LOOK AT US

 On Monday December 18, 2023 at about 12:15 A.M. my wife Debbie woke me up from a deep sleep. She was calling my name and I found her lying face down on the floor near the bookcase in our bedroom. She had fallen trying to get to the bathroom. For several days prior she had complained of being unsteady on her feet. On Sunday afternoon I took her blood pressure and it was very low. This wasn't all that unusual because ever since she received a pacemaker and was diagnosed with congestive heart failure her blood pressure has been consistently low. This was lower than usual, however. I tried to get her to go to the ER but she wouldn't go. Before bedtime I took it again and it has risen about ten points so I was hopeful it would be better by morning. On the previous Friday I had come home from work and she had been shopping all day with her girlfriend. I fixed myself something to eat and waited for her to come home. She pulled into the drive and called me on the phone wanting me to come out and bring the groceries in. I told her that I would when I finished eating since I was almost through. After I finished my meal I realized that she hadn't come into the house yet. This did not arouse that much alarm in me because she has been known to sit in the car for a while talking on the phone before coming into the house in times past. When I looked out to check on her she wasn't in the car. She was sitting in our ditch next to the mailbox. I asked her what had happened and she said that she had lost her balance trying to get the mail and had fallen into the ditch. It was very difficult getting her to her feet but she didn't act like she was injured. In retrospect I believe that this was when she injured her liver. I believe she fell on the concrete corner of the pedestal that supports our mailbox. 

 Then there was the fall that woke me up on Monday morning. I was barely able to get her to her feet and she was so weak she collapsed again before I could get her to the bathroom. Against her wishes I called 911 and asked the paramedics to take her to the Vanderbilt ER in Nashville. Most of her doctors were there but as it turned out it was a life saving decision. I then called my daughter Misty who met me at the hospital. Debbie didn't stay in the ER long because they discovered that she was bleeding internally. She was rushed into surgery before we even had a chance to see her. After surgery that morning we were called into a consultation room where the trauma surgeon gave us a very bleak prognosis. He said that Debbie's liver was very diseased from years of taking pills to treat her various ailments and that it had been injured in a fall. This is where the bleeding was coming from. Since the liver is so porous it was difficult to stop a bleed from there. He told us that he had packed her abdomen with gauze in the hopes that it would stop on it's own. Then he said that they would give her a limited amount of blood, which turned out to be 15 units. When these were gone all they could do after that was to make her comfortable until her heart stopped beating. The doctor told us that he couldn't see any way that she could survive this. We were shocked and devastated by the news.

 

 I was consumed with fear and dread. As sick as my wife has been in the past I had never been told by a doctor that there was virtually no hope for her survival and my mind was in a dark place. Our family is large and everyone that could be there came to say their goodbyes. There were a lot of tears that day. I begged God to save my wife who is the love of my life and to use a military term the center of gravity for our family. She was unresponsive all day Monday and about the time they hooked up the last unit of blood I leaned over to kiss her forehead. I told her how much I loved her and told her that she had to fight for us. Tears welled up in both of her eyes and a big tear settled in the corner of her right eye. I knew then that she heard me and was still fighting. She has no recollection of this today but something told me to take a picture. I wanted to share it with the family because I knew that she could hear me and I began to believe that she might pull through. This was around 4:30 PM. I looked up at her blood pressure and although it was low it had stabilized and even seemed to be rising. After visiting hours ended at 6:00 PM we stayed at a local motel a few blocks from the hospital. I slept well due to stress and lack of sleep but my stomach was in knots the next morning when we walked into the Vanderbilt Trauma ICU. We were hoping for the best and fearing the worst. 

 The look on the doctors face brightened our day. She was smiling and the news was great. Debbie had a good night and had stabilized. So much so that they were going to take the gauze out of her stomach and see if the bleeding had stopped. Although it had not stopped completely after taking the gauze out they felt safe enough to close her up. The doctor said that it had slowed to an ooze. Each day the news was better and better. After a day or so they said that the bleeding had completely stopped. The ventilator was successfully removed after a few days and they were talking about getting her up up and walking her. Several days passed and Debbie was awake and alert. She had many things wrong with her but we were believing in a miracle. Between the efforts of the Vanderbilt trauma staff and the miraculous intervention of God I feel like I witnessed a miracle. As I write this on March 4, 2024 she is physically making great progress. She suffered from delirium for a while in the hospital and her mind was in a dark place for a few weeks. Doctors say that this is normal for someone who has suffered traumatic injury. The first few days after she regained consciousness she was very sweet to me but her whole attitude toward me turned to hostility. In her mind she couldn't understand why she had to be tied down and couldn't get up out of bed. She was restrained by the nurses in order to keep her from removing her tubes and electrodes. She asked me to do things that  weren't possible right then and she was very angry with me because I wouldn't help her. In her mind she thought that I had tied her up and I was laughing at her. Actually I was laughing at some of the crazy stuff she was doing and saying but she thought that I was mocking her. One night I had to fight her to get her cell phone out of her hand because she had called 911. I heard her talking to someone and realized it was the 911 operator. She was telling her that she had been taken hostage against her will and needed help. I explained to the operator that my wife was safe and was calling from the trauma unit at Vanderbilt hospital. Apparently this has happened before because she took it in stride and said that she would cancel the call. During these days of delirium I saw her whole personality change and for a while she was not only mean to me but to our family and the medical staff which was out of character for her. This really bothered me because she was hard to deal with during this period. Now, she is more like the old Debbie that I have always known. 

 

 Much of our life together, especially in the early days of our relationship was like a fairy tale to me. I have said this many times but it was a magical time for me although our life has mostly been hard. I can't imagine a young married couple of 18 and 17 today getting on a Greyhound bus with everything that they owned in a couple of suitcases and a duffle bag, 300 dollars in their pocket, and riding completely across country from Tennessee to Oregon into a virtually unknown situation. Debbie was in the first trimester of pregnancy and we had no friends, or relatives within 2,000 miles of us. There was no internet or cellphones in those days. Debbie had never been more than a few hundred miles away from home prior to this trip and the farthest I had been was basic training in San Antonio Texas. We were trying to survive on 200 dollars a month. I made 100 dollars a month in Air Force pay and she made 100 dollars a month from an Air Force allotment check. We had no dependable car for months and walked pretty much anywhere we needed to go. When food or necessities became scarce I had to find day jobs in an ice house, or a moving company on my days off. Even with the hardships I was happier than I had ever been and where I wanted to be. As the years passed life was always hard but we somehow made it through. We have always argued and I remember that we argued a lot just before I left for Turkey. Yet we wrote each other everyday and we never missed a day no matter how boring that our day had been and we really didn't have much to talk about but those letters meant everything to me. I remember other Airmen being envious of me because Debbie was so loyal when it came to writing. One of the things that I have found out over the years is that whether we were apart for a day, a week or a year there was a hole in my heart big enough to drive a truck through. I was not whole without her. Like the line in the Jerry McGuire movie she completed me. After I retired from the Air National Guard we were always together and we probably began to take each other for granted. We have had our share of fights and I have many regrets for the time I have wasted when we were together. I am a very sinful man and all I can do is lean on Gods grace and mercy. 

 She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999 but somehow I never thought I was going to lose her. Luckily they caught it early because it was very aggressive. I was not there for her like I should have been emotionally because she went through hell with chemotherapy and radiation. Debbie has always been tough. I found this out early in our marriage the way she endured contractions during the birth of our children. She would nearly break my hand squeezing it but I never heard her cry out in pain or make a sound when she was going through birth pains. She has endured the loss of a child through miscarriage and loss of our son Jon to Covid. I have never met a person, man or woman that is more stubborn than she is. I can be stubborn too but I will give in before she will. This fact has led to many of our arguments. Yet it was this stubbornness that saved her life. Nobody loves life more than she does and loves her family more. They reciprocate that love. When she had her heart valve replaced and almost died back in March of 2023 there were nights that I left the hospital feeling that large empty hole in my heart again. It was a reality check. For the first time I began to think that this could be the end of our time together on earth. When that doctor told me that there was virtually no hope for her on that Monday before Christmas that hole in my heart opened as wide as it has ever been. Yet those tears she shed gave me hope and I knew that she could hear me. I knew then how badly she wanted to live. God and the Vanderbilt trauma team bought us more time together. This experience has made me want to be a better man and no matter how much longer we have together I want to make the best of it. I know now beyond all doubt that I could never love a woman more than I love my wife and I am secure in the knowledge that her love for me is the same although I don't deserve it. I feel sorry for those young people who have given up on marriage. To borrow a line from Vince Gill, if you want to see how true love should be then just look at us.

Our wedding day June 21, 1968

Newlyweds in Grace Brown's backyard

On leave from basic training, September 1968

A very pregnant Debbie at Crater Lake Oregon March 1969

Leaving the hospital with our oldest son Robert probably April 23, 1969

With Janice Blevins in front of our Shasta View apartment at 1417 Nimitz in Klamath Falls Oregon

1969

Debbie holding Misty after my discharge from the Air Force

Debbie, Misty and Rob at our house at 208 Joann Ct. Nashville

Debbie and Melanie at Opryland in the late 1970's

Robs graduation from boot camp at Great Lakes Naval base 1989

Our return to Colorado Springs in 2012

At Panama City Beach Florida 1978

Deb holding Jon at Baptist Hospital June 1974

Courtneys wedding 2012

Our 50th wedding anniversary

The whole gang at our 50th wedding anniversary