Teresa and her Brave Battle with ALS

 Teresa Clark Gray  

October 5, 1958 - August 13, 2021

Teresa left us much too soon. While she was here she did so much for so many. Her last job she may have loved the most was being a Media Specialist where she taught for seven years. When she was first diagnosed with ALS her students raised $9,200 in her honor to help establish an ALS Center in Greenville. Even though she was sick she led a Greenville High School to raise $225,000 for this new ALS Center in Greenville. And today you will find a nurse navigator and open door for those with ALS and their families.

I visited her one day with her Daddy in June 2015 and the picture above was taken that day. We talked about everything books, dogs, family, church and and a whole lot more. She and her family visited our church's Christmas Eve service as long as she could. He father died July 25, 2021 just weeks before Teresa slipped away. She was not able to go to his service yet she received guests at the church as sick as she was and insisted on being at the funeral. Three weeks later she joined her Daddy.

And so many of us are beyond sadness when we remember Teresa's long and courageous journey with the dreaded ALS. She leaves behind her Mother, Becky Jo Clark and a sister and a brother and two grandsons and a whole company of friends.

I don't know what to say in a time like this and so I turn to Dostoevsky for and a message for Teresa and all of us.

"What keeps me going is that I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that in the world's finale something so great will come to pass that's going to suffice for all our hearts, for the comforting of all our sorrows, and the atonement of all the crimes of humanity. And I want to be there when suddenly everyone understands what it all been for."

Benediction

"Into paradise may the angels lead dear Teresa;

at her coming may the martyrs take her up into eternal rest,

and may the chorus of angels lead her to that holy city

and the place of perpetual light."

--from the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead

--Roger Lovette/ rogerlovette.blogspot.com

  

My Granddaughter Working in the Virus Ward

 Got this Facebook message this morning. It is from our Nurse granddaughter who works in Coronavirus ward in Spartanburg Hospital. She says they are swamped with very sick patients. Those of us on the outside need to remember what a serious time this is for all those that work to keep us safe. We must never forget that we are all in this together.

I granddaughter did not write these words but she has shared them on Facebook:

I'm not ignoring you. 

I know you asked for chapstick and its a comforting thing because your lips are dry from vomiting so much and I will get it for you.

I'm not ignoring you but the thing is your blood pressure is 70/40 and your lactate is 15 and your vomit is sheer black liquid and each of those things tell me your body is sick but all of these things together are making the nurse part of me panic and move faster.

I know I'm not talking much, 

I'm not ignoring you as I place another IV, draw blood cultures before hanging up your antibiotics. The mom in me realizes that your young adult child is present and watching my every move, coming to your side whenever I move away from it. You keep talking to us which gives us a small amount of peace for the moment. 

We are not ignoring you because there are myriads of people present in your room like in the trauma bay. Services are being called outside your room, lab results analyzed, and heads huddled together about what to do for you.

I'm not ignoring you when I leave the room to alert your doctors that despite the 4L of fluid, antibiotics, and unit if blood  have given you, your blood pressure is lower and that you need pressors and an ICU bed, please.

I 'm not ignoring you when I check on my three other patients that have appeared. My mind  doesn't leave your bedside as a new stranger in the bed next to yours yells from some internal pain. It's not because I don't want to be your nurse anymore that I rush you to your ICU bed as soon as it's ready but it's that you deserve a nurse who can take care of you one on one.

I haven't peed in hours.

It's 4pm without lunch in sight.

I won't even get to know what happens to you after I hand you off and leave through those double doors.

I wont be able to speak your bane because of HIPAA but I remember it. 

I hope that you realize I wasn't ignoring you.

I was trying to save you.  --KVL (This comes from the writings of The Barefoot Nurse.)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com