Confessions Of a Woman that fell for a man in a hairnet...

The man wearing the hair net was the man of my dreams.

There was no way I could know that when I first saw his picture on his dating profile, but as I sat there holding his hand and watching him take his last breaths I knew he was everything I had prayed for. He had saved me in every possible way but I would not be able to do the same for him.

By the time I met Jed, I was a single mother of 4 nearing 40.

If I had shaken a magic 8ball and asked if I would ever meet my Prince Charming the answer would be – Outlook not Good.

Life hadn’t been the kindest to me up to that point. In my younger years, I grew up not knowing who my biological father was and instead lived in a home with an abusive, alcoholic stepfather. I would daydream that my father was out there somewhere and that he was coming to rescue me. Oddly, in my mind, he looked like Babe Ruth, sounded like Sean Connery, and had the money of an oil tycoon.

My mother found the courage to gather us and leave when I was a teenager. I remember so vividly sneaking away in the cover of the night to a safe house for women. Unfortunately, like so many others the cycle didn’t end with her.

Anything But Sweet

My high school sweetheart turned out to be anything but sweet. Come to think of it, I’m not entirely sure that he had a heart.

Have you ever had one of those relationships where it’s more like trying to put a square peg in a round hole? I think we all have at least one in our lifetime and he was mine.

I knew the relationship wasn’t meant for me but I was young and still thought everything and everyone was fixable. The relationship wasn’t just abusive, it was corrosive.  I stayed way too long, endured far too much humiliation, and had more black eyes than I can count. I kept thinking if I just prayed hard enough, or tried hard enough, it would work. I tried to smile and make myself believe everything was ok.

 Hiding behind that smile was like hanging a family photo over a fist hole in a wall.

After 9 years and 4 children, I left it feeling like no one would ever want me. That I was too fat and ugly to be worthy of anyone.

I wish I could go back and tell young me that she would have one of the greatest love stories ever—just wait—a decade, to be exact.

I had been trying out online dating and to say that it wasn’t working was an understatement. I had decided to call it quits when my last date had neglected to share that he had turrets syndrome and had an episode during a packed opening night for one of the Hunger Games movies. The movie may have been PG but his outbursts weren’t.

I was actually going to close out my account when my daughters asked if they could take a stab at picking out someone for me. The profile they clicked on was of a goofy-looking guy making a weird face.

Seriously!? They picked a guy in a hairnet?

When you looked closer, you saw that he was actually doing some volunteer work in a soup kitchen. Volunteering is very important to me, and that was the start of it all. They sent a wink, and the rest was history. Jed was the kindest and most dedicated partner you could ever ask for. In the nine years that we were together, he never once raised his voice to me or swore at me.

But it was the way he looked at me. I had gained weight during those nine years, but he always looked at me like I was the only woman in the room. When he looked at me, I felt beautiful and adored, even on my worst days.

He proposed to me in February 2018, and we planned our wedding for 2020, but Covid came, and everything shut down. We re-planned, and I finally had the date for my dream wedding, November 13th, 2021.

I had the dress.

I had the cake.

I had the ice sculpture.

I had the man of my dreams.

I had Covid. WE had Covid.

No big deal, right? He was 48 and healthy. Hardly ever had more than a cough. We’ll just be sick for a week or so and be better in time for the wedding. Right?!

Never had I been more wrong in my life.

On October 19th I dropped him off at the Emergency Room Entrance. He was struggling to breathe and disoriented.  I wasn’t allowed to go with him. I had to leave the other half of me at the front door of the emergency room with only his wallet to identify him. Made to leave him gulping like a fish out of water gasping for air. He became alert and oriented again after receiving oxygen and was able to text me himself a couple of hours later.  He would need to be there for just a couple days he said.

20 days passed before I would be allowed to see or touch him again.

When I got to the ICU I entered from the side farthest away from his door but I could see him through his window and our eyes locked. I can still to this day feel the joy in my heart when I saw his eyes light up seeing me. By this time, he required the big oxygen mask to breathe and often struggled if he tried to talk without it but I could see the love on his face despite all that.

I got three days with him.

That third morning I arrived excited to have breakfast with him. His nurse came to remove his big mask and put him on the small nose cannula that allowed him to eat. It had been taking about 10-15 minutes to rebound and steady his breathing when changing it out.

10 minutes passed.

15 minute passed.

20 minutes passed and his heart rate wasn’t coming down. He was struggling so hard to breathe. On the big mask went to assist.

25 minutes passed.

30 minutes passed.

Up to this time, they had a ventilator next to his bed, just in case. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his doctor had come and was observing from the door. I knew in my heart that his watching was not a good sign.

Don’t come in here I prayed. Stay out there, don’t let there be a reason to need to come in here

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My heart sank and I was instantly sick to my stomach when he crossed the threshold to his room.

No, go back!

He quickly moved to the head of his bed and quietly started commanding orders to the three nurses who had silently entered the room. Within minutes, I was hearing the words that I had been praying so hard to keep away.

His heart can’t continue to work this hard. His body needs a break. The ventilator will give him the extra help his lungs need. It may be as quick as a couple of days. This is for the best. We’ll give you a couple of minutes to talk before the team comes in.

We had about three minutes to say what we needed to each other. Panic was a thief and stole my words. I tried to be brave and not cry. I was holding onto his hand to save my own life. He pulled down his mask to talk so I could hear.

I love you. It’s always been you.

He kissed my head and I can’t be sure of the words but I desperately tried to convey how much I loved him and that I would take care of everything. Then just like that a team walked in to start the procedure and I was whisked out of the room. He was put into an induced coma.

Late one night while I sat sitting in the recliner in his room a resident came to me and told me that the likelihood of survival for him was very slim. Jed was 48 years old with no prior health issues. All of his other organs were working, and I wouldn't believe that there was nothing more to be done. As I sat frantically thinking at his bedside, I remembered a text I received earlier that day from our neighbor who is a nurse. She told me he needed Ecmo treatment. I had never heard of that and did what we all do when we need to know...I googled it.

It was easily apparent that ECMO can be a 2nd chance at life for some. It's a gas exchange device that takes over the work of the lungs, affording them time to heal, simply put - it's an artificial lung. The next morning I inserted myself into the team circle when the doctors rounded for the morning and asked about ECMO. The doctor told me they didn't have ECMO there and he would need to be transferred to a hospital that did and the odds of finding a spot for him would be nearly impossible.

I like a challenge

On the morning of November 13th instead of marrying my best friend, I was working to save his life. I contacted friends and family and enlisted some to reach out to the local news and some to call all the hospitals that offer ECMO treatment. There is power in numbers. Two of our local stations picked up the story and it aired that weekend.

Jed's respiratory therapist saw the news coverage and while at home on her off day, she set to work reaching out to everyone she knew to see what if anything she could do to try and help save his life. In nothing short of a miracle her message was seen by another PT at DMC Harper in Detroit. There just happened to be ONE singular open bed, but the doctor was going to be very selective and it had to go to a candidate that he felt had a chance to make it. Jed was that patient. He was accepted by DMC hospital for transfer and was transported by survival flight that Monday. The nurses and PTs who cared for him at St Mary's walked him out to see him fly away for his 2nd chance.

He was placed on ECMO upon arrival and his body fought to sync with the machine. Unfortunately, it isn't the smoothest transition for COVID patients as their bodies go through "air hunger" meaning their brains don't understand that it has the air it needs from the machine and alerts the lungs to breathe rapidly, almost gasping for air. The clinical team does their best to let families know that the road ahead is a hard one.

There are no words that prepare you

 There’s no way for me now to accurately convey the nearly daily heartbreak you feel as you hope for positive news and get one setback after another. Jed had started to rally back with slow and steady care. So much so that the team was going to present him as a transplant candidate. For an added chance at acceptance, they wanted to drain some of the fluid off of his lungs.

It’s a very quick and easy procedure. The likelihood of any negative outcome is slim.

That five-minute procedure changed my life forever.

I knew when the phone rang and the voice of his doctor was on the other end that the news he had wasn’t good.

There was a mistake that caused him to bleed internally. We’ve been working feverishly for hours to try and stop the bleeding but…

The staff was working to put blood in as quickly as he was losing it. In my heart, I knew it was futile but still, I pleaded for them to exhaust every possibility.  I won’t share all of the horrible details of his death. Those images often still haunt my dreams. After watching his poor body suffer for hours I had to make the decision to turn off the machine that was breathing for him and let him slip away from us.

The helplessness I felt at that moment was followed by a dark depression that cloaked me for over 6 months. For half a year, night after night, I would have the same dream of searching for Jed thinking he left me only to realize at some point that he hadn’t left us at all but had died and then I would wake up and remember I was alone.

Reliving it day after day became unbearable. I was beyond mental and physical exhaustion. I was living yes, but just going through the necessary motions.

 

I knew something had to change

I had two knee surgeries not long before we had fallen ill so I needed to start by building up the strength of my knee. My surgeon instructed me to start in the water to keep from further injuries.

For the next year, I worked on building that strength in the pool. I started by walking and slowly over time was able to move to jogging and eventually running against the hardest jets. I went from walking up our staircase one foot at a time to running them. After I felt secure in my knee strength I started adding weights at the gym.

I was intimidated by the big machines so I steered clear of them. Focused on the ones I was familiar with and eased into the motions to see how my knee tolerated it. To my surprise, it was far easier than I thought.

I started reading everything I could find.

I watched influencers- filtered out the ones that were gimmicky and more for show and leaned in on the ones that gave tutorials on how to use equipment properly.

Slowly, things started to change. I was seeing the number on the scale drop, and then it happened… I was able to fit into things I couldn’t wear before.

THAT WAS IT! I was hooked.

Never in a million years would I have ever thought I would say this, but I LOVE WORKING OUT.

There is an almost peace-like feeling that washes over me when I walk into the gym and slip my Beats headphones onto my ears.

For one whole hour no one can ask me for anything. Instead, I’m there digging deep and asking myself for everything.

I have a long way to go on this fitness journey. I’ll never be done per say because this is a life change and not a fad for me. I can never go back to the woman that I was.

She’s gone

From all of the shattered pieces that were left, I have picked up the strongest and left the weak and broken behind. There is no good in carrying what won’t nourish and sustain you mentally and spiritually. So instead, I carry the things that feed my soul with happiness and peace, and I live for us both.

Clinical Commentary: Amanda Lyberg, Psychologist

Clinical Commentary: Kristina DeGaetano, LCSW-C

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