Thank you all for your service not only in serving this great nation but continued service through your podcast!
I have listened to every TNQ since even before our never quit story. Being a Cold War veteran myself is what attracted me to Marcus’s story.
My wife and I have been married for 24 years and had our share of ups and downs but nothing could have prepared us for what was coming in 2017. Our year started really well as we were about to have all our children raised and start our journey as empty nesters and chase our hobby and dreams on the national Archery Shooters Association tour. Both of us had been working hard to get me to the top of the Senior Pro division and we were gaining ground! I had made the top 5 in the nation in my division in early April and life seemed like it could not have been better! Then the bottom dropped out from under us!
I had been having back issues and and chalked it up to my job as a 21 year dozer operator when it lead to an emergency room visit on April 25th. Turns out it was not a back issue, rather I was having an abdominal aortic aneurysm! Ok things could not be worse… or could they?
A week and a half after being released from the hospital my beautiful “never sick a day in life” wife started complaining of flu like symptoms. No big deal go to the doctor and some antibiotics and be back to new? When things weren’t getting better we returned to the doctor who sent us to the emergency room for some blood work. Upon arrival it went from bad to worse as her blood pressure tanked to 77/35.
In the next 48 hours my wife had to be coma induced and put on a ventilator. Then her kidneys completely failed and she was without blood to her brain for a day as the CT scan on showed blood flow to her brain stem! To matters even worse her skin had modeled and and all her extremities started to turn black from lack of blood flow. She was in full on septic shock. 11 days in a coma in ICU and I was told by her neurologist that she was brain dead.
So many people prayed for the most beautiful selfless person I’d ever loved and myself it was truly humbling.
This story isn’t about me but it took me getting the the point that I knew God was the only one who could change the situation as she was “clinically dead”. She ran a 109 degree fever and had to be packed in ice and have ice water pumped through her stomach. Which if you ask me, this is what killed the “unknown to day” virus!
When they took her off of the coma inducing medication I knew she was still with me as her eyes would follow me around the room and her blood pressure and heart rate would rise when I walked into the room… they quit asking me to sign a dnr at this point! Doctors and ICU nurses all told me she was a miracle! Nothing I didn’t already know but it’s not every day a doctor tells you that.
They told me it would be a long road to recovery.. little did I know! After 98 days in the hospital and 11 surgeries she lost her right hand, half the fingers on her left hand and all of her toes! Not to mention most of her body is now scarred from blisters. She is still beautiful in my eyes and still has some short term memory issues but that’s getting better every day.
She came home the 1st of August that year and had to learn to walk again without toes.. watching her fight to get back to some semblance of normal has been nothing short of amazing and inspirational! I knew how she was before and that she fight for every inch!
When they told me she was going to pull through I knew it was God that had saved my wife! I told him that I would shout from the mountain top what he did for us and your podcast has been on my heart ever since!
There is way more to this story that I haven’t gone in to about the people around us and the lives that god touched through it all but that’s another story!
Today she is alive and may 16th will mark the 2yr anniversary! She is still fighting with the biggest never quit mindset I have ever witnessed! We have resumed our lives with our new normal and continued our quest in the Archery community… while I was ready to let all of that go she is the one who pushes me to continue to chase that dream!
God bless you all for giving me a place to tell her never quit story!
You can also hear it on her podcast The Bow Divas on podbean. “Barbs Story”
