by Hoda Kotb
“He said, ‘You have a fifty-fifty six-month mortality. That means fifty percent of the people who are in the condition you are in will not be alive in six months.’ And that took my breath away,” Patrick recalls, “because I was clean at that point for five months.”
There was no plan. Patrick simply spent time with close friends in Minneapolis and healed his body. He opted out of meds that were suggested for depression.
“I was gonna be miserable. And depressed,” he says logically. “I needed to be depressed. I was depressed. There was a reason I was depressed. And I needed to make the changes in my life and reengineer my life.”
To say a switch flipped in Patrick’s brain discredits the amount of mental muscle he already applied to his recovery; he’d made many attempts to recover over the years. But, he does say, the pairing of devastating loss with genuine gratitude acted as kindling and a match; they ignited his changed thinking. He now saw himself as worthy of repair.
“I do believe in the power of the mind. It is a powerful, powerful tool. All you have to do is change your frame of reference and the way you’re thinking, but it’s a long and slow process,” he says. “Do I feel like damaged goods? I don’t. And that is a miracle.”
TEN YEARS LATER
In the fall of 2008, ten years after Patrick’s HIV diagnosis and crystal meth addiction, he received a call from a former colleague who runs a production company in Minnesota. She’d developed a successful show for the Travel Channel and needed a freelance field producer. With no idea that Patrick had struggled with addiction, she offered him the job. Coincidentally, the host of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern is himself a recovering drug addict of twenty years.
Bizarre Foods features the kind of far-out fare that makes people both squirm and tune in by the millions in seventy-two countries around the world. As field producer and director for the program, Patrick always has a bag packed. It’s routine for him to travel to Amsterdam, Tokyo, Bangkok, Rio de Janeiro, and Montreal within three months. The show has also bellied up to the bizarre in Namibia, Hong Kong, Finland, Argentina, Nicaragua, Germany, Greece, Italy, and the jungles of Southeast Asia.
“I had a bucket with two hundred fifty tarantulas in the back of my car, and I’m not a spider person,” Patrick says, recalling a trip to Cambodia. The crew tagged along on a tarantula-trapping trip. The hairy spiders are defanged, deep-fried, and sold as snacks at roadside stands.
Patrick, field producing on the set of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. Austin, Texas, 2011. (Courtesy of Alex Needles)
“I couldn’t eat the tarantulas,” he says, defeated, “even though they were fresh.”
At forty-nine, Patrick says he’s excited about his professional future, and is personally joyful and physically strong. He embraces not only who he is now, but who he has been—all of it.
I then ask the question you have to ask recovering addicts. After all, I know he’s asked himself. It’s been four years.
“Do you worry about a relapse?”
Patrick answers that he does not, saying, “You always have to remember your lowest point, and mine is so tangible and so present in my sister’s murder that I can instantly access that pain and use that.”
Cold, hard facts are effective, too.
“I know with absolute certainty,” he says, “if I use, I die. Addiction specialists say relapsing addicts pick right back up where they left their habit, no matter how long they managed to stay clean. In my case, the amounts would be deadly. So, for me getting clean and staying clean meant I had to change. I had to choose to want to live. Even on my worst days—and they happen—I am so grateful to be alive and present.”
Would he change the murderous events of August 20, 2006? Of course, but, clearly, the hole in his heart from losing Sue is shaped like a halo.
“If my sister hadn’t died, I would have died. I have no doubt about that.” Patrick begins to cry. “She struggled with her alcoholism, and she struggled to get free of this guy, and she couldn’t.” He points to himself and chokes out the words, “But I could. She helped me. I know that her dying saved my life.”
Patrick says there’s only one thing left he can do for his beloved Sue. He can honor her life by living his well.
DIANE VAN DEREN
If you’re looking for amazing people, tap into the world of sports. Athletes are mentally tough and physically strong, and their journeys to the top are often unique and filled with challenges. Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. Pro surfer Bethany Hamilton excels with only one arm. Comeback kid Dan Jansen won Olympic gold in speed skating after the devastating loss of his sister. A long list of names came my way when I asked for inspirational stories from the NBC sports archives. So many of the candidates were impressive, but one in particular jumped off the page. This against-the-odds athlete couldn’t help herself. That’s just how Diane Van Deren is; she attacks life with a positive energy that’s undeniable and magnetic. Diane’s life story is remarkable, and to walk a mile in her shoes is impossible. After all, Diane would never just walk a mile—she’d run at least fifty.
Diane Van Deren is the first brain surgery case of the day at University of Colorado Hospital in Denver. It’s February 1997, but for the next three hours, the date and time will be of no concern to Diane; she’s under general anesthesia. The neurosurgeon has been instructed to remove as much as possible of his thirty-seven-year-old patient’s hippocampus, an area of the brain tucked deep inside the temporal lobes. In Diane’s case, the problem area lies within her right hippocampus, just below her right temple.
The surgery is elective for Diane and routine for the highly trained specialists at the hospital. Just before eight A.M., the neurosurgeon begins to slice through the muscle of Diane’s scalp. Next, he drills holes in her skull, and then connects the holes using a handheld electric saw. He removes the rectangular piece of bone, about the size of a playing card, and wraps it in a moist towel. Next, the surgeon folds back the lining of Diane’s brain. Using a vibrating tube the diameter of a swizzle stick, he knocks loose the damaged brain cells and suctions them out. He then backtracks, closing up each layer. Finally, he reattaches Diane’s skull piece using wax and bone chips.
Diane, recovering from February 1997 brain surgery.
(Courtesy of Diane Van Deren)
Why would someone possibly elect to have this brain surgery? Routine in the operating room, perhaps; undoubtedly not routine in terms of the decisions most of us make in life. But, clearly, Diane Van Deren is not like most of us.
The trouble began deep inside Diane’s brain when she was only sixteen months old. A healthy baby, Diane suddenly developed a high fever. When she started to convulse, her parents and grandmother rushed her to a hospital in Omaha, Nebraska. Packed in ice, Diane’s little body quivered for nearly an hour. While doctors spoke with Diane’s parents in the hospital room, her grandmother waited just outside. As the doctors came back out into the hallway, her grandmother overheard them saying that Diane’s lungs were weak, and her prognosis was questionable.
“One doctor said to the other doctor, ‘We don’t know if she’s going to be a vegetable, we don’t know if she’s going to survive,’ ” Diane says. ‘She might be better off if she didn’t.’ ”
In 1961, not much was known about the brain and its ability to recover from trauma. What caused the seizure? Was Diane born with an underlying abnormality, or did the high fever cause the seizure? And would the seizures continue? Thankfully, Diane recovered and showed no signs of brain damage. She grew up healthy and happy in Littleton, Colorado, south of Denver.
“I wanted to be a cowgirl,” Diane says, thinking back on her active childhood. “I’d be out on the golf course in the private club area whippin’ rope around a bale of hay with a plastic bull horn stuck in it. The golfers would drive by in their golf carts and say, ‘Hey, Diane!’ ”
She was notably athletic, the first to be chosen for all the neighborhood games. The boys even asked Dia
ne to play catcher on their baseball team.
She laughs. “So I had to take my pigtails and shove them up into my baseball hat and they had to call me Dan. I knew at a young age I had something different. I remember sitting down with my dad at the breakfast table and saying, ‘There’s something different about me, Dad. I’m faster and can kick and throw a ball better than the girls. And, Dad, I do it better than the boys. So what’s different about me?’ ”
She says her father told her those were her God-given gifts and that she should use them to her full potential. And boy, did she ever.
Diane competed in every sport she could get her hands and legs on: horseback riding, swimming, track, basketball, and golf. At thirteen, she sold her quarter horse for $500, bought tennis balls and a wooden racket, and developed a new passion: tennis. By the next year, Diane was the Colorado state champion in both tennis and golf. She was also named to the all-state basketball team. Gifted and impassioned, Diane was determined to follow her dream of becoming a professional athlete. In her senior year of high school, Diane set the wheels in motion. She asked several neighbors to help fund her goal to play on the women’s pro tennis tour and made arrangements at school to graduate early.
“So here I had two checks in my pocket.” Diane smiles. “I wanted to go play pro tennis, I’d already talked to the principal at the school, but I hadn’t told my parents yet.”
When she did, and pulled out the substantial checks, Diane says her dad’s jaw dropped. Game on. With her parents’ guarded blessing and steadfast support, she left home and began traveling around the United States and Europe on the women’s pro tennis tour. Over the next four years, she would also receive a junior college scholarship to play on a top-ranked tennis team in Odessa, Texas. Diane juggled her time and her teams, playing on both the pro tour and for her college. (She was able to do both by declining any gifts or money on the pro tour.) In her senior year, Diane added yet another challenge to her already full plate: training to compete in Hawaii’s Ironman Triathlon, a nonstop competition that requires a 112-mile bike ride, a 2.4-mile swim, and a 26.2-mile run. Diane knew she had the skill set. At twenty two, she’d beaten every woman in a Texas marathon that she’d entered on a whim.
These were extremely active and exciting years for Diane. She was at the top of all her games and thought nothing of the brief out-of-body sensations she began to experience during her twenties.
“It’s like a déjà vu feeling,” Diane describes. “I’d get this rising feeling in my stomach and I’d get kind of nauseous. It would hit me for thirty seconds, maybe a minute. If I had one, I could still talk to you. On the tour, I’d play through it. And I had that for years.”
After graduating with a degree in speech communications from the University of Texas of the Permian Basin and completing her stint on the women’s pro tennis tour, Diane came home to Colorado. In the fall of 1982, she invited her mom to join her on a church retreat in the nearby mountains. During their spiritual getaway, Diane and her mom became friends with the woman leading the retreat. They talked of faith and family, and the leader said she felt her son and Diane would hit it off. When they returned home, a blind date was set up with Diane; her parents; the son, Scott; and his parents, the Van Derens. During the dinner, Diane learned that Scott was an avid sailor and was gearing up to sail from California to Hawaii. Intrigued, Diane and Scott had lunch by themselves the following afternoon. The two quickly realized they shared a love of travel and adventure.
“I just really liked her humor, athletic ability, she had traveled, and she was attractive. There was a really good chemistry there,” Scott says. “I told my best friend I was going to marry her.”
The next day, Scott left for California to prepare for his cross-Pacific adventure. He tracked down the captain of a fifty-seven-foot sailboat, who allowed him to join his five-man crew. Their first stop along the coast was Cabo San Lucas.
“I remember sitting on the beach, two or three weeks after I met Diane, looking at the boat swaying in the water with the moon in the background, and just so excited to be there because I had planned the sailing trip for many years after I graduated from college, and had been looking forward to it, and yet there was something missing. The distinct memory I have was, This is awesome, but I want someone to share it with. And I had just met that person, so it was great.”
On New Year’s day 1983, Scott and four fellow adventurers set sail for Hawaii. Three weeks later, they anchored in Hilo.
“While Scott was in Hawaii, he was checking out the Ironman race course for me, writing notes in the sand,” says Diane, “and I was training for the Ironman.”
After two and a half months, Scott returned home from his trip. He and Diane continued to date and learn about each other. The two had actually grown up less than three miles apart but attended different schools. Amazingly, their families worshipped in the same church. Four months into their relationship, Scott asked Diane to marry him.
“It didn’t seem overly rushed or quick. It just felt like we clicked; it came together at the right time,” says Scott. “There was just something really special about the way I connected with Diane.”
Engaged and looking ahead to having a family one day, Diane decided to pull out of the Ironman. In August 1983, the twenty-three-year-olds were married. Scott and Diane both worked, he at a Fortune 500 computer company, she at her father’s steel company. Always active, Diane continued to run and occasionally competed in local triathlons. The Van Derens began having children three years into their marriage, and by year six, they had a son, a daughter, and a second son on the way.
Several weeks into the third pregnancy, the first sign of a serious medical issue revealed itself. Diane was sitting in a car with her mother, looking at houses for sale.
“We were with a real estate agent looking for a bigger home. We were in the car driving around neighborhoods and I remember my mom saying, ‘Honey, can you just grab me a piece of gum out of the glove box?’ That’s all I remember,” Diane says. “I guess my head went back, my body jerked. They thought I was having a heart attack.”
At the hospital, doctors were cautious but felt the incident was a fluke. Diane didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, and had been a pro athlete. They concluded the seizure was hormonal and sent her home. But several months later, during the second trimester of the pregnancy, another episode occurred, at night. This one was big and bad: a grand mal.
“I only remember coming out of it,” says Diane. “I was very combative, screaming and yelling. I was fearful, not knowing what was going on.”
A grand mal seizure involves a loss of consciousness and violent muscle contractions. Diane’s body shook the bed intensely enough to awaken Scott.
“I said to no one, ‘Okay, here we go,’ just knowing in an instant flash,” he says, “that things had probably changed forever.”
Scott called 911 while he, in horror, watched a pregnant Diane endure the seizure. It would be the last night that Scott slept soundly for nearly a decade.
“He never slept. Every time I’d gasp or roll, he wanted to make sure I wasn’t seizing,” Diane says. “Now that’s kind of a joke. If he snores, I think, Eh. Let it go. The poor guy never slept for ten years. Even now he says, ‘Oh, man, when I come to bed and I hear you breathing really hard and you’re sleeping so hard, it’s so comforting.’ ”
Both twenty-nine years old, Scott and Diane faced a new normal that stemmed from an old ailment. For so many years, the grand mal seizure that Diane had suffered as a baby seemed like a nonissue. But, in truth, the odd feelings Diane experienced during her twenties were faint warnings. Something dangerous was brewing. During Diane’s third pregnancy, her brain’s secret life was exposed; the electrical discharges it so boldly unleashed mimicked an internal lightning storm. A medical crisis was now a member of the Van Deren family. Like the world’s worst roommates, seizures moved in and began to wreak havoc in their home life. A desperate and lengthy search for answers began, as Scott and
Diane raised their three very young children: three-year-old Michael, one-year-old Robin, and newborn Matt.
“What I found so frustrating was, here I had three healthy kids, and I was healthy and vibrant. I felt like I had this incredible life . . .” She pauses. “And these seizures.”
Scott and Diane tried their best to structure a life where freedom and a safety net were both well represented.
“I would come home, and she would be pushing two of the kids in the double stroller, and she’d have the third in a backpack, and she’s walking the dog.” Scott laughs. “The goal, as unrealistic as it was, was to try to have a normal life and to try to do fun things. We lived in a neighborhood where everything was close. We could go sledding a block and a half away, there were tennis courts, there was a pool, Diane’s sister lived close by, so we could walk there.”
In medical terms, the odd feelings Diane experienced during her twenties were actually something called auras. Auras are warnings; they act as a seizure’s calling card.
Hello, I’m about to hijack part of your brain. Could be a small attack, or I might knock you on your ass.
The stealth attacks were maddening. Raising three small children was trying enough; Diane also had the anxiety of wondering whether her own body would suddenly check out.
“That was scary. The fear of the unknown,” Diane explains. “We were always at the ready. My confidence was crushed. I always had to think, What if . . . ?”
Scott was perpetually on duty as watcher and worrier.
“My reaction was always the same,” Scott explains. “If she was thinking about something and became quiet, I thought she was having a seizure. If she was ten minutes late, I was thinking she had a seizure or she’s not in a good place, or she crashed the car. You just never knew, and I became very in tune with the sounds and the looks and the tone of voice and her eyes.”
Protecting the kids physically and emotionally was a top priority for Scott and Diane. When she went to bed early or missed dinner, Scott would lay out a picnic-style dinner on the basement floor and tell the kids, “Mom just needs to rest.” It was more difficult to shield them from the visual horrors.