by Gary Kinder
“I dedicated the grave,” Lynn said later, “and I had so much resentment in me that I couldn’t even give a decent prayer. I just kept thinking, How could anybody do such a cowardly thing! I can’t even remember what I said, something about... I don’t know, I was so hateful and resentful. Some people came up to me afterwards and said, ‘We got a little afraid of what you might say.’”
The air of tension that Lynn’s call for revenge had suddenly created in the mourners still lingered after he murmured the conclusion to his dedication, lowered his arm, and stepped away from the grave. Only when the bishop again stood before the crowd was the tension dispelled.
“This concludes the service,” he said. “Everyone is now free to leave.”
Slowly, the crowd began to disperse, and the people headed back across the lawn to their cars and eventually were directed out of the cemetery. When Byron and his children arrived back at the mortuary, he told them that from there he was driving to the hospital to see Cortney, and that when he left the hospital, there was something else he felt he had to do. “Shorty wouldn’t have wanted it that way,” he explained.
Weary from emotion, but relieved that the funeral finally was over, Gary, Brett, and Claire returned with family and friends to their father’s house. A buffet supper had been prepared for all of them by members of their church’s Relief Society.
While Byron was visiting at the hospital, Cortney thrust his tongue slighdy, but otherwise did not move. Byron read a nurse’s entry on the chart that Cortney was not responding to verbal commands, but Dr. Hauser had written some brief words of encouragement: from time to time Cortney seemed to be aware of his surroundings. Byron stayed with his son for a while, rubbing the boy’s arms and talking to him. Then he left the ICU, went downstairs to the parking lot, got in his car, and returned alone to the cemetery.
It just bothered me. I wasn’t particularly pleased about Lynn’s choice of words, I guess. He had something to say about revenge, and I didn’t want that for my wife’s final resting place. All I wanted was just to have it dedicated so the Lord’s looking after it, so Shorty would be comfortable there and rest peacefully with no bad feeling about the place. And that’s all I wanted.
Except for a gardener and the bees flitting among the clover, the cemetery was deserted now and quiet. A high mound of fresh, bright flowers marked Carol’s grave on the east lawn, and Byron crossed the grass to stand there, the sun at his back. With thoughts of tranquillity and love, he silently gave his own dedication, erasing the earlier words of revenge that had tainted the peaceful setting. It was a setting he would return to often. Long after the flowers had faded and been carried away, the cemetery workers would see him standing quietly in the same place, looking out over the white weeping birch and the mountains rising behind them in the distance.
You can say a lot of things about a relationship of thirty-something years.
COMA
It’s just to me a time of complete anxiety. I could go along for a while and then I’d get this anxious feeling. Then I’d either have to go look at him and make sure he was still all right or else I’d have to call. So I was calling about every couple of hours. I could go a couple hours, then I’d have to check. And this would go, oh, this would go day and night for a while. I’d wake up in the night and get anxious and wonder what was going on, so I’d call the hospital. Probably didn’t expect to hear anything any better, but I was glad to hear that there wasn’t anything worse. Most often. Glad to hear that he was still plugging along. And when I was reassured, I’d go back to sleep.
I had a feeling of tenderness and love for him. You hate to see your son lying there all shot to hell and all burned up inside for no reason. You know. For no reason. He didn’t have anyone else in the world except me and the people around him that he could bank on. And I wanted him to know that he had support. Someone was there who cared about him. When I visited, I’d bend over him and give him a kiss and tell him who it was, let him know that I was there, and let him know that everything was fine, that he was getting better, not to be worried or anxious, that everything was going to be just fine. But I didn’t know if anything was getting through to him. It’s a helpless feeling. I was upset, but there was nothing I could do about that. Not a thing. When you can’t do anything about something, you’d better learn to live with it. And so you just wait and watch, and wait and watch. And hope everything gets better. But most days it didn’t get better. Then they gradually started to square away. And then you get a little hope. And then something else happens, and that’s all shattered. And then that gets a little better, and then something else happens. And so it just goes up and down, up and down. Anything he could do positive was a good day, and brought a lot of hope and happiness to see that he was progressing. And then there were bad days. You don’t want to live through too many days like that. But see, it doesn’t end. Because every day you walk into that hospital you’re reminded that your son is absolutely critical, absolutely suffering, and there is nothing you can do for him. And this is what bothers me. This is the part I have more problems with than anything, is that … you … can … not … alleviate his suffering. You can’t share it with him, you can’t help him with it. He’s got to do it all by himself. And I mean suffer! God! I don’t know how in the hell anybody could tolerate what he had to tolerate. And what he went through no one will ever know.
So here’s your bright son just getting to the point in life where he was starting to move around and starting to develop and starting to do some things that he’d been wanting to do, and somebody devastates him for no particular reason, and here he is. Here he is! What you got left. But he’s still your son, and your heart aches for him, just aches for him, knowing full well that a lot of the aspirations he’d had are down the tube. And I mean down the tube. Nothing you can do about that, not one thing. It’s an anguish that I don’t think anybody can describe. And you finally have to get to the point that you’re going to lose a son. And every day you don’t lose him, there’s still the fear that today you will. It’s a terrible, terrible anguish. But you have to realize that there’s nothing you can do about it, that you have to just take it as it comes. You have to figure that you’ve lost a son and anything other than that is a gift.
Just before noon on the day of his mother’s viewing, Cortney had slipped his left hand down to his groin and wrapped his fingers tightly around the arterial line inserted in the femoral artery of his left thigh and with two nurses trying to hold back his hand yanked the line out of his groin. That same night he tried to pull the tracheostomy tube out of his throat. He grabbed at the IV needles in his arms and pulled at the Foley catheter that ran up his penis to drain his urine into a clear bag. The night after he tried to rip the trache out of his throat, he got his hand on the Foley and tore it apart.
Cortney’s movements were not purposeful, but fitful and primitive reflexes. Except for these he hardly moved. If he opened his eyes, he would stare at the ceiling or the right wall or the left, whichever way he was positioned at the time, his eyes not focused or tracking, just open and staring, and then he would close them again and seem to go to sleep. Sometimes he would twitch a hand or a foot on command and once wiggled his toes. But even these responses often were so vague the nurse or the doctor who had witnessed them could not be sure they had actually happened.
Dr. Ken Johnson, a gastroenterologist, had been called in on the case for his experience in diagnosing and treating problems of the stomach and esophagus. Cases of lye ingestion are rare, and Johnson himself had seen only three or four, all of those in tiny children who had accidentally swallowed the caustic. “When I first saw Cortney,” Johnson remembered, “he looked as close to death as … He was a fraction of a thread away from death. His head was bandaged, he appeared decerebrate, no purposeful movements, a lot of noises in his lungs. Every time the respirator would breathe for him, I could hear the noises coming up through the airway. I also thought he was in heart failure from the brain insult. I
t was stressful. Rees was upset. He said to me, ‘This is one of those god-awful catastrophes and we just have to do what we can.’ I know for myself I’ve never been so emotionally involved with a case before or since.”
Cortney’s injuries had led to so many complications that Johnson, Hauser, and Rees frequently found themselves at odds with each other: each time one complication was treated, it only aggravated or created others. With every complication that arose, Byron Naisbitt consulted with them or one of various other doctors brought in to examine his son. He could not walk down the hall at either of Og-den’s hospitals without being stopped frequendy by colleagues inquiring about Cortney and offering advice. Often he arrived in Cortney’s room in the company of another physician, one of the primary doctors on Cortney’s case, or another doctor he had asked to give an opinion. He made no pretense at being tactful with his colleagues. If one of them had knowledge that could benefit Cortney, he asked them for it. If the opinion of another doctor seemed viable, he discussed it with Hauser or Johnson or Rees. He was constantly monitoring Cortney’s condition and the methods being used to treat him. He watched his son closely, and sometimes saw complications developing even the other doctors did not see.
“Byron’s demeanor, I would say, was still basically unchanged from what it usually is,” recalled Dr. Johnson. “You could tell he was uptight, he wasn’t loose at all. But strong, you know. He was just his usual self, except you could tell he was a little nervous, a little hyper. He’d come in and he’d say, ‘How are you, Physician?’ He always calls me Physician. Then he’d say, Things look pretty good today?’ And I’d say, ‘Well… he’s coming along a little better than he did yesterday.’ He’d say: ‘Well that’s good. That’s good. Yeah, I think he’s doing better. He’s going to make it. He’s going to do it.’ He just felt that way all the time. Always positive. And I couldn’t believe he was being that positive. He was just unbelievably optimistic.
“One time, I think I saw a tear in his eye. It was right close to the second day, the first time I saw Cortney. But the moment he got over the initial shock, I think he put all of his efforts into trying to be positive. With everybody. ‘He’s going to make it, don’t tell me he isn’t going to make it. He’s going to make it because I can see it’. I didn’t tell him that Cortney wasn’t going to make it, but the first time I saw the boy I didn’t think things looked very good. And I couldn’t believe that when Cortney was lying there with tubes going in every orifice and not responding at all to me, that Byron could walk in there and come out optimistic. But he would.
“There was one occasion early on when I didn’t think Cort knew very much about anything, and Byron says, ‘Cort, blink your eyes.’ He did. I’d say, ‘Cort, do this, do that.’ He wouldn’t do anything. One time I came in and one of the nurses said, ‘Dr. Naisbitt has been here and he’s been talking to Cortney.’ And I said: ‘What do you mean, talking to Cortney? How could he talk to Cortney?’ She said, ‘Well, Cort’s been raising his fingers and giving him signs.’ ‘Oh, come on. Really? Were you there? Did you see Cortney respond?’ ‘Well yeah, I did.’ So she came over by me and I said something to Cortney. He didn’t do anything, you know. I asked him to do something again and he still wouldn’t do anything. So then the nurse got her mouth down next to his ear and said: ‘Cortney, now raise your finger like you did for your dad. Raise your finger and tell Dr. Johnson. Listen now, Cort, do you understand what I am trying to tell you? Raise your finger and show us.’ And he raised his finger up and wiggled it just a little bit. Maybe Byron felt that he was getting through to Cortney. Maybe he had some sort of signal from the boy that I couldn’t perceive.”
Brett had returned to his job as an operating room technician. He was still angry that two people had been allowed to cause so much suffering, and each time he saw his brother lying in Intensive Care, he was reminded that there was nothing he could do about it. It was difficult for him to visit.
Gary and Claire spent more time with Cort than I did. I was just in and out, probably because I had my own family. And it was hard for me to go for some reason. I just couldn’t stand to see him not doing anything. They didn’t know what kind of brain damage he had and his blood gases were all out of whack, they were trying to get those balanced. And he looked grotesque, no color, just gray, totally lifeless. He would breathe in gasps like each was his last and his pulse hit two thirty. I didn’t know how much longer his heart could beat that fast without going into fibrillation. Nobody would give even a hint of a hope for him staying alive. Hauser never had a word of encouragement, he kept saying, “Don’t count on it.” Cort just looked deader than a doornail and I hated seeing him in that shape, knowing there was nothing I could do.
I’d go in and hold his hand, and the tubes were running out of his body, and the respirator’s sucking and blowing, you can smell the medication they’re atomizing in the respirator, all the lights are flashing and the monitors are scribbling. For a nickel and a ball bat I’d have spent fifteen minutes alone with Pierre and Andrews. I couldn’t understand how anyone could do that to another human being.
I didn’t like going because I just hated to see him that screwed up. But Dad’d say, “We’ve gotta go in there and be positive, gotta talk to him, touch him.” The first two weeks all the visits were the same. There was always somebody from the family there when a new one arrived. I’d go in and ask the nurse how he’s doing. “Any improvement?” “No. Here’s his chart.” I’d look at his blood gases. “Any change?” “No change.” He didn’t move. He had no reflexes. “Has he said anything?” “No.” “Opened his eyes?” “No.” Finally, after about two weeks or more, I can’t remember, he squirmed his left leg. You know, it moved an inch. That was a big deal. I wanted to see improvement, and it was so slow. It was like watching the hour hand on your watch.
After I’d looked at the chart and talked to the nurse, I’d go into his room. “Cort, this is Brett. Just came to see how you’re doing. We love you. Keep trying. We’re behind you.” I’d touch his hand, touch his face. Then maybe let him relax for a while, let him know you’re there, but try not to disturb him too much. But I’d get to fidgeting so bad in there, I just couldn’t sit. Before I left, I’d give him another short pep talk. “Cort, I’m going now. I’ll be back to see you tomorrow.” Then give him a little kiss on the head and a hug, if you could get through the wires.
“They didn’t just go in there and look,” said an inhalation therapist who frequently encountered the Naisbitt family in Cortney’s room. “You see so many patients’ families go in and just look, with this stare about them. But they didn’t. They went in and they talked to him. They would talk to him about things that were going on. They never fell apart. They just stuck together and they worked together, and there was always somebody there. Day and night, there was always somebody. Gary’d go up there and he’d stay for a while, and then he’d come down here and talk to us. He’d say: ‘We’re going to bring Cortney through. We don’t have time right now to weep over Mom’s death, we have to just pull together for Cortney.’ He was really strong. I was amazed at how they all stood up through all of this, and stuck together and supported each other and supported Cortney. I saw Dr. Naisbitt talk with him. I saw the whole family doing that. I saw Claire go in several times and talk with him, you know, and he was just gone. He wasn’t responding to any voice stimulus at all, and they would just sit there and talk and talk.”
By the end of the first week in May, Cortney was still alive, but his progress was so gradual and filled with setbacks, it could hardly be measured. Occasionally, he would obey commands to stick out his tongue or squeeze and open his left hand. Most of the time, however, he would lie still, drooling out of the corners of his mouth, his eyes closed and a red rash, caused by the massive doses of steroids he was receiving, creeping across his chest, his back, and his face.
On May 7, Dr. Johnson took Cortney to surgery to perform an endoscopy, an inside look with a fiber-optic microscope at the damag
e done to Cortney’s esophagus by the Drano. Johnson had waited over two weeks before looking at the inside of Cortney’s esophagus, certain that most of the scarring would now be visible.
The inside of the esophagus is usually gray, but Cortney’s was streaked with red. At 33 cm and again at 27 cm, Johnson saw two elongated ulcerations in the mucosa. Both were bleeding around their edges, and upon their surfaces were patches of tissue, normally moist, that had gone dry and brittle from the burning of the lye. If either of these lesions was deep, it would take little to perforate the esophagus, opening an avenue for infection to leak into and spread throughout Cortney’s chest. Given his other complications, Cortney had almost no chance of surviving such an infection. Though Dr. Johnson was aware of the difficulty in calculating the depth of an esophageal burn, he thought that neither of the two lesions appeared to be deep. Only later would he discover that the encouraging appearance of Cortney’s esophagus had been grossly misleading.
Byron continued to visit with Cortney early each morning, again during his lunch hour, and every evening, sometimes till long after midnight. When he visited, he would walk into Cortney’s room and say, “Cortney, this is your dad.” Then he would take hold of Cortney’s arms and rub them or massage the boy’s legs while he talked.