1/30/2007 11:26:00 AM Beating the
breathing odds Melrose lady
Herald photo by carol moorman
Knitting and crocheting continues to be good therapy for Vicki Middendorf, even one year after she was diagnosed with acute respiratory distress syndrome. Above, she is pictured with her granddaughter Haley Tschida who wears a tassel cap made by Vicki.
Melrose-It's 3:15 on Monday, Jan. 22, and Haley Tschida runs over to hug her grandmother, Vicki Middendorf, peeling off her white tassel cap along the way.
Vicki knit that cap with a huge tassel.
"It was good therapy for my hands," said this 62-year-old lady who is weeks away from a one-year anniversary she probably would rather forget.
Last February, Vicki, following knee surgery, sepsis and pneumonia, was diagnosed with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a life-threatening condition that occurs when there is severe fluid buildup in both lungs.
And she lost almost two months of her life. Through it all, the support and prayers still linger in her mind.
"What goes around, comes around, and I mean that in a good way. When I needed prayers, people prayed for me. Now I'm praying for people who need my prayers," said Vicki sitting at the kitchen table in their Melrose home with her husband, Eddie, leaning against the counter. Her daughter-and Haley's mother-Jackie sits next to her.
Vicki's situation
Vicki feels fortunate that she's one of the lucky ones who recovered.
Last March and April her family didn't know if she would live to see her grandchildren grow up.
It all started when Vicki had knee surgery on Feb. 22, 2006, for a 1982 broken knee that had grown arthritic. When she had a hard time walking from the bedroom to the bathroom without being out of breath, Eddie took her to see her physician, Dr. Julie Schanilec, who diagnosed her with sepsis, a blood infection which was spreading through her blood system. As if that wasn't enough, an x-ray showed she had double pneumonia and a CT scan determined she had ARDS. Melrose physician Dr. Pat Heller sent her immediately on March 3 to the St. Cloud Hospital where she ended up in the Intensive Care Unit.
Jackie explains normal oxygen levels are between 92 and 95. Vicki's was in the 80s, dropping quickly to the 70s and 60s.
"Then they worried about brain damage," said Eddie.
The main concern in treating ARDS is getting enough oxygen into the blood until the lungs heal enough to work on their own again. The main treatment is giving a higher concentration of oxygen than that found in normal air-that is, enough to raise blood levels of oxygen to safe levels.
Any movement would make Vicki's oxygen level go down.
"With ARDS your lungs don't move at all. They call it the leather lung disease," said Vicki.
Doctors put her on a ventilator (breathing machine), with a connecting tube inserted through a surgical opening in the neck, called a tracheotomy. On March 4, she was placed in a drug-induced coma, which lasted until April 26.
Family, including Vicki's children, Jackie, Patty, Joan and John, and Eddie's children, Deb and Sheila, visited regularly, at times being called in when her condition worsened to the point that she was given the Last Rites. Her brother, Jim Wilbur, often sat by her bed, talking to her, even though she couldn't answer back.
Her roto-bed allowed the nursing staff to rotate her position, which helped with her oxygen flow, as did "flipping her totally on her stomach," said Jackie.
"It's 50-50 the doctors said. But really it was more like a 15 percent chance that she would make it," said Eddie.
On March 17 Eddie ended up in the same hospital for seven days when he fell on the ice and broke his hip.
"I always told him not to fall through the ice," said Vicki, emphasizing the word 'through.'
Eddie smiles as he recalls the Saturday night after his hip was set and family received word that Vicki's oxygen level was dangerously low.
"The girls got me up and wheeled me on a gurney to see her," said Eddie, who was a patient on the fifth floor and Vicki was on the second floor.
Vicki slept through her birthday and Easter.
"Nurses put a 'Happy Birthday' sign in her room," said Jackie.
Family decorated her room.
Vicki loves music which was played constantly in her room.
"Two cleaning ladies brought CDs and played them," said Eddie.
Their family got close to the St. Cloud Hospital medical staff and also the families of other people who were long-term patients.
Meanwhile, back at home Eddie was being well taken care of, thanks to friends and neighbors who supplied him with food.
"I couldn't drive so Sheldon Budde, Jerry Rademacher, Marv Stueve and Mel Roehrl took me to see Vicki," said Eddie, adding, "I only missed one day, but I told Vicki I made that up because I came twice one day."
This man who puts on plenty of miles fishing year-around, put on 5,500 miles in those two months driving back and forth to the St. Cloud Hospital.
Vicki remembers waking up for the first time around April 26 and there was a man she didn't know tickling her toes. Jackie explains that man, a person they met while at the hospital, would tickle her feet every day.
Fittingly, the first time this lady, who has a strong faith in God, opened her eyes was when Legion of Mary members were saying the rosary in her room.
'I started praying along," said Vicki.
Jackie said one of her mother's first questions was if she had suffered any brain damage. Her doctor told her if she knew enough to ask that, she should be fine. It was also a good sign to family when Vicki was able to tell them where she put a Precious Moments Bible, she had purchased before her extended hospital stay, for Haley's First Communion.
Vicki's second question was how long she had been in the hospital.
It took her about 10 days to completely come out of her coma.
"That was my 'twilight zone,'" said Vicki.
She slept during the day and would be wide awake at night.
When her tracheotomy was removed a button was placed over the hole, allowing her to talk.
"But I blew the button out all the time," said Vicki.
Which meant she still couldn't talk, so she was given a pen to write her thoughts down on a piece of paper.
"My hands were so weak and stiff and they shook," said Vicki.
"Finding her legs," as she puts it, was another story. Her legs were like rubber after not using them for almost two months.
In an effort to save her oxygen, she was told to "breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth," said Vicki.
Family filled her in on what had happened during her two-month coma.
"It was like a new world. A lot of people I knew had died," said Vicki.
She is grateful she never had to be resuscitated, unlike some ARDS patients, although she was on the ventilator 63 days.
When her feeding tube came out, she was "finally" given food-although it was chopped up.
"They were afraid if anything was sucked down into my lungs, I would end up with the same thing again," said Vicki.
Jackie explains how they took Vicki to the x-ray department where they watched her eat a bowl of blue Jell-O, to ensure that it "went down the right pipe."
From ICU she went to progressive care and finally a regular room.
There were certain things Vicki had to do before she was released home. One was getting in and out of a car. So Eddie drove their van up to the hospital entrance and Vicki got in.
"She said, 'Eddie, step on it.' And she meant it," said Jackie of her mom who just wanted to go home.
On Memorial Day she was released.
Vicki had orders for what she could and couldn't do, and she had a portable oxygen tank if she needed it.
She was surprised when she started losing her hair, "by the handfuls" and went bald.
"So I bought a wig and wore it a few days before I threw it away," said Vicki.
More of a surprise was when her hair grew back and it was curly.
"It's fun. I've always wanted curly hair," she said.
She was monitored during scheduled appointments with her pulmonary doctors in St. Cloud. Vicki and Eddie even brought cookies for the staff they had grown close to. Vicki, who loves to draw, left a drawing of a kitty in the rehabilitation unit.
"And it was still there that last time we were there," said Vicki.
Thankful
There is no cure for ARDS.
"My doctor told me the only thing that got me through this was the power of prayer," said Vicki. "I had people praying for me from all around the world; the Poor Clares, the Carmelites."
Their pastor, Father Vince Lieser, and Sister Adela Gross visited her regularly.
"It just touched me, all the prayers and support," she said.
After what she went through, Vicki is enjoying things she "took for granted,"--like riding bike with her grandchildren, working at Dan Schmidt Printing, being a Eucharistic minister at church and teaching religion.
Today, she is as good as new-or better.
"It (ARDS) cleaned out all of my cobwebs," said Vicki, optimistically.
For the first time in more than 20 years she can crouch down on her knees without pain. Her hands are still a little stiff, but improving.
And, most importantly, she can breath to her heart's content.
Reader Comments
Posted: Thursday, April 19, 2007
Article comment by:
Elaine Toyer
Thanks for your uplifting story. I too had all the above and am a survivor thanks to God,prayers,family, and the wonderful health professionals who saw me.
