16 ~ (Christmas 2002) Time Out for
A Real Christmas Story
Dr. B’s late-night phone call woke me from a dream in which I continued busily preparing for Christmas: decorating, baking, wrapping, making beds for our two US college kids soon to arrive home in São Paulo for their Christmas vacation. I registered the distraught tone of the doctor's voice before my groggy mind caught up with what he was saying: “I can’t let Karis go. I don’t think she’ll survive the trip. She’ll dehydrate . . .”
“What . . . wait . . .no! Karis is counting on coming home! She’s supposed to fly out tomorrow!”
“I’m sorry. It’s just too risky and not fair to the airlines either. Barb and I will be happy to have Karis stay with us for the holidays . . .”
It was Friday night, Dec. 20th. Karis was to take a bus from South Bend to Chicago the next morning, and then catch her plane, arriving Sunday morning in São Paulo. She had been in the hospital on IV’s because she couldn’t keep herself hydrated. Since she had lost her central line due to an infection, access was through peripheral veins.
I called Karis and heard her distressed “No! I am not staying here over Christmas! I’m coming home!!” The only thing I could think to do was to call her São Paulo doctor to see what he would suggest. It was his turn to be groggy, as I woke him around midnight.
“That’s easy,” Dr. G said. “Let her travel with IV’s. Have them start two, and then if one blows she’ll still have the other. When she arrives, drive her straight from the airport to the hospital, and I'll meet you there.”
Early the next morning I called Dr. B and told him Dr. G's suggestion. “OK,” Dr. B decided. “We’ll try it, but we’ll have to move fast. Karis has to catch her bus in just a couple of hours. You call her and send her to the university health center. I’ll call them and get things lined up.”
Karis hadn’t even packed, because she had understood she couldn’t travel. She raced across campus to the health center and two nurses started hunting for usable veins, sticking anything that looked like it would take a needle. Minutes and more minutes ticked by without success . . . anxiety mounted. If she missed this bus, she would miss her plane, and the chances of getting another flight this close to Christmas were zero. Finally, at almost the same moment, both nurses yelled, "Got it!!" A campus security officer drove Karis back to her dorm with the supplies she needed for the IV’s. She threw a few things into a suitcase and ran for the bus stop, yelling Merry Christmases to her friends.
Twenty hours later, Karis was cheerful and excited when we met her at the airport in São Paulo. “Everything worked out perfectly!” she exclaimed. “My second IV only blew when we were landing. And I only threw up once on the flight, when I tried to drink some juice. See, I’m perfectly fine! Can we please go home instead of to the hospital?”
The answer to that was simple: NO. After Dr. G examined her, and watched yet another set of nurses struggle to get in yet one more IV, he told us that she must have another central line inserted as soon as possible. Shortage of IV access was becoming critical. She needed nutrition, not just fluids--anything she tried to eat set off another round of violent diarrhea. Dr. G called a surgeon and arranged to have the catheter insertion done right after Christmas. Meanwhile, Karis would have to stay in the hospital. Dave, Rachel, and Valerie made another trip to the airport to pick up our son Dan, and brought him from the airport to the hospital. It wasn't quite the homecoming we had anticipated, but at least we were all there, together.
Monday morning, Dr. A, the surgeon, walked into Karis's hospital room looking worried. “Karis must have a high-quality catheter, because it needs to last her a long time, and we can’t risk ruining one of her veins with an inferior one," he said. "But I can’t find one. There doesn’t seem to be a single catheter in this city of the kind she needs. We’ve already checked with all of the hospitals and medical supply houses. Right now my secretary is calling major hospitals in other cities, but I’m not optimistic. If we order one from the US, we probably won’t receive it for at least a month. The only thing I can think of is to ask for your help. Please call anyone you can in the US and ask for a catheter to be put in overnight mail today. If we wait until tomorrow, Christmas Eve, who knows when it will arrive in Brazil. Karis needs this catheter urgently.”
Dan was slumped in a chair beside Karis’s bed, sleeping off his end-of-semester fatigue. Taking the chair on the other side of her bed, I phoned Dr. B and told him our predicament. I assumed it would be an easy matter for him to get a catheter and mail it to us. But he soon called back with discouraging news: the hospital where Karis had been a patient just the week before insisted that their policy did not permit them to sell anything to an outpatient, and the other hospital in town said the same thing. Local medical supply houses were already closed for Christmas. He would keep trying, but meanwhile I should call anyone else I could think of.
I phoned the other hospitals where Karis had been a patient--in Chicago, Detroit, and Indianapolis--and received the same response. Regretfully, sympathetically, coldly, or rudely, each person I talked with gave me the same firm response. Yes, they had the catheter in stock, but no, they could not send it to me. Hospital policy.
Frustrated, I was staring at the phone wondering who else to call, silently begging God for help, when Dan shifted in his chair and mumbled, “Call Aunt Karen.” “What? Why?” “Ask Aunt Karen to help you.”
I couldn’t imagine what was in my son’s mind. My sister Karen, busy wife of a pastor and mother of four young children, two days before Christmas--these were the most hectic days of her entire year! At Dan’s insistence, though, I phoned Karen in New Jersey. I told her that I didn’t really know why I was calling her other than to pray for us to solve our problem.
Karen was quiet for a moment and then said, “Before I got out of bed this morning, I realized that there was no possible way for me to do all that I had to do today. As I prayed about it, God told me that I should prepare to set all that aside, because he had another plan for me today. I’ll call you back.”
Intrigued, feeling a little bit hopeful that God had something in mind, I still racked my brain to think of who else I could call, and came up empty. I could do nothing but pray and wait and spend time with my college kids, whom I hadn’t seen for several months. Dan was a senior at Yale, facing that all-important question, “What next?” Karis was a sophomore at Notre Dame.
Soon Dave arrived at the hospital with our two younger daughters: Rachel, a senior in high school, frantically completing her last college applications before the end-of-year deadlines, and Valerie, a ninth grader. We didn’t know yet whether Karis could actually be at home for Christmas, so we made the most of the place where we could all be together: her hospital room. How often during her life that had been the case.
The phone rang, but it wasn’t Karen. It was a stranger, a surgeon calling from a hospital in Philadelphia, confirming the right size and type of catheter and the best way of sending it to us. There was a Federal Express office right down the street from the hospital, he said, and he would walk over and mail it himself, to avoid the hospital bureaucracies. He figured that due to Christmas, “overnight” mail would probably take until Thursday, Dec. 26th.
Surprised, relieved, grateful, and intensely curious, I tried to call Karen to find out what had happened--who was this guy?!--but she wasn’t home. I did reach Dr. A, who immediately reserved operating room space for the morning of Friday, Dec. 27th.
Karen called back later that evening and told us her story. She had phoned every medical place she could think of in the New York/New Jersey area, and kept hitting the same dead end that we had. Out of ideas, as she prayed about what to do, Karen remembered that a couple of weeks before, she and her husband had gone out for dinner with a parishioner, who had casually introduced them to his brother, a surgeon visiting from Philadelphia. Karen hadn’t even remembered the doctor’s name, but she called the parishioner, found out how to call the brother, and explained our plight to him. (How many times, in how many cities, had the same story been retold that day?!) The surgeon said, “Sure, we have a stack of those catheters a few feet away from me in our storeroom. I don’t think anyone will ever know or care if I send one to Brazil, especially if I just mail it off myself. I’ll do that during my lunch hour.”
On Tuesday, Dr. G gave permission for Karis to spend the night at home to celebrate Christmas Eve. The kids were happily preparing for their tradition of sleeping under the Christmas tree when the time came to hook up Karis’s TPN through her peripheral IV. Within seconds of starting the infusion, she turned ghostly white and collapsed. We quickly stopped the pump and I frantically called Dr. G at home, while the kids tried to revive Karis. Dr. G told us to throw away the TPN and substitute regular IV fluid. By then Karis regained consciousness and spent a delightful night sharing with her sibs the twinkling lights and aroma of fresh pine, Christmas carols and catch-up chatter. On Christmas morning, though, her IV blew, and we had to take her back to the hospital, where the only place they could find a vein was in her foot. The hospital wouldn’t allow her back out on pass with an IV in her foot, but at least she had enjoyed a few hours of home and Christmas fun.
Thursday, the day after Christmas, while the others went to the hospital, I stayed home to watch for the Federal Express delivery. Sure enough, late in the afternoon, the truck pulled up to our house. The deliveryman handed me not one, but two packages! I was puzzled. One was mailed from Philadelphia, as expected, but the other was marked South Bend, Indiana.
Suddenly we were overflowing with riches: not just one, but two catheters! My first reaction was concern. I was quite sure that the catheters were expensive, and that our insurance company would not pay for more than one. But relief and gratitude--and curiosity!--were the stronger emotions. I called Dr. A to confirm that the next morning’s surgery would be a go. (Later, we learned that a man from a medical supply company, who had told Dr. B sorry, they were closed for Christmas, kept thinking about Karis’s situation. He went to the warehouse, got a catheter, and mailed it FedEx overnight express, all without telling anyone!)
Friday morning early, Dr. A walked into Karis's hospital room once again with a worried expression on his face. He told us about Cristian, a perfectly healthy 17-year-old, whose bowel had twisted (a condition called “volvulus”), cutting off the blood supply and “killing” his intestine. Cristian now needed the same kind of catheter as Karis, since he too would be dependent on IV nutrition longterm. But as we all knew, none of those catheters were available in Brazil . . .
Silently, I handed Dr. A the two FedEx packages. He looked puzzled at first, and then his eyes filled with tears. Before proceeding with Karis's insertion, he scheduled the same surgery for Cristian. Since our insurance paid for one catheter, and the second cost us nothing (as the Philadelphia surgeon insisted when we called to let him know we had received it), we were able to give it to Cristian for no charge, a Christmas gift straight from heaven. His community was already working hard to raise money to pay for his TPN, because Cristian's family didn't have insurance.
Last we heard, Cristian was doing well, recovering from his ordeal and returning to health with the nutrition he received through his Christmas catheter.
"God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine . . ." (Ephesians 3:20)!
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