Dear friends, I know that many of you are aware of the situation that our family has been dealing with for the past several months. This communication isn’t meant to solicit sympathy or to have you think that we’re doing something as a family that you wouldn’t do yourselves; since I know that the majority of you would do so if presented with the same situation, after all, that’s why you’re my friend. This past July, Carrie and I were having dinner on the patio when the phone rang and the caller ID said that it was Tom Reed on the other end of the line. Tom Reed is the ex-husband of Carrie’s sister, Jenny Reed. Carrie hasn’t had a reason to talk with Tom for over 10 years, so she pensively answered the phone. Tom called to let us know that Jenny was a St. Anthony’s Hospital dealing with short term memory loss. The next day, Carrie, her mother and brother went to see Jenny at the hospital. The doctors believed that the short term memory loss was due to medications that she was taking to keep her lymphoma (which she battled the previous year) at bay. The thinking at the time was the medications could be tweaked and she’d be back to normal and return to live with her 17 year old son in Evergreen in a couple weeks. Since Carrie was on summer vacation from her job as a para-professional at Johnson Elementary, it made perfect sense to have Jenny move in with us. During the next few weeks her condition didn’t improve and it seemed as though the frequency of her memory issues were increasing. The decision to have Jenny move in with us for a few weeks wasn’t easy. Jenny had cut off communications with everyone in her family (except her two sons who are now 21 and 17) for seven years prior to her condition. There was no explanation for Jenny becoming estranged and it caused unwarranted guilt for her sister, brother and mother for years. Nonetheless, she is family and taking care of each other is what family does --- right??? Carrie’s mom is currently taking care of her brother-in-law, who had a stroke 5 years ago, so Jenny moving in with her mom was out of the equation. In the meantime, our daughter, Chelsea, had decided that she wanted to move back to Fort Collins after spending 7 years in Arizona going to school and starting her post graduate life. Her dream is to get into the craft brewing industry and she realized that there’s no better place than her home town to do so. She moved back to Fort Collins in mid-August. What Chelsea stepped into was far from the vision of her dream as she has become the primary caregiver for her Aunt Jenny while Carrie is at school from 9 – 4 each day. As we moved into September without seeing any improvement in her condition, her neurologist, Dr. London, ordered a brain biopsy. The results of the biopsy showed that Jenny developed a brain virus called progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML). The prognosis was devastating, there is no cure and the virus is fatal in most cases within several months. Upon hearing the diagnosis I know my paradigm changed from one that still held resentment towards a person that cut off her family, to a position that we would keep her as comfortable as possible for as long as we can. The next several weeks put us on a trek that included helping her explain her condition to her sons, moving and purging much from her rental in Evergreen and Carrie helping sort through her finances (which are a disaster). With the thoughts that Jenny was on deaths doorstep, late November and December were not good months for her and it seemed as though she’d plateau for a couple weeks and then get progressively worse. However, in late December she had a MRI that showed that the virus was actually receding. The docs were blown away with this news and said that it’s very rare for this to happen. Of course this was great news and it caused us all to ask the obvious question, “Will Jenny get better?” During the past couple months we have noticed that even though the virus is receding, the damage has been done. Jenny continues to go to her weekly therapy sessions where her therapists have said that her visual perception issues are among the worst they’ve ever seen. A few weeks ago we were able to meet with the doctor that is overseeing her therapy as well as her therapists to discuss long term living arrangements for her moving forward. Many decisions to make and none of them will be easy. Even though I have painted a very grim picture, this experience has served as an honor for our family in many ways. It has challenged us to the core on many different fronts, but as a family we have taken on the challenges and persevered. My takeaways --- if this virus was to happen to you, you’d want Carrie as your sister. Carrie has shown a great amount of strength that I doubt few could match. She gets to deal with handling all of Jenny’s personal issues with medications, finances, emotional outbursts directed at her by Jenny, while at the same time taking care of the Hintzman family and dealing with work. Without a doubt, Carrie has served as my inspiration through this whole situation. Chelsea has been saint through this whole process; Jake, our high school junior has exhibited more patience, maturity and understanding than any 17 year old I’ve met; even though our daughter Christine is wrapping up her senior year in college 7 hours away, she has offered great support. The mind ---wow, what a gift and so mysterious; so fortunate to have so many of you that are willing to listen; the power of prayer --- it’s there; so thankful for my family’s slightly twisted sense of humor. Thanks to you for being a respite in the evenings and on weekends. Thanks to Jenny, our family is much closer, stronger and grateful than we would have been without this experience.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 14:24:39 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015