too long!
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Oh Melissa, I cried when I read your comment. I am so sorry for your loss. I wish I could give you a virtual hug! Thank you very much for reading and commenting, that had to have been painful for you to read. Definitely experiences like this make us stronger.
I found you on elf4health and decided to read this, so glad I did! Thank you so much for sharing! What an inspiring experience and testimony. I think it’s an awesome way for you to give back.
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Thanks so much for reading, Court! Honestly I don’t think I would ever have written this if it wasn’t for Elf for Health! It’s been a great experience for me. I will definitely check out your blog, too!
Carly, I’m so glad that you wrote your (and, of course, Fran’s) story!!! I can’t even being to imagine the fear and confusion that you experienced. So scary!!! I’m happy that your story has had such an incredible ending/new beginning!!!
I think that your gesture for the ICU staff is perfect and they will very much appreciate it!
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We feel so incredibly lucky to have been given a new beginning, Kim! The ICU staff is amazing, it’s such a hard job to work in that environment, they’re amazing.
I’m SO glad you posted this blog because it really puts SO much into perspective right now. Good health is THE most important thing in life in my opinion. Maybe followed by a close second with love, family, and friends. I know a little of what you went through. I went through a very similar experience with my mom who was nearly on her death bed with double pneumonia one year. Every minute feels like an eternity, and I heard the words, “you better prepare” more times than I care for. I mean she started out with a cold?!? I’m SOOOO happy to see that last picture. That really brought me to tears! Thank you again for sharing your story, and I really wish nothing but the best for your entire family!
Thank you so much, Tonya! I am so happy to hear your mum is okay now. It’s terrifying when something you think is such a small deal spirals out of control. Much love to you and your family as well!
Thank you for sharing your story, Carly! And what a wonderful way to pay it forward to the ICU nurses, I’m sure they will appreciate it so much!
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Thanks for reading, Gabby. The nurses and staff there are so incredible – it’s frightening how much they go through and witness on a daily basis just as part of their job. They’re amazing.
I don’t have words. I’ve been through some scary hospital situations, but no words.
Thanks so much for reading, Amanda. I wish that everyone’s scary hospital experiences would end as positively as ours did. xo
My Aunt died of kidney failure when I was young but I can still remember the endless hospital stays and questions and uncertainties. My mother & grandmother used to visit the dialysis clinic my aunt frequented for years after she died, just to let the nurses and doctors know we appreciated all the hard work and long hours they put in. So, I’m sure the ICU nurses would appreciate your gift.
I’m so glad Fran’s story had a much better outcome and I’m honored that you would share this with us 🙂
– Giselle
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Giselle, I’m sorry for your aunt’s loss. It’s so hard to watch a loved one suffer. That is so amazing that your mother and grandmother were so thoughtful of the staff! I really appreciate you reading and leaving a comment. xo
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Thank you for publishing this! I know it must have been hard to publish it, but you wrote it with so much emotion. You were a very strong woman to go through that. Life with Fran probably means SO much more than it ever has before! So happy everything is ok now and that you had the hospital team that you had! Lots of love from Canada!
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Thanks, Heidi! Yes, we definitely feel like we were given a huge second chance, and Roman arriving a year later was the icing on the cake. 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing! This is a wonderful reminder to appreciate our health and the health of our loved ones. I also love your gesture toward the ICU staff. Imagine how much nicer the world would be if we all made gestures of gratitude more frequently! Thank you!!
Thank you, Kelly. Health really is the most important thing we have – that’s why businesses like yours are so important! I’m incorporating random acts of kindness into every day from now on – it makes a difference for others and it makes you feel good too.
Thanks for sharing your story, Carly. I know this must have been hard to write, but hope it helps with the healing. You mentioned that you and Fran had such different experiences, and it’s so easy to focus on the sick person in a case like this and not yourself who also went through a traumatic experience. Ugh, that feeling of helplessness and also being in the way all the time. I had to rush my 10 day old baby to the hospital in my arms, willing him to keep his eyes open so I’d know he was still alive. It turned out ok eventually, but it took me a full year to be able to walk past the hospital (that same hospital you were at) without tearing up and I still can’t really tell the story. So, I get the strength it took to write this and I applaud you and send hugs! And yay for nurses!!
Oh my god, Tracy, that’s so terrifying. I am SO SO happy that everything turned out okay. I hear you on walking past it – it has only been in the last 6 months that I haven’t gone out of my way to avoid the hospital. Fran doesn’t get that at all, he likes seeing it, because for him it’s where they saved his life. It’s that for me, too, but it’s also a trigger for those feelings of panic and terror, just like what you felt. Definitely yay for nurses, too!!
What a wonderful post Carly and I’m glad you hit publish. I know this will touch many lives and what a way to document your gratitude through such a storm! I felt the same way when I wrote my story and my son’s story, I questioned the publish button but to this day I go back and read that post and am reminded to be so very very thankful for the life we were both given on the brink of death.
I think you are so incredibly brave, Taylor, for what you went through after giving birth. When I first read your story, I saw the Word “ICU” and was so happy you were okay. And to have your baby in a similar position, where you don’t know if he would pull through – I just don’t even have words. xo
I am SO GLAD that you decided to publish this. You and your husband are both incredibly strong (and so generous) – you’re making a positive impact and helping more people than you can even imagine! <3
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Thank you so much, Allison. You never feel strong in the moment when you’re going through something traumatic, it’s only when you come out the other side that you realize what an ordeal it actually was. I try to live my life positively and by helping others, so your comment means more to me than you realize.
Carlos P, great job. well timed. Well framed. And I love the final photo and sentence. I’m in tears of course. Wish i could give you both a hug xxx
Thanks, Jen C. I’m glad you loved it! Can’t wait to meet that little bump of yours (Hopefully before he or she is all grown up!) xo
Wow. Even though I already knew much of this, it still made me cry to read it. Thanks for sharing this, Carly.
Judy
Thanks, Judy. We are extra thankful in December ever since, but it’s hard to relive the memories as well. Love to you and the J’s.
This post could have been written by me. We thought my husband had the flu in 2007. He was short of breath, it was uncomfortable for him to lay down. I kept telling him that we needed to see a doctor, but he was convinced he’d feel better “tomorrow.”
Finally I said “we are going to the ER!” He finally gave in. We were in the cardiac care unit trying to figure out what was wrong – was it his heart/lungs, etc.?” Turns out he had endocarditis – and had to have emergency surgery to replace an infected heart valve – he was in the hospital for 16 days, and really only remembers the first two.
Happily, now 2013, we are about to celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary this month!
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SO scary. It’s hard to believe that anything could be seriously wrong, I think, which is why the hospital trip gets put off – especially when you’re young, right? I am SO HAPPY to hear that your husband is well. and HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!! 🙂
Thank you for sharing this story. I am sure it is difficult to relive, but I am glad that your husband made it through! Wishing you a very Merry Christmas! xoxo
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Thank you so much! We are especially thankful at this time of year that he was so lucky. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, too! xo
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