No more vacations for the Calverts

The Calverts took a vacation, once. They do not want another.
Bobby and Paula Calvert left southern Arkansas and went to upstate New York with their special needs daughter Kelly to visit their married daughter and her children. The two weeks lasted five days. Then Kelly became ill, dehydrated and nearly died before she reached the hospital where she stayed for 15 days.
Kelly had a bed. Her parents searched in vain for visitor comforts: No chairs, bathrooms or vending machines.
Looking back Paula says, “I have to believe, it all happened because there were to be two people in the hospital room that needed me.”
First, Paula watched a nurse begin placing a back brace up-side-down on a child after her back surgery. From years of observing others during Kelly’s many trips to Shriners Hospital in Shreveport, La. Paula had to speak.
“I can’t let you do this. You are putting it on upside down.’”
The nurse did not see the difference and started to continue.
“You need to get the person who made it to come up here,” Paula insisted. She figured to herself, “if I am wrong, no harm, but if I am right, we had avoided harm.”
She was right. The child went home wearing the brace correctly.
A couple days before Kelly left, another girl entered with severe appendicitis. One of eight children, all born at home, it was the first hospitalization for the family. The child’s appendix was about to rupture. The intern came with all the papers the mother needed to sign. The mother read the possible side effects to anaesthesia, “She can die?! I am not going to sign that.”
The intern slapped the papers down on the night stand, “Whenever you get ready, I’ll be back” and he walked out.
“I had had seen Kelly through 47 operations. I had to do something. I prayed, ‘Okay, God, I’ll do this,’” Paula said.
Paula went to the mother, “I know how you are feeling. My daughter has had 47 surgeries. Sometimes we just have to know all the bad that could happen. But mostly what happens is good and is necessary. It’s like going down a stairs. There is always the possibility something could happen. Usually it doesn’t, and we know we are going to go up and down the stairs.”
“Chances are everything will go perfect in the operation. The one thing we know is that if the appendix ruptures, she will die. Or they can take out the appendix with a slight possibility of danger of danger from anesthesia.”
“I think I talked with her for 30 minutes. Finally, the mother said, “so if it was your child, you would sign, … oh stupid question,” the mother stopped.
“I would have signed it an hour ago,” Paula assured her.
The mother signed. Paula took the paperwork to the intern and slapped it on the counter in front of him, “Your patient is ready for surgery.”
Later she took the intern aside and explained how he should have handled the situation.
Looking back, Paul says, “I believe Kelly had to go through all that for those two girls.”
“Most people would say, ‘It is not my business. They would have chosen to not get involved. I can’t not get involved, no matter what they think of me. No one else came to talk with the mother. If I had not been willing to get involved, she would have died.”
Even with that perspective of the time, Paula still says, “We don’t volunteer for vacations.”