I feel asleep within seconds of finishing that post. I slept hard and was awaken by the discussions of doctors like I have been so often during Jamie’s hospital stays. For a second I thought that I was dreaming because I could hear Dr. Spetzler’s voice. Why in the world would he be here? He should be on his way to Hawaii. I finally realized that it was real and that I better get my butt up out of bed to hear what they were saying. In my half awake/half asleep stupor I asked the good doctor, “What are you doing here? I thought you were gone for the week?” He replied, “I wanted to see your wife prior to leaving. She looks remarkable”.
I rattled questions off as fast as I could. When is the MRI? How long will it take? Who will read it now that you are gone? I was a pitching machine of constant questions to which he steadily deflected or fouled off. “We will know more once the MRI is done” or “Time will tell, take it step by step,” Dr. Spetzler reassured me we were in the best of hands and he and his little entourage of doctors left as quickly as they came in. It was 4:45am.
To be honest with you, Saturday is a blur in my mind. Jamie would open her eyes and be in and out of consciousness for the majority of the day. Whenever she woke up it was for a limited time and the vast majority of what she said did not make any sense. She was so high on narcotics to dull the pain of the surgery that she had no idea what was going on around her.
Throughout the day the five of us split time between Jamie’s ICU room and the ICU waiting room. We also had to say goodbye to Nathan as he was scheduled to fly back to Iowa. Jamie stated it earlier in this blog, “Nathan has always been very strong and it has a contagious effect on me...he would serve as a center of strength for me and a pillar of calm…”. It was hard to see him go for this exact reason. He provided that strength and calm for us over the past 48 hours. I hated to see him leave, but knew his duties as a husband and father awaited him at home as well. I will never forget what he did for us in our most desperate time of need.
The day continued and I honestly was only focused on one thing and one thing only-- the MRI. The nursing staff probably nicknamed me the, “crazy husband asking about the MRI every 20 minutes,” but I knew the importance of what this would tell us. It had been expressed to me multiple times that a large amount of trauma victims came into the hospital overnight and they drew precedent over Jamie. What I was once told would be an early morning MRI turned into a late afternoon MRI.
Bill, Mavis, Angie and I rotated in and out of the room with Jamie. Arch madness was on the little television in the waiting room so I escaped reality by tuning in to watch the UNI Panthers during their NCAA run. I sat there with a blank stare at the screen simply trying to turn my brain off.
We were finally alerted that Jamie would be taken back for her afternoon MRI. It was so late in the day that my biggest fear would be that no one would be able to read it because of how late it was getting. Jamie was gone for about 45 minutes and she returned oblivious to what had just occurred.
Time continued to pass by and I knew, I knew in my gut, “This thing is not getting read today.” Sure enough, the news came that the reading would take place tomorrow, Sunday morning. I was shattered. It took everything I had not to come un-glued on someone. Another night of unsteadiness was ahead.
I returned Bill and Mavis to the condo in Scottsdale and came back to the ICU to join Angie and Jamie. Angie’s flight was early in the morning so instead of traveling all the way up to Scottsdale and then back to Mesa we both decided it would be easier if she stayed at the hospital with us. Angie and I let Jamie rest in the ICU as we talked in the ICU waiting room.
My nerves at this point were shot. The ‘what if’s’ were popping into my head. I kept bouncing things off of Angie and she continued to reassure me that, “Everything is going to be fine, Pud.” You see I was prepared for the day of surgery and what it was going to entail, but what I was not prepared for was the 36 hours after surgery. This MRI reading was going to provide us with clarity, a sense of relief, or heaven forbid, a whole other challenge.
Angie insisted on sleeping in the ICU waiting room. If you were to ask Angie I doubt she slept at all that night. The security guards refused to allow people to turn off the lights in the ICU waiting room, so Angie aligned two chairs across from one another and slept sitting up for the majority of the night. I returned to Jamie’s bedside to rest. We couldn’t have slept for over a few hours.
Angie and I left early in the morning to head east towards Mesa. The drive at 4am is pretty simple and easy. But with each mile we traveled it was hard for me not to be saddened about losing another member of our team. Angie started this journey with us the day we left unexpectedly to Mayo all the way back on February 18th. She had traveled this path with us when she honestly never had to. She was Jamie’s Matron of Honor in our wedding and for the past three weeks she stood directly by her side like she did on our wedding day. It was undoubtedly hard for me to let go of her as we hugged and said goodbye. She has always meant so much to us, but even more so now.
I climbed back into our Ford Transit, brushed away a few tears, and headed back to the hospital. I was bound and determined to get back there prior to the doctors doing their rounds. The last thing I wanted was to miss them and delay hearing about the MRI reading. I hustled into the hospital, sat patiently next to Jamie, and waited for the entourage to come in. 6am turned to 7 and 7 to 8 and so on. I knew that Bill and Mavis would want to come and see Jamie as soon as they could, but I knew deep down inside that I needed to be the one to hear the news first. I wanted to be the one to paint the picture of positivity if all hell broke loose with what we heard. Selfishly, I wanted to be alone with Jamie if the news we heard was what we had been praying for.
Around 9am I finally voiced my frustration to our nurse. We had been waiting far to long in my opinion for this reading to occur. The nurse assured me that they would be around soon to go over the results with me. It was within 15 minutes of that interaction that he came into Jamie’s ICU room and handed me a phone, “Mr. Smith, Dr. Spetzler’s office would like to talk to you.” I was in shock that they were legitimately handing me a cordless phone and escorting me across the hall to an empty classroom. My heart was racing. I could feel my pulse in my neck throbbing and my throat tightened up. It was easily the scariest, most intense, agonizing walk I ever had.
I put the phone up to my ear and said, “Hello.” The doctor on the other side stated her name and that she was with Dr. Spetzler’s service. She apologized for not being there in person, but she understood from staff that I was anxiously awaiting the results. I leaned up against the wall with tears already flowing down my face. What she was going to say in the next 10 seconds may shape the rest of our lives. The doctor continued on by saying, “Mr. Smith, we have had a chance to review the MRI and we can confirm that a complete and total resection of your wife’s CM occurred during surgery.”
I will admit to you at this point that I was digging into my brain for the definition of resection. I even stated to the doctor, “can you give it to me watered down?” I was so mentally exhausted at this point that I just needed a, “We Got It.” The doctor said to me, “Mr. Smith, we could not be happier with what we see on the MRI scans. We successfully removed your wife’s CM”.
I crouched down to the ground, put my head into my hands, and completely lost it. I thanked the doctor for the news over and over again. I don’t know if she knew what I was saying as I was trying to talk between sobs of joy. She concluded the call with her congratulations and hung up. I sat there in tears, with the weight of the world slowly leaving my shoulders. The poor nurse that escorted me into the room had to have thought the worse. My celebration looked more like a grieving session to an outsider, so much so that he came into the room and asked me if I was okay. Everything that had been building up inside of me since October 25th of 2013 had been released.
The nurse escorted me back to Jamie's room. I was crying so hard that when I leaned over to hug Jamie I could feel my stomach convulsing uncontrollably. Jamie woke up just enough for me to say to her, “They got it.” She replied back to me in a drugged state, “That’s good.” I held her…...she had done it and didn’t even know that she did!
I knew that Bill and Mavis had to be chomping at the bit to get back to the hospital. They had no transportation at the condo so I decided that I better go and pick them up. I purposely did not call them to tell them the news. I wanted to be able to tell them face to face. The trip back to Scottsdale was not a drag like it was the previous days. It was joyful. The sun was shining and the radio was turned on. I actually had a smile on my face for what seemed like forever.
I entered the condo to Bill and Mavis standing there anxiously awaiting my arrival. I couldn’t have been in the door more than two feet when I blurted out, “They got it.” I gave both them a big hug and they of course had questions galore as to what “They got it” meant. But for the first time all trip we joyfully celebrated what we came to Arizona to accomplish.
We returned to the hospital and Bill and Mavis spent time with Jamie as we all continued to bask in the glory of the news we received. The rumors on the ICU floor started to pick up steam that Jamie would be well enough to move to the neuro-surgery post-op floor. I was quite pessimistic about this move because Jamie hadn’t even really woken up from her surgery yet to carry on a conversation. But, sure enough in the late afternoon I was watched my wife get wheeled out of her ICU home and pushed down a hallway to an elevator that would take us to our home for what would be the next eight days. 6N47 had a shower, a cot, and Jamie’s new bed!
Jamie would start to come in and out of consciousness more frequently and stay with us for longer periods of time. She was still sedated and under extensive pain management for the 5 inch incision she had on the back of her neck. Bill and Mavis would remain with us in our new setting until it was time for me to take them back to the condo in Scottsdale. We established a plan that I would come and get them early in the morning so they would be able to see Jamie and then take them to SkyHarbor for their return trip to Iowa in the morning.
The evening came and went. As like any hospital setting minimal activity occurred during that Sunday. I knew in the morning we would be inundated with physical therapy consults, occupational consults, and other medical professionals coming in to check on Jamie’s progress. We rested and prepared for what was to come on Monday.
As like the previous mornings, I was up and at them earlier than usual. It was time to go pick up Bill and Mavis from the condo in Scottsdale. They had a tremendous set up at the Scottsdale Links Condos all because of our close friends Scott and Shannon Farlow provided their timeshare for us. This was just another example of incredible people watching over and caring for us. We checked into these condos five days prior scared, nervous, and uncertain of our future. As we pulled out of the complex parking lot we had a renewed sense of hope and happiness.
We made our way down the interstate towards downtown Phoenix like we had done so many times in the past five days. I knew it would be the last time I traveled down this road as the remainder of my stay would be in the hospital with Jamie. We arrived at Jamie’s new room with limited time for Bill and Mavis to say their goodbyes. I think they felt the same way as I did, wishing they could stay longer with us. But we all knew that they were needed back home to watch over our girls. My brother, Tom had taken the brunt of the care for the children since we left. Between Tom, my brother Jon’s family, my sister Kelli’s family, Chelsea and Joe, and Nathan and Ashley,and our close friends, the kids were being taken very good care of. Spoiled rotten would be a better definition of their time with our family. We knew that having Grandpa and Grandma home would provide consistent care and more normalcy in their lives.
Bill and Mavis gave their love and hugs to Jamie one last time prior to loading up for the airport. I had a sense of how medically sedated Jamie was, but not until later did I find out she had no recollection of saying good bye to them. With tears and regret Bill and Mavis were ready to leave for the airport.
I have traveled with Bill and Mavis before and flying certainly was not their favorite thing to do. I knew that I had to do my best to remain calm and get them to the airport with sufficient time to get their tickets, check their baggage, and get through security. Sounds easy to do, but I by no means am a world expert traveler myself. Traffic: I’m not a fan. Airports: quite honestly not my favorite place to hang out. Trying to navigate, drive, and get people to an airport that I had never been to was not my idea of fun. Mesa was a little puddle jumper airport that just flew Allegiant. Skyharbor on the other hand was THE airport in the metro and BUSY.
We came in to the airport and started to navigate towards short term parking. We went up a spiral staircase of a road to the parking ramp where we found a parking spot on the fourth level. I remember taking a picture of the parking ramp sign to ensure I would be able to find Bot on my return back to the car. Bill, Mavis, and I nervously walked our way into the airport and found our way to the departure area. I showed them the new technology of generating their boarding pass by entering their credit card. We proceeded to the airline clerk and they checked their baggage. I walked with them all the way to the security checkpoint where the friendly agents of TSA met them.
It was here that it hit me: these two are heading back home it was just Jamie and I left in Arizona. We hugged, tears fell down cheeks, and they turned to head through the security lines. I remember standing there watching them walk back and forth through the lines until they got to the metal detectors. I chuckled to myself because if anyone was going to get pulled aside by a TSA agent it was going to be Bill. The guy has so many metal rods in him from his countless surgeries that the detector had to throw up red flags. A few minutes went by and my view of them became blocked by other passengers. Soon thereafter, I saw the big right paw of Bill’s hand go up and signal, “We made it!” All they had left was finding their gate. I turned around and headed to find Bot.
When I got back to Bot, I put both hands on the steering wheel and began to cry. It was the first time that I didn’t have Angie, Nathan, Bill, or Mavis with me. A very real sense of holy shit came over me. It was Jamie and I left in Arizona and it was up to us to return to our family in Iowa.
As I returned to Jamie’s side, I had calmed down and really had a much better mindframe as to what we were going to accomplish. I came to the conclusion that this was Jamie and Patrick time. I did not have anyone other than Jamie to be concerned about. The kids were cared for, our Arizona army had returned to Iowa, it was our time to come together and fight our asses off to get home. That would be the mentality we would have for the next eight days.
Over the next twelve hours Jamie made progress that to this day still shocks me. She would have her first PT and OT sessions. She would be out of bed for the first time and go for a walk around the neuro floor. She would hold longer conversations with me. I knew she was out of it as she was foggy and medicated heavily. What I did not realize is that she had limited recollection of anything between Friday morning at 9am and to this point in our journey. It was the end of Monday, March 7th, 2016.
When Jamie asked me to do this, I thought about it for an extended period of time and did not know whether I was ready or able to put these thoughts on paper yet. It still feels so raw and fresh. It feels like someone else lived this journey and I was watching it as a spectator. There have been moments over the past year that I have been so numb to, in awe of, and honestly pinching myself to see if I was dreaming or having a nightmare.
Over this past year I have had conversations that I had never imagined I ever would. I have asked questions that no one ever wants to ask. I had to take a long hard look in the mirror and ask myself if I had the courage to do what was needed to be done.
Am I happy that we had to go through all of this? NO. Am I thankful that I will have this perspective on life moving forward? Absolutely yes.
The doors that have been opened for us would have never been doors that we would have opened willingly ourselves. We are grateful, tremendously grateful for what we have endured over the past three and half years. We have learned lessons that normally are not learned so early in life. We now have the opportunity to live knowing these experiences have made us better.
So that we may Do Better. Be Better. every day for the rest of our lives.
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