"My recovery was a breath at a time, a step at a time."
Bethesda Hospital patient Don Obernolte
“In a second and a half,” said Don Obernolte, “my life was changed.” Don was cutting trees for winter firewood in October 2007 when a 1,600-pound tree suddenly snapped. “The trunk first broke through my chest and caught my shoulder,” recalls Don, “and then the whole trunk broke free and crashed through my ribs on the back side and crushed my ankle. If my nephew had not managed to get the tree off of me, I wouldn’t have made it.”
After a call to 911 and a fast trip to the local emergency room in Aitkin County, Don was airlifted to a Twin Cities ICU. “There was a 20-person trauma team working on me for most of a day and a half,” said Don. “There were so many different things going on with me—they were trying to get my ribs in a good place to set, to give my lungs a chance to heal, internal injuries like a bruised heart and a stretched aorta—not to mention all the hardware on my leg and ankle.” After three weeks in the ICU, Don was deemed ready to transfer to Bethesda.
“I was at the juncture where I wasn’t independent—in any way at all. I wanted to get to Bethesda because I needed to feel like I was going to be able to recover—that I would get out of this,” remembers Don. “I could tell right away that these people were on a mission to get me to whatever semblance of an active life I could possibly have.” Don’s biggest goals: to breathe, eat and walk alone again. And he found more than help. He found friendship, support and some substantial challenges.
“It’s not a languishing environment. People at Bethesda challenge you to get better. The physical therapy starts by building on what you can do, and adding to it. It’s slow, a breath at a time, a step at a time. And by integrating painting and drawing, I could heal my soul at the same time that I was bringing back my fine motor skills. At Bethesda, my whole person got treated. And I did heal: I relearned how to eat, breathe, talk and walk on my own. And on the day I left, I knew I would be able to conquer any problems ahead—and that I wouldn’t be doing it alone.”
Helping patients find their new normal: Dr. April Abrahamson
“Nobody ever wants to be in a situation where they need Bethesda Hospital,” comments Dr. April Abrahamson, HealthEast internist. “But if they need it, Bethesda is a great place for people to get their lives back after a catastrophe. And they leave Bethesda a different person, and definitely more able to focus on their different life ahead.”
When asked to describe Don Obernolte as he first arrived at Bethesda, Dr. Abrahamson summed up his condition in a simple phrase: “He was a wreck.” While multiple surgeries and his stay in a short-term acute care hospital had remedied Don’s immediate challenges, he still had a long road ahead. “Don could open his eyes and motion a little bit, but he couldn’t talk, walk, eat on his own, or even communicate. He was completely dependent on multiple tubes and machines to keep going.”
Where does an internist start when faced with a patient in that state? “Here’s where Bethesda excels,” said Dr. Abrahamson. “It takes a team approach. Everybody partners to get a patient back on track, plus we all work to develop relationships with the patient. It creates a different atmosphere, when you know everyone around you is focused on getting you well.” In Don’s case, it meant physical therapists getting Don swallowing so he could eat on his own. While his rib fractures healed, specialists slowly weaned Don off of the ventilator as his lungs regained the capacity to work correctly.
Step by step, from the removal of his tracheostomy to progressing from a horizontal position to sitting up to standing, Don slowly worked toward his departure, with his team performing day-to-day evaluations to measure progress. “The ultimate goal for Bethesda teams is to figure out a patient’s long-term outcome and where we can help them end up,” said Dr. Abrahamson. “In Don’s case, the fact that he was a healthy person to begin with, without any ongoing medical problems, really was a key piece in his progress. But it also was due to the fact that his care team worked so well together. We just wanted to get him home, ASAP.”
