Bad Things Can Happen to Good People

I learned this lesson early in life. As a three-sport athlete, in volleyball, basketball and track, I dreamed of competing at the collegiate level. Those dreams were destroyed along with my anterior cruciate ligament when I was clipped in the right knee while shooting a lay-up at basketball camp the summer of my junior year in high school. I worked hard at rehabilitation, but each comeback was marked by another injury. Finally, during the spring of my junior year, I landed in the office of orthopedic pioneer, Dr. Lanny Johnson, faced with the decision of continuing to compete or walking for the rest of my life. I chose walking, along with an ACL reconstruction using graphite fibers to replace my ligament.

Bad things can happen to good people, a life lesson for me. As I struggled to right my world at the age of 17, the president of student council/quarterback of the football team joined me at lunch to tell me how sorry he was. His kind words touched me. Little did I know, a few years later, I would return the favor after he suffered a similar injury, ending his collegiate career. I rebuilt my life, helping coach my senior year. The experience would shape the direction of my college education and my future career as a science teacher and coach.

Our daughters learned the lesson the day our youngest was born. Unfortunately, the lesson kept coming. Olivia’s early struggles with vision and rickets, were not her only challenges. She battled one respiratory infection after another. At eighteen months, we nearly lost her to respiratory syncytial virus, RSV. A child at daycare was identified with RSV and within 24 hours Olivia began coughing in a way we had not heard before. She visited the pediatrician the following morning. I was nursing her in the evening when she stopped breathing. We were a half hour away from going to bed. If it had happened later in the night, we might have missed it. I rushed her outside into the cold air while Chris called the ambulance. The shock of the cold air triggered her breathing and the ambulance arrived within minutes. Her oxygen saturation levels were in the seventies on the ride to the hospital as she struggled to breath. Upon examination in the emergency room, the pediatrician told us it was one of the most serious cases of RSV he had seen and she was admitted immediately. By the end of the week, she lay draped over my lap as we "camped" in an oxygen tent, turning blue whenever her oxygen levels dropped and sweating profusely. She had not said a word in days. When the pulmonologist and head nurse both expressed concerns about the need for a transfer, we listened and pushed for the transfer. They accompanied us in the ambulance to Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids, though both of their shifts had ended. I was grateful for their care and support. Olivia responded well to the change in treatment and within 24 hours we knew she would make it.

The respiratory infections continued, each ending in an ear infection.

With all we were facing, it was not surprising that I was not feeling well. All of the trips to Detroit and Grand Rapids, along with teaching full-time started to take their toll. My dermatologist, noticed a strange rash on my forehead and ordered a biopsy that came back inconclusive for scleroderma. She asked, “How are you feeling?”

Tired was an understandable answer considering everything we had been through. I had never fully recovered from the bed rest and resulting caesarean. Months of stress, managing Olivia’s care had taken their toll. I was also teaching full-time: three science preps/five classes. I graded papers while I ate lunch at school.

Little things, each easily explained, started to pop up. A co-worker noticed I sometimes had difficulty breathing. My toes began to go numb. I started experiencing daily headaches. My body would get very stiff when I would sit, making it difficult to stand. Some days I would experience severe neck or back pain. I woke each morning with a sore throat. I lost my voice easily.

One of the strangest things happened while teaching. As I looked out in the room, it looked like the back of the room was in a fog, the colors muted. We were in the middle of construction in our building and it wasn’t unusual for a hallway to fill with dust or sometimes smoke. This time I couldn’t smell anything. I asked the kids if they noticed it? Some thought so. I called a custodian in and he quietly told me there was no fog in the room. I called Olivia’s opthamologist in Petoskey and went for a check up. I would later learn a loss of color vision occurs when your retinas do not receive adequate blood flow.

About the same time, I jumped over a small pile of snow in our driveway and was startled by a crack that sounded almost like a gunshot. I was even more surprised when I took a step and my ankle felt mushy in my boot. I had torn ligaments in my ankle, but unlike a typical sprained ankle, I had not twisted it. It happened just from the impact of landing. When I met with the orthopedic surgeon, in addition to the torn ligaments, he identified severe Raynaud’s syndrome in both feet that required medical treatment. I called my dermatologist, who asked if I could come right away.

“Kim, which ankle did you injure?”

It was not uncommon for a foot to stay blue for several days after a sprained ankle, but both were blue. “Kim, which ankle did you injure?”

We went through my list of oddities and a patch on my forehead was rechecked. It was time to order additional blood work. When it came back, my antinuclear antibody test, also known as an ANA, was positive and quite high. An elevated ANA often indicates autoimmune conditions. Something was up, something more serious than just being tired. An appointment was arranged with a rheumatologist as soon as was possible.