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Lois Henry: Luck is in the eye of the beholder
| Saturday, Aug 23 2008 3:19 PM
Last Updated: Monday, Aug 25 2008 7:08 AM
The way you look at this story will tell you a lot about yourself.
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Linda and Tom Gutcher are shown in their home. Tom suffered a brain injury in a crash and was in the hospital for weeks. He recovered and struggled to learn to walk and talk again.
For instance, you could say the accident Tom Gutcher survived three months ago was a stroke of terrible luck.
That’s one way to view it.
But the string of events that followed might convince even the worst cynic among us how lucky Tom truly is. And how fortunate we are to have heard the tale — if we take its lessons to heart.
On May 20, Tom was taking his two daughters, Sarah, 16 and Laura, 19, to Valencia to buy a new car.
They made it as far as Taft Highway when dust obscured the road. Tom slowed and was rammed from behind in what became a multi-car pile-up.
Tom’s seat collapsed and he flopped backward. Sarah hit her head and suffered a gash above her left eye. Otherwise, he thought at the time, they were OK.
He called his wife, Linda, from the accident, asking her to come retrieve him and Laura, but then thought better of it and rode in the ambulance with Sarah to Kern Medical Center.
That’s stroke of luck No. 1.
At KMC, Sarah was rushed to a trauma room and doctors began quizzing Tom about her. As he answered their questions he complained about pain in his head. Within minutes, he was on a gurney next to his daughter, screaming in agony.
Only a curtain separated them. Linda tried to keep Sarah calm as she listened to what was happening just steps away. Tom’s pupil was blown, she heard. She knew that meant his pupils were fixed and dilated. Not good.
The next thing Linda knew, Tom was in surgery. It just so happened that a neurosurgeon was on staff that day. Stroke of luck No. 2.
“If he hadn’t gotten in that ambulance, he would have been dead. And if it had been any other hospital, they would have had to call a surgeon in and they wouldn’t have made it in time,” Linda said.
Tom’s brain had shifted inside his skull by more than half an inch, Linda said.
“It was about as bad as it could have been,” Linda said.
After the surgery, Tom was in a drug-induced coma for 10 days and stayed in the ICU for three and a half weeks. That was followed by another two weeks in the hospital before he was discharged June 25.
Along the way, he was never, ever alone. His wife, his daughters, his brothers, his mother, his father and a platoon of loyal friends were there standing over him, sitting next to him, holding his hand and, when they couldn’t keep it in any longer, weeping for him.
They noted every finger twitch. And when Tom’s eyes finally opened, they rejoiced.
On Father’s Day, his brothers, Gregg and Jim, were headed to Kernville for a visit with their dad. They stopped at KMC to look in on Tom, who still hadn’t spoken.
“Hi, Gregg,” he rasped through his tracheotomy. “Hi, Tom.”
“I just broke down,” Gregg recalled. They went to Kernville and told their dad. “It was the best Father’s Day present he ever had.”
As Linda and his other family members recount those days, Tom just smiles.
He has no recollection of that time from the accident to about seven weeks later.
“When I finally had some idea what happened, it was a shock,” said Tom. “A stunning shock.”
When he finally left KMC, he went to the Centre for Neuro Skills, which has a residential rehab facility with 24-hour care.
He’d come so far already. But even so, he couldn’t walk more than 10 feet, he’d lost more than 40 pounds and was so weak he couldn’t sit up straight. He was also confused and had no short-term memory. Talking was difficult.
He would make up words and even memories, said Mike Raney, his case manager at Centre for Neuro Skills.
That happens with an injury like Tom’s, Raney explained. The brain tries to fill in gaps when it can’t connect to real memories or words.
Raney described Tom as the “walking wounded” when he first arrived at the Centre.
“It’s nice to see him improving by leaps and bounds and getting his life back on track.”
Raney attributed Tom’s success to getting the right help right away and having a large support network that was so committed to Tom’s recovery.
Stroke of luck No. 3 — the one that both Linda and Tom hold most dear — is friends and family.
They speak with amazement at the length his friends went to on Tom’s behalf. On man came all the way from Trona every week to visit Tom. Others were at the hospital even before Linda and some visited the hospital every day, twice a day, to make sure Tom knew someone was always there for him.
When he was in 24-hour rehab, Jim and Gregg dropped in daily.
The support has been phenomenal, they said.
Through all the worry, the fear, the anger and plain hard work, that has been their greatest blessing, they said.
On July 28, Tom finally came home, but only on weekends.
“He didn’t remember that this was our house,” Linda said. “He walked in and said, ‘Hey, this is a cool house, who lives here?’”
Linda said his personality hasn’t changed.
“He’s still quick witted,” she says. “A smart ass!”
“I am not!” Tom protests.
Though he’s home full time now, Tom still goes every day, all day, to therapy.
He’s a geologist by trade and one half of Smith-Gutcher and Associates.
“I’m the Gutcher,” he tells me, in case that needed clarifying.
He’s impatient to get back to work, he says. Besides, “Smith wants me back.”
But he knows his journey isn’t complete and part of what he’s had to learn is accepting that fact.
Tom never bought that new car. Instead, their oldest is driving a used car at college in Fullerton.
That’s OK, he says.
He shrugs and gives me a big, dopey grin that makes me smile right back.
“I’m just lucky to be here.”