Mother of four's life forever changed after freak accident in Mexico
By John Aguilar Camera Staff Writer
Posted: 12/25/2010 04:53:29 PM MST
Michele O Donnell, right, gets a kiss from her daughter, Alyssa, while her son, John III, and her sister, Amy McAlister, left, sit with her outside her hospital room at the Mapleton Rehabilitation Center at Boulder Community Hospital earlier this month. Michele suffered a severe brain injury when she slipped and fell during a family vacation in January. ( MARTY CAIVANO )
How to help Donations to the O'Donnell Family Fund can be made in person or by mail to:
1stBank
500 S. McCaslin Blvd.
Louisville, CO 80027
Account No. 868-290-1625
Visit http://www.miraclemichele.blogspot.com/ to read about Michele O'Donnell's life over the last 11 months. Donations can also be made on the blog via PayPal.
Michele O'Donnell has been trying for 11 months to get back to her Superior home.
The journey has been slow and wrenching: Michele, 42, has been through seven hospitals in two countries, undergone five brain surgeries, and twice came within a whisper of death.
But her family says the dream of having the once-vibrant mother of four back in "her domain" on Alma Lane could finally come true next month. That's when she's expected to be released from Boulder Community Hospital's rehabilitation wing, where she's trying to re-learn the most basic living skills after suffering a critical head injury when she slipped and fell during a family vacation.
"I can't quite say the home runs the same without her," said John O'Donnell, Michele's husband of 20 years, who has barely missed a day visiting his wife since her January accident. "She loved to entertain, she loved to cook, she loved to take care of her kids."
On a recent afternoon, Michele pointed and smiled at her two daughters and two sons as they milled around her hospital room. Her husband and eldest son helped her from a wheelchair to a bed, where she folded one hand over the other and looked longingly at her family.
Each day brings improvement and reason for the O'Donnell family to hope that everything will be a little closer to normal again. Michele can eat solid food now, string together rudimentary sentences, and even walk a few dozen feet with help. She smiles and weeps and
Michele O Donnell gives her husband, John, a thumbs-up after he helped her into bed at the Mapleton Rehabilitation Center at Boulder Community Hospital earlier this month. At left is their son, Billy. ( MARTY CAIVANO )
But she has a long way to go to become the person she once was.
Dr. Julie Stapleton, a doctor at the Mapleton Rehabilitation Center who has worked closely with Michele, said Michele's injury -- an acute subdural hematoma -- was severe, and the complications she endured during her long recovery have taken their toll.
"She won't be 100 percent again, but I can also promise she will get a lot better," Stapleton said.
She said Michele's chances for significant additional improvement are bolstered by the amount of attention and love her family has shown her.
It's a level of love and commitment her family plans to continue giving her as long as she needs it.
'I heard a crack'
On Jan. 27, John O'Donnell was resting in the living room of his family's timeshare in Cancun, Mexico, when he heard a sound he'll never forget.
"I heard a fall and I heard a crack," he said. "Then nothing."
He rushed into the bathroom and found his wife lying on the granite floor bleeding profusely. She had slipped on a wet spot and landed on the back of her head.
Paramedics rushed Michele to the local hospital, where she underwent 51/2 hours of surgery to relieve pressure on her brain. She slipped in and out of consciousness and breathed on a respirator.
"She was fighting for her life," John said.
That fight continued for the next month in Cancun and the next two months at Jackson Memorial Trauma Center in Miami. Some days were better than others, and some were simply horrible.
In late March, Michele had several seizures and her brain began to exert five to seven times its normal pressure. She didn't wake up for three days. Doctors removed an abscess from her brain and she lapsed into critical condition and remained unresponsive for weeks. She had to wear a mouth guard to keep from biting her tongue.
The next month Michele stopped breathing while her 14-year-old daughter Alyssa visited with her. "We almost lost her twice," John said. At
Michele O Donnell gets a kiss from her son, Billy, as she receives acute care in a Cancun, Mexico, hospital about a month after slipping and striking her head on the floor during a family vacation. (Courtesy of the O'Donnell family)
In mid-December she was admitted to Mapleton Rehabilitative Center in Boulder.
Michele's body has been under incredible wear and tear during the last 11 months. For most of that time, her head has been shaved of her long blonde hair to make her brain accessible to surgeons and doctors. Part of her skull, which had inexplicably been lost by medical personnel at the hospital in Miami, has been replaced with a titanium flap. She takes up to 15 medications a day to stave off brain headaches, pain and seizures.
For Michele's sister, Amy McAlister, the tragedy of Jan. 27 brings her deep sadness. She remembers a person who never had time to rest or be idle. Aside from running a busy household and overseeing four children ranging in age from 8 to 18, Michele worked with her husband at his business and equipment financing firm in Arvada.
"The girl never sat still," McAlister said. "If it wasn't doing stuff around the house, it was doing stuff for others. She always had lists, always had things she had to get done."
While Michele has been stilled from her busy life, her family and friends have taken delight in the improvements of the last couple of months.
Steve Smith, a family friend, said he was floored this past autumn when he noticed Michele express emotion for the first time in eight months. She winked at him as he read the newspaper to her and smiled ever so slightly, as if she could understand what he was saying.
"It was almost like she re-entered her body," he said.
Since then, Smith has seen Michele, who now has a short crop of golden hair, take her first steps and crack her first jokes.
"There's a fight inside of this lady that you can't believe," he said.
Astronomical bills
But the fight for life hasn't been cheap.
John's business has had to take a back seat to his wife's well-being. Meanwhile, the medical bills for Michele's care have climbed into astronomical figures. The O'Donnells' home in Superior was foreclosed on in mid-December.
"I've had to take care of her medical needs, so I had to let the mortgage go," John said.
Despite the foreclosure filing, the family hopes to remain in the house for the foreseeable future. John moved ahead with renovations, making the bathroom and master bedroom wheelchair accessible. He is trying to figure out if he needs to install some kind of lift or elevator in the home.
"He's wiped out," said Smith, who fears that his friends won't be able to remain in the house for much longer.
Even so, John recently took over for Smith as president of the Rock Creek Homeowners Association, a move Smith described as his friend's way of staying busy and staving off depression. John also started a blog called "Miracle Michele," in which he documents the struggles, and the increasing delights, that have unfolded over the last 11 months.
John said he places his trust in God and draws off his Catholic faith for inspiration and the will to go on. The result is a man who greets everyone with an infectious energy and warm smile -- the rare person who seems devoid of pessimism.
He said his wife -- and high-school sweetheart (Michele graduated from Boulder High while John graduated from Regis Jesuit High School in Aurora) -- supported him when he lost a kidney to cancer. Now it's her turn to receive his undying love.
"She never left my side and I will never leave her side," he said. "We'll figure it out. If I have to get five jobs, I will."
John said his children have been instrumental in keeping the household running in Michele's absence. Their oldest son, 18-year-old Billy, has had to shoulder much of the burden of caring for the family. The Monarch High senior, who is bound for the Navy, said his mother's accident thrust him into adulthood sooner than he could have ever guessed.
"We help each other out to make meals, to get to school," Billy said of his siblings. "I'm glad this was pushed on me. It made me grow up."
Going home a year later
Now the family thinks of nothing but bringing Michele home. If she is released from the Mapleton center in Boulder at the end of January, as expected, she will have spent a full year away from home.
"We're all excited for her to be here at this next level," said John, caressing his wife's arm outside her hospital room as she sat up straight in her wheelchair. "Normally you don't want to see someone crying. But in this case, it means you're living, you're getting better."
John has asked friends and family to wait until 3 p.m. every day before visiting Michele so she can put all of her focus on getting better.
McAlister said her sister walks farther and farther every day, pushing herself through the pain and frustration of making her body work again.
"She cursed and screamed and cried through the whole thing, but she did it," McAlister said of a recent physical therapy session.
Smith said he doesn't know how long it will take, but he's confident that one day his friend will be her old self again -- funny, buoyant, tireless and ready to welcome someone into her home for a delicious meal and an evening of grand conversation.
"The truth is that I believe that Michele will recover 100 percent," Smith said. "I think she'll amaze everyone."
Contact Camera Staff Writer John Aguilar at 303-473-1389 or aguilarj@dailycamera.com.
Read more: 'Miracle Michele' prepares for a return to Superior home - Boulder Daily Camera http://www.dailycamera.com/news/ci_16933998#ixzz19BWvG9ec DailyCamera.com
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