The Vow

by Kim; Krickitt Carpenter; Dana Wilkerson

  Because Krickitt had lived this long already, the doctors were actually beginning to think she might survive after all, despite so much evidence to the contrary. Earlier in the morning we had gotten a sign she wasn’t paralyzed when she had wiggled her fingers and toes. Still, the doctors said, every minute the brain had insufficient oxygen increased the chances she would have permanent brain damage. The pressure on her brain had gone down for awhile, but then it spiked up again without warning. They estimated it would take between twenty-four and forty-eight hours for the swelling to go back down and the oxygen supply to be completely restored. By that time, if she were still alive, my wife would be in a permanent vegetative state.

  We had learned how to read the various monitors in the room, and we spent the next part of the day watching the numbers go up and down. Though we knew what they meant, we were helpless to do anything for Krickitt. Mere numbers on a screen were the indicators of life and death, and there was absolutely nothing any of us could do but sit and watch them change, hoping they would move in the right direction.

  Due to all the stress and drama of the past twenty-four hours, it took us awhile to remember that we weren’t really helpless at all. We had forgotten that God’s miracles are a prayer away. We all knew that prayers aren’t always answered the way we want, but we hadn’t even made an effort to ask God for what we wanted in an organized way.

  Soon Jamey, Mary and Gus, Curtis and Wendy Jones, a few other friends, and I found the hospital’s chapel. Jamey, who worked with Campus Crusade for Christ at the University of California at Irvine, began the impromptu prayer service. “God, you’ve said that if we come to you in prayer, you would hear us and grant our request. We ask you to touch Krickitt with your healing hand so that the pressure on her brain will go down . . .” We prayed specifically for the pressure on Krickitt’s brain to go down. We prayed for a miracle, asking God to relieve the pressure in time to save her.

  It turned out that others were praying for Krickitt too. Her friend Lisa contacted old college friends and coworkers in California and asked them to spend their Thanksgiving in prayer for their friend. Jamey’s wife Gretchen, who was expecting a baby and was unable to be with us under her doctor’s orders, called a network of Campus Crusade staffers and asked them to pray for a healing miracle. Those people called others, who called others, and by the end of the day people as far away as Russia were praying for Krickitt.

  We prayed for about twenty minutes, and then we went back to the ICU. My eyes automatically went to the readouts on the monitors we had been watching for so long. The numbers were better. The pressure on Krickitt’s brain was going down, and it just kept going. Nurses were in and out of the room every few minutes, and finally a nurse called for a doctor because she was afraid the monitor probe had slipped out of place. She didn’t think the numbers she saw could be accurate. The doctor checked the probe, but it was fine. However, even though the pressure on Krickitt’s brain continued to lessen, her blood pressure was still critically low.

  People had been calling and visiting all day, wanting to see how Krickitt was doing. Not long after we returned from the chapel our pastor, Fred Maldonado, arrived. We told him what had been happening, and he led all of us to the chapel again to pray that Krickitt’s blood pressure would go up.

  When we got back to Krickitt’s room, we saw that her blood pressure was on a steady rise. When a nurse came in and saw the new blood pressure reading, her jaw dropped. She looked at me and pointed to the readout. She was speechless for a moment.

  “Look at that pressure,” she said finally. We were looking. It was impossible to take our eyes off of it. It was headed straight toward the normal range.

  As the hours passed, Krickitt gradually became more alert. Her vital signs were approaching normal, and it became clear that she was going to get at least some of her basic functions back.

  Over the next few days I did my best to rest up and get some of my own strength back. I couldn’t yet stand up straight due to the injuries to my ribs and back, but several times a day I would slowly make my way to Krickitt’s room. She continued to improve, and on the Monday after Thanksgiving, five days after the accident, she was moved from the ICU to acute care and taken off life support.

  Even though Krickitt was fairly alert on rare occasions, she was technically still in a coma. Among the many things I learned during those days, I was surprised to discover that there are fifteen separate levels of coma on the scale they had her classified on, and the least serious ones include states where the patient is actually alert enough to move around and talk a little. That was the case with Krickitt. She slept most of the day, but since the life support tubes had been removed from her throat, I knew there was a possibility that she might talk. I had been desperate for the sound of her voice ever since I had screamed for her in the seconds after the wreck. There had been so many times when I had thought I would never hear it again. I had even been having dreams that she was talking to me, I wanted to hear her voice so badly.

  With the doctor’s permission, I was feeding Krickitt some ice chips. When I touched a small piece to her lips, she would eat it from my fingers. Her lips weren’t so purple anymore. They were very pale and dry, but I could feel their warmth and the whisper of her breath on my skin.

  After feeding Krickitt a few chips, I put my face inches from hers.

  “I love you, Krickitt,” I said softly.

  “I love you too.”

  I couldn’t believe it! My wife had not only spoken, but she had said the words I had most wanted to hear. My Krickitt was back. Just hearing those words made me know things would be fine.

  4

  LESSON IN HEARTBREAK

  The doctors thought Krickitt’s declaration of love to me was just a reflexive response. They claimed she likely didn’t understand what either of us was saying; her brain just knew that “I love you too” was the default response to “I love you.” From a medical standpoint I knew that was true. But for a man who was desperate to get his wife back, those words gave me hope. They were yet another step on the road back for us, even though there was still no way to know how fully she would recover.

  In the rare instances when Krickitt’s eyes were open, they were frozen in a doll-like stare. She looked at things without any flicker of recognition, and it was obvious she had no idea what was going on. Part of the short-term solution for her recovery ended up being very simple. After wondering about her lack of focus, her dad suddenly realized that she probably couldn’t see well. Her contacts had been taken out after the wreck, and nobody had thought to put her glasses on her. Once we did, we saw an immediate difference. She was a lot more aware of her surroundings during the moments she was awake. The first thing she focused on was a plate of Jell-O across the room, and it caused her to became more animated than she had been up to that point. I was overjoyed when she began to focus more on me when I talked to her. It was a tiny victory that moved us closer to the day when I would have my Krickitt back.

  Krickitt soon started sitting up, then standing, then taking a few shuffling steps across the room and back with me on one side and an attendant on the other. However, even with the help, she was barely able to lift her feet off the floor. Her right foot was dragging and her wrist was curled up. It was obvious she had neurological damage. It was difficult to watch such an accomplished gymnast struggle so much just to put one foot in front of the other. But the fact that she could move at all was a sign that she would likely regain her balance and coordination enough so that she could walk on her own again one day. She knew how to walk; she just wasn’t strong enough to do it yet.

  As Krickitt painstakingly took tiny steps, I would encourage her. When I spoke she would look at me. “I love you, Krickitt,” I would say as I looked into her eyes.

  “I love you too,” she said time and again with no vocal inflection or facial expression. I kept hoping to see or hear my old Krickitt, but she wasn’t there yet.

  It wasn’t long before sh
e was allowed to eat pudding and other soft foods. As she was unable to feed herself at that point, I would feed her while she sat propped up in the bed. Sometimes she would look at me or at the food, but much of the time she simply stared straight ahead at the wall.

  The next step for Krickitt would be a rehabilitation program. Krickitt’s doctors had been discussing the options of where we could take her for the long process of getting her body and mind back to where it had been before the wreck, or at least as close to it as possible. Restoring people with brain injuries to their maximum potential is an intense, highly specialized, expensive process, and the doctors wanted to make sure they sent Krickitt to the best place for someone with her injuries. The good news was that one of the best possible places, Barrow Neurological Institute, was at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix. Since Krickitt’s parents lived in Phoenix, this was an optimal choice. But this good news was tempered with some possible bad news. We were told it was not likely our health insurance provider would allow Krickitt to be moved out of New Mexico for her rehabilitation.

  As any husband would be, I was incensed that my wife wasn’t going to get the best possible care due to what I considered to be a ridiculous health care regulation. “Fine,” I said. “Then they can pay for me and for her parents to move to Albuquerque, and they can pay our rent while we’re there.” Our social worker must have been a lot more diplomatic with the insurance company than I was, because in spite of the dire predictions, our insurance carrier quickly gave us permission to go out of state.

  Unfortunately, we soon discovered we weren’t going to be able to get Krickitt into the program at Barrow. Instead, arrangements were made for her to be admitted to a head injury rehab program called Rehab Without Walls in Mesa, Arizona. Some doctors who had previously worked at Barrow had started the program, so we knew it would be good, but it wasn’t what we had hoped and prayed for. Nevertheless, ten days after the accident, I boarded an air ambulance bound for Mesa with my wife and two medical attendants.

  When we arrived in Mesa, the ambulance driver who met us at the plane asked us why we’d landed there since it was an hour away from the hospital. He explained that his instructions had been to take us to Barrow in Phoenix. We explained that we landed in Mesa because we were going to Rehab Without Walls. After several phone calls we finally discovered that while we were in the air, somebody realized that Rehab Without Walls was not an appropriate place for Krickitt. First of all, it was an outpatient facility and Krickitt still needed inpatient care. Furthermore, it was designed for patients who were either a lot further along in their recovery or not as seriously injured as Krickitt was. Once the issue was discovered, Rehab Without Walls had called Barrow and explained that Krickitt was already on her way to Arizona and needed their higher degree of specialized care. The staff at Barrow understood the situation and admitted her immediately.

  We arrived at Barrow Neurological Institute late that afternoon, where we soon met the head neuropsychologist. We had brought all kinds of X-rays, CAT scans, and other reports with us, but the doctor explained that they did all their own tests, which they would begin immediately.

  After Krickitt’s battery of tests, we got her settled into her room. It wasn’t long until another doctor came in to introduce himself. He introduced himself as Dr. Singh’s associate. Dr. Singh would be Krickitt’s doctor, the associate explained, and he would meet her for the first time the following Monday morning. Since it was Friday we would have the weekend to get used to the surroundings before Krickitt started her therapy on Monday. While a rehabilitation center was the last place I would have ever imagined I would be mere months after my wedding, I felt good about where we were. It was obvious God had been working behind the scenes to get Krickitt to the place where she would get the best possible care.

  Though Barrow was a specialized hospital, the rooms were the typical hospital fare: plain furniture and yellowish-tan walls. Krickitt’s room was directly below the heliport, so we were often disturbed by the sounds of helicopters coming and going. She also had the distinction of being next door to a woman we nicknamed Moaning Lady because she would moan for hours at a time. But despite the noise above and around us, we also had snippets of peace. Krickitt’s room had a window facing a courtyard that was full of flowerbeds and walkways. Nothing was blooming in the first week of December, but I still looked forward to the possibility of someday taking walks out there with Krickitt by my side. She had already come so far, and she was under the best possible care. I imagined it wouldn’t be long before we were out there looking at the flowers and talking about going home to our apartment and life in New Mexico.

  During Krickitt’s time at Barrow, I had the opportunity to meet some of the other patients in the rooms around hers. They were all at various stages in their recovery, and it was good to see the progress the others were making. It gave me hope for Krickitt. Some of the other patients had been in car accidents like she had, while others had suffered strokes or aneurysms.

  On Krickitt’s first full day, a nurse and I took Krickitt out for her first look at another part of the hospital. We wheeled her into the patient cafeteria for lunch. However, Krickitt wasn’t prepared to see others with debilitating neurological conditions. I could sense her fear as soon as we entered the room. “This scares you,” I said almost involuntarily, not exactly sure if I’d said it out loud or just thought it.

  “Yeah,” Krickitt answered, her voice still a little raspy after five days with a breathing tube down her throat. I was amazed the scene had penetrated even her hazy consciousness. I hadn’t expected her to respond to me, and I felt a burst of joy in spite of the stress I knew she was experiencing. We went back to the room, and Krickitt ate her meals there until she could go to the regular cafeteria. Our doctor heartily approved of this plan, as he did not want Krickitt to be constantly reminded of the possible negative, permanent effects for people with head injuries. Instead he—and I—wanted her to regain her strength and focus on getting better every day.

  Though she had such a negative reaction to the cafeteria, the taste of food was actually one of the few pleasures Krickitt could appreciate. Mealtime became a treat for both of us. She simply enjoyed eating. And I loved meals because they were the few times in the day when Krickitt was the most animated. It wasn’t long before she was eating on her own. While we spent this time together, she began talking more and seemed a little more connected to me during our conversations.

  During that first weekend at Barrow we learned about Krickitt’s daily schedule. She would start the day with occupational therapy, where she would relearn personal skills like getting bathed and dressed. Next, she would spend time with a speech therapist who would identify any speech disability caused by the injury and teach Krickitt how to overcome it. Her third session of the day would be physical therapy. During this time she would work on her hand-eye coordination, balance, and motor skills. Finally, she would get a break for lunch. Then she would spend the afternoons working on basic household chores such as cooking, vacuuming, and making a bed.

  It was hard to believe that Krickitt would soon have such a packed schedule. After all, she was still technically in a coma. In fact, she wouldn’t be considered to be out of her “charted coma” until months after the accident. When we first arrived at Barrow, less than two weeks after the accident, she was only awake a few hours a day and she was extremely disoriented. The first night at Barrow she woke up, tried to get to the bathroom by herself, and ended up getting stuck in the bed rail that had been raised for her protection. From then on, someone slept in the room with her every night. This task usually fell to her mother, since I was still not in good physical shape due to my own injuries.

  Since Krickitt was still sleeping more than twenty hours a day and couldn’t carry on a conversation for more than a minute or two, I wasn’t sure how her first official day of therapy would go. On that first Monday morning after we arrived, the day she was scheduled to meet Dr. Singh, I got to Krickitt’s ro
om early because I had a plan for getting her ready. My intention was to try and wake her gently and then help her prepare for the big day ahead. I tried talking to her and stroking her face, but I got no response. Then I shook her shoulder, but still she didn’t so much as twitch.

  At that moment Dr. Raj Singh entered, dressed like he’d just stepped out of GQ magazine. He was nothing like what I had expected—no white lab coat, no stethoscope, no clinical aloofness. He gave me a reassuring handshake, approached the head of the bed, and leaned over Krickitt. I had been doing my best to bring her to consciousness carefully, but the doctor had a different plan.

  “You have to wake up,” Dr. Singh said firmly. Again, Krickitt didn’t respond.

  “You have to wake up,” he repeated with exactly the same inflection. Still nothing.

  Then Dr. Singh did something I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing. He reached over and gave Krickitt a hard pinch inside the front collar of her hospital gown. Her eyes flew open and she shouted, “Leave me alone!” along with a choice curse word. I was shocked to hear such language coming out of my wife’s mouth.

  However, the strategy worked, because Dr. Singh now had Krickitt’s undivided attention. He told her to wiggle her right hand. She did. He told her to wiggle her left foot, and she did. Dr. Singh shot me a huge grin. “She will do well,” he said confidently. Within the hour Krickitt had begun her first occupational therapy lesson.

  At times it was hard for me to remember that Krickitt wasn’t the only person who had been injured in the accident—I had been too. While we were in Gallup and Albuquerque, I had been in and out of the hospital as a patient a total of six times, yet I’d never been formally admitted overnight because I couldn’t stand to be away from Krickitt. I thought about her every minute of every day. I was terrified that she would die when I was away, even though she was continuing to improve a little bit at a time. Even when I did manage to catch a few minutes of sleep, I was never truly able to relax because I was so worried about her.