by Chris Norton
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“The tragedy of Chris’s initial injury followed by the miraculous surgery that gave him the chance to work towards recovery was only the beginning. The real story began the next day when Chris started down his path to recovery.”
~ Rich Vickers, Chris’s college roommate and close friend
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My mom and sisters got super excited whenever I accomplished something new, and although I never got really excited, I liked that everyone else did. My mom was fun to tease and prank because she was so gullible and emotional, so if I got a movement or a feeling back during the week while she was gone, I’d find a way to surprise her when she arrived on the weekends. When I got movement back in my arm, I told her there was something off with my heartbeat and it was making a weird sound. When she leaned all the way over my chest, I pulled my arm up and put her in a chokehold. She started crying and laughing and got super emotional.
When I wasn’t in therapy, eating, or watching movies, Dad and I had a lot of deep conversations about faith and grit that came out of our talks about game planning. We brainstormed things that would help me get better, and then we discussed the importance of following through. We talked about what it takes to get better, what I had to work on, and the plan to get better. It was an emotional time, so it was natural to rely on God and faith and my own determination. It was a very stressful experience, and talking it out helped to release some anxiety and work things out in my mind.
My injury aimed a spotlight on how close my family was in the same way my work ethic and determination was exposed publically following the injury. We were always close, and I was always resolute in achieving my goals, although CaringBridge and the media’s reporting of my accident and recovery made it seem unusual. Our family’s bond remained as strong as ever, and the only thing that changed was my appreciation for my family’s love and unconditional support.
I did worry about the sacrifices my family was making. I worried about my sisters. Alex came up and visited a lot, and I didn’t want to get in the way of her studies and derail her from becoming a nurse. I worried about Katie giving up basketball in order to be with me on the weekends. My mom and dad assured me that their employers understood and wanted them to be with me, so I never worried about their jobs. Family and friends pitching in and making it as easy as possible for them to be away from home so much took a lot of the stress off my parents, allowing us all to focus on my recovery. Every day brought a new blessing, be it a card from a stranger with words of encouragement, a particularly moving CaringBridge post, or a new sensation in my body.
Despite the uphill battle, I felt surrounded by God’s love.
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I have witnessed one small miracle after another, whether it is an unknown person stepping forward and offering their home, or family and friends helping us with taking care of our pets at home, chores around the house, and fund raising. We have had people call or send cards at times we have really needed it. I believe there are good days ahead.
~Terry Norton, CaringBridge, October 31, 2010
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I CALLED my boss’s cell phone the day of Chris’s injury and told her Chris had been injured, we didn’t know the extent of his injury, and it didn’t look like I’d be at work on Monday. Little did we know that by Monday I wasn’t going to give much thought to work. I was fortunate that my boss couldn’t have been more supportive. She told me to take care of my family, and they’d make it work in my absence. Deb’s boss gave the same magnanimous response. We were very, very blessed that the people in the companies we worked for understood. But that was a short-term solution.
When we looked at what was best for Chris, Deb and I agreed I needed to be the one to stay. With the challenges we’d already faced and so many more looming in the distance, Deb feared she’d become overwhelmed and wanted me there to handle things. She was struggling to keep her emotions in check, and she understood that Chris needed my strength. I was physically stronger and better equipped to help Chris in therapy, and my planning skills helped organize the appointments, meetings, and decisions we tried to anticipate. It was immensely difficult for her to leave him, but she knew we’d made the best decision for what he needed at the time.
With his rehab beginning at Mayo and the decision made for me to stay, we needed to process the logistics. I took the Family and Medical Leave Act from work, which protected my job, but I didn’t get paid. I used all my sick time and vacation first, but I didn’t have a lot of either because I hadn’t been in my job very long. I’d spent most of my life as a teacher, and when the kids were little, Deb job shared and stayed home, so we never had a ton of money. What little we had was going fast. Too fast.
Like angels sent from God, friends came to our rescue. They told me to stay with my son, and they would take care of the rest. I didn’t have the words to express what a huge relief that was, and how grateful Deb and I were to them and the many, many others who stepped up to help during our time of need. It was the beginning of a string of blessings where people from the community came together and took care of us in ways too numerous to list. Our hearts, while suffering for Chris, swelled with love and gratitude.
When our friends told us they had our backs, the community started organizing. We began receiving gift cards, and they put together fundraisers back home. Our friends organized a prayer vigil at Bondurant-Farrar High School through the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. A bunch of football players from Central College came, as well as some area high school football teams. I called in and delivered the welcome and opening prayer.
I gave an update on Chris and talked a bit during the prayer vigil about some things I’d learned since his injury. I explained that we never asked why because why didn’t matter. I gave thanks for the opportunity Chris had to use his faith to have an impact on people. I went on to say that many people had asked what they could do for us, and how we wanted people to use Chris’s injury as a wake-up call. I asked those in attendance to honor the battle Chris faced by living each day to the fullest, giving thanks for the little things in life, and facing the future with courage to take on the challenges and obstacles life presents. Finally, I asked people to examine their faith.
All the little dramas and petty arguments in my life just went poof when Chris got injured. Everything I said at the prayer vigil seemed Holy Spirit driven. I found a quiet place in the hospital lobby to write some notes, and it felt like I went into a zone—the words just flowed. One of the big things I wanted to express was that although Chris’s body was currently broken, his spirit was not.
Someone showed me a picture taken at the prayer vigil, and while there were an incredible number of people there, I had to ask about the scoreboard. Chris’s high school football number was five, and his college number was sixteen. The organizers put those numbers all over the scoreboard: on the clock, in the score, and other slots. The attention to detail was truly amazing.
With the help of our friends, we finally had a plan. Deb would come up every Thursday after work, and Katie would miss school every Friday and stay until Sunday. Katie quit the basketball team. She talked to the coach, and he was willing to work with her, but she said it was more important for her to be in Rochester with her family. Everybody had to make sacrifices, and I think that really drew our family together. It was tough at the end of the two weeks when they left. We shed some tears and seemed to repeat the same torturous routine every weekend.
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“Every day, every minute I spent with Chris and his family, then and now the words that come to me are: a young man and a family who would not allow a tragic event to become a tragedy. A young man and a family who believed and lived their lives knowing that with faith, family & friends you will overcome all obstacles and make a difference in the world. A young man and a family who would forever be in my heart & soul.”
~ Mike Durnin, Former Head Football Coach at Luther College
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Alex came with
Deb and Katie if she didn’t have class on Friday. They were so excited to see Chris, they’d get to the hospital and literally run through the halls to get to him. His sisters would put a cot on each side of his bed, and they’d massage his hands and tickle him.
Typically, the girls stayed with him on Thursday nights so Deb and I could be together. Occasionally Alex and Katie stayed two nights, and Deb sometimes covered a night to give me a break. Chris was waking me up every couple of hours to scratch his head or his nose. Sometimes he’d want me to turn on the radio or do something else to help him sleep, so by Thursday, I was pretty exhausted. When the rest of the family was there, I got a good night’s sleep so I could be refreshed enough to handle the upcoming week.
Sundays were very difficult for both Chris and me. Weekends in general were tough. During the week, we had a full schedule. Occupational therapy might run from eight to ten, and physical therapy would run from ten to twelve, and he’d get some additional therapy afterwards. Then, he’d rest or have appointments with different doctors. The weekdays flew by, and we felt productive and proactive working toward his recovery. On the weekends, Chris had an hour or an hour-and-a-half of therapy or forty-five minutes of each. There was a lot of down time, so if we didn’t have many visitors, the weekends sometimes felt long for me.
Saturdays and Sundays were hard on Chris too. During the week, he was too busy to notice he wasn’t in college anymore. The weekends brought his isolation into focus. Of all times, Rochester had one of the worst winters they’d had in years, and the snow totals were staggering. There were a lot of weekends when his friends had planned to come to the hospital but couldn’t because of the weather. That was tough because an eighteen-year-old doesn’t mind hanging out with his dad and mom during the week when he’s doing therapy, but hanging out with Mom and Dad on Friday or Saturday night isn’t normal. Weekends could be fun with everyone around, but they were challenging too.
Chris’s friends from home and school would come, watch a movie, keep Chris entertained, and help him stay connected. It was a testament to Chris’s personality that he formed such a close bond with his friends and teammates at Luther in such a short amount of time. He was a funny guy, but he didn’t dominate a conversation. He was a good listener who liked to talk and have fun. People just genuinely liked him.
Deb and I worried about some of Chris’s friends falling away because they wouldn’t be able to handle what he was going through. Would his friends see him as too much of a challenge? Would they look at him and think they had to take care of him? But we never had anyone say, “I can’t deal with it.” In fact, we were pleasantly surprised, and we wondered if they realized how important it was for Chris to have friends around and how vital they were to his recovery.
With much attention devoted to Chris, Deb and I realized early on that we also needed to make time for the girls. So, when Chris’s friends came for visits, we took those opportunities to get Alex and Katie out of the hospital. They still had an identity, and they still had needs. One of the things Deb and I consciously talked about was that we didn’t want Katie’s high school years remembered as Chris’s injury years, and we didn’t want Alex’s end of college years remembered only as the time when Chris was injured. We didn’t do a perfect job of that, but we made a conscious effort to preserve their identities separate from their brother’s challenges.
By Sunday, when the family was all together, it was loud and festive; we had stuff going on, we were watching movies, picking up food. People were coming to play cards and hang out. Our friends came up a lot, which was a great help. By four o’clock on Sunday, only Chris and I remained in the quiet hospital with lots of time to think. Sunday nights were really, really hard on both of us. But the generosity and prayers of others helped see us through.
Whenever Chris was sleeping or I was alone, I’d update the CaringBridge site and think about all the things I’d left at home. Winter was coming, and I hadn’t fixed the garage door. I’d been opening it manually with the intention to fix it before the weather turned cold. The gas gauge on our car didn’t work. Our kitchen needed painting. Before I even had time to stress, a group of friends got together and paid to put in a new garage door, a guy took the car in and had it repaired, and they painted our kitchen. And that was just the beginning.
Friends visiting would stay overnight at the hotel, and they’d hand us money. I tried protesting, but our friends insisted. They knew we had to eat out. They knew we had gas expenses. They wouldn’t take no for an answer. We went back and forth. It was really uncomfortable at first, but turning down their gifts would have hurt their feelings, and in all honestly, we needed their help to survive.
Deb and I went to the University of Iowa where there were thirty thousand students, so we’d never experienced the small college networking system and the sense of community around a smaller school. Because of the Luther alumni network, all of a sudden, we had six families offer their homes for us to live in so we didn’t need to stay at the hotel anymore. One of them was Joyce Carlson, a widow whose husband had been a doctor at Mayo Hospital. She generously offered us her home to use, and we took her up on it and used her place when necessary. We kept some of our stuff at her home, and whenever my mom came up to see Chris, she stayed with Joyce. They shared coffee in the mornings and quickly became friends.
The Rochester newspaper ran a big article on Chris, and shortly afterward we were in Chris’s room when a guy showed up at the door. He introduced himself and said he was a Christian man, a local retired superintendent of schools, and he’d read about Chris in the newspaper and felt compelled to come over. He and his wife lived in a two-bedroom condo less than five minutes from the hospital, and he explained that they went to Florida for six months out of the year. He read the article, sympathized with what our family was going through, and insisted we accept his offer. We were blown away and a little taken aback. We didn’t know what to think. That weekend, Deb and one of her girlfriends went over to the condo and met his wife, checked out the place, and within a week we were using their condo as home base.
When it was just Chris and me in Rochester, I kept my clothes at the condo and showered there every day. When our family was in town, we stayed at the condo. We used Joyce’s house when a larger group was in town. One of us stayed in Chris’s hospital room every single night.
As the gifts poured in, Deb and I had to have a serious talk, because although we weren’t arrogant, we did have a fair amount of pride. We’d always been the ones who’d rally around somebody else in their time of need, but we’d never been in a situation where we needed others to rally around us. Deb and her group of friends started Bondurant Fundraising Friends (BFF) for a friend in the community who had cancer. They raised almost thirty thousand dollars with one event, so they turned it into an annual thing for families and individuals to apply. They’d pick a recipient, the BFFs would organize an event, and the guys all got recruited to help. With our history in mind, Deb and I discussed how we needed to swallow our pride and accept the help others offered. We knew from our own experience how good it felt to help someone, and we couldn’t take that joy away from those who so generously wanted to give. Truth be told, we wouldn’t have made it on our own.
There were so many examples of people’s goodness and the kindness of strangers. A guy Chris barely knew who lived on his floor at Luther, Rich Holton, made bracelets and sold them, sending us cash periodically. Chris hardly remembered Rich, yet he sold bracelets to raise money for Chris. Later, Rich became one of Chris’s college roommates and closest friends.
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“In retrospect, ordering those bracelets was something of an act of desperation. It was the only immediate thing I could think of to do which would maybe be of some sort of help. I couldn’t do anything to really help Chris, to fix his life. That was up to him, his family, and those doctors at Mayo. But this was what I could do, and my thinking was that if everyone just did what they could do, however seemingly small and
simple, then perhaps we could come out of this thing okay in the end.”
~ Rich Holton, Luther classmate and friend
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A girl that Chris went to high school with made T-shirts and sold them as a fundraiser. She made twenty-five hundred dollars in profits and sent the money to Chris.
I received a letter from a high school football team that had played at Bondurant. They heard Chris’s story, and on the way home, they passed a hat around the bus and collected money. They sent a wad of beat-up one-dollar bills. I pictured those kids who were just like my son, pulling worn dollar bills out of their pockets and giving all their change from the heart to a kid they didn’t even know.
There were so many little stories that brought us closer to God and his glory. An autistic kid worked at a place where they provided jobs, and he made a pillowcase for Chris and put a twenty-dollar bill inside the pillowcase. So many heartwarming stories of people wanting to help, people we didn’t know, people just like us, and even some who had less. The benevolence we received was awe-inspiring and a treasured gift from God.
At one point, I thought I should probably take the gift cards we’d received back to the hotel, but before doing so, I went through and counted them. We had over three thousand dollars in different kinds of gas and gift cards. They were streaming in, and the help they provided was immeasurable. Alex had gone back to college, so she was driving back and forth between school and the hospital. We were eating out all the time and just burning through our money. Then, this outpouring of support from our friends and community slowly started coming in and kept us from going under.