Prior to that had been a deluge of piercing beeps indicating a diabetic low. My daughter Ashley called him and he had promised to get a sandwich. He didn’t. I called, now seeing the sugar number nearing the 40s, and pleaded with him to pull over. He didn’t. Ashley was at college in Mahwah, New Jersey and I was in Stillwater. The texts between us had turned into frightened phone calls.
My husband, Guy, was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes in 2012. He drives from client to client with his travel gym to motivate and guide kids and teens facing some sort of adversity through the Back on Track Agency which he directs. Since kids are out of school on the weekends, working Saturdays was the norm, and that had bled into also working Sundays. Guy was working more and more, and it was taking its toll on family time and on his body.
I promised Ashley I’d “do something” if we didn’t hear from Dad by noon. I knew not what. Both of us were neurotically calling and texting him to no avail. At 12:57 I received THE call. “Mrs. Gordon, this is nurse (something) and your husband is here in the Trauma Center at Morristown Memorial Hospital.”
I somehow made it to Morristown, managed to park, and find Guy. He was in agony, and they were very concerned about brain damage from the airbag being deployed. He had, in fact, passed out from the diabetic low, so the bag hit his intestinal area rather than his head. The plan was to put him in ICU where they would wait and see if his intestinal wounds would settle down and fix themselves. I was a deer in headlights. Ashley’s boyfriend got her there, and the next few hours were a blur. Hours later, we were told to go to the ICU and wait.
The next day, Guy had exploratory surgery to check out his knee. It seemed okay, and he needed to sleep off the anesthesia. Relieved, we recreated the timeline of what had transpired the day before as we hiked a bit in Jockey Hollow. We went back to see him in the ICU, then went home.
A very kind Randolph policeman with whom I had spoken on Monday had encouraged me to see what remained of the car and retrieve the remnants of Guy’s travel gym. Although Ashley was 18, an adult, I will always second guess taking her along to see the sight of shattered glass and the devastation of the vehicle, and smell the lingering odor of the burst airbag. I needed her help to salvage any equipment we could. The yard manager had been the person who had brought the car there on a flatbed. The accident had been so horrific that he’d taken photos. They showed the black Honda HRV wrapped around a tree, and in the distance the battery that had flown 90 feet. “I don’t know how he got out alive,” the yard manager said.
We drove to the hospital to see Guy. When we entered his room, there was chaos. They needed to get Guy to the operating room IMMEDIATELY for emergency surgery. They had waited, hoping his intestines would settle, but part of his intestine had ruptured and Guy had gone septic, and an operation was needed NOW. Ashey needed to go back to college, so my mother picked her up from the hospital and drove her back to school.
Six or seven hours later, Dr. Cho emerged and escorted me to a private room to “talk.” The only indication I got that Guy had not passed was Dr. Cho’s calm demeanor. We sat. “Your husband made it, but he went septic. It was close. He now has a colostomy bag.” Guy was in the ICU for 14 days with a new appendage; a plastic bag attached to something called a stoma, that the doctors created to let his colon and intestines heal. They had to reroute how he made stool to his front left side, into the bag. Three weeks later, he was sent home with the bag and a bad puncture wound from the seatbelt.
The next day a visiting nurse arrived at 8 am. “I’m here to teach you,” she said in a cheery voice. I now had to become an expert at something I had never been trained to do. That morning, I learned how to care for my husband’s stoma, release the former adhesive with a spray, remove the “wafer” (the piece that adhered around his stoma, so that the bag could connect), clean the stool filled area, spray adhesive spray, adhere a new wafer, and then replace the bag with a spritz of powder to lessen the scent. The smell was unfathomable. It stunk. His clothes stunk. That’s what a colostomy does. I then had to address the wound. Two pus-filled lesions needed to be cleaned, treated with saline, and dressed. The nurse came twice a week, then once. She missed a brewing infection which our bi-weekly visit to the wound care center caught, and Guy was re-hospitalized for another week. He returned home and a woman named Sandra from an infusion agency arrived to teach me how to do yet another medical task. Saline, short infusion, saline, hour infusion, saline, then heparin.
A caregiver often goes through unfathomable situations. Guy went through his own hell. I was furious at him for putting me in this position. My work and my life had been turned upside down, and I was his one and only caregiver. What if I messed up? Why are they putting this all on me? I learned and did what I had to do, and was so thankful for friends who gave me respite (Jeffrey, Albert, Gary, Bill, Dave, Kenny and Karen), visiting on multiple occasions so I could take a deep breath for an hour. The debris and clutter of all of the medical equipment that consumed our living room reflected the debris and clutter in my mind.
Thankfully, five months later, the doctors and our insurance approved a colostomy reversal. Although the reversal surgery took three hours more than expected, Guy made it, and was home a week later… sans colostomy bag.
All of my fears and worries had bubbled up to my consciousness. I freaked out more than once during our tenure with the colostomy bag and infectious wounds. My rock was Ashley.
Seven months later, it was Ashley who knocked me to my senses. The Ramapo College sophomore psychology major talked me down when I harped, once again, on how my husband had “let this happen to us.” As I vented, she rose to her feet and said firmly, “Just hear me out! Mom, let it go. It happened. It’s the past. You can’t be mad anymore.” I stared at her in silence, as the child became the parent. She was right. She’s going to be one hell of a therapist. She already is.
Despite the horror of the accident, Guy continues to call it “Livabetes,” the way he handles his Type 1 Diabetes. He teaches the kids he works with through the Back on Track Agency about his disease. He shows them how he administers shots. Now, more than ever, he preaches the importance of paying attention to and always obeying the continuous glucose monitor.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Laurie Gordon is the owner/director of Motivation Ink Services, a publicist and writing agency based in Sussex County, New Jersey. She has written for numerous magazines, newspapers and websites. She has done a host of public relations work for varying businesses, individuals and nonprofits. After she wrote a story about a devastating storm that hit New Jersey, she was contacted by and featured live on The Weather Channel. Laurie is a former US Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier who was sponsored by Nike and whose women’s team won the team division at the prestigious Boston Marathon. She works with women and teens as a personal trainer. Laurie volunteers coaching children through The Bears Youth Running Program. MotivationInkServices@gmail.com
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