After going through a battle for his life over the last seven months, Tom Bartels is finally home.
He spent those months in hospitals in Neenah, Shawano and Milwaukee after being diagnosed with pancreatitis.
One of his doctors told Bartels he was proud that he didn’t stop fighting for his life.
“A couple of times I felt I wish I could die,” said Bartels, who spent nearly all of that time flat on his back.
“It was a horrible roller coaster ride,” said Tom‘s wife, Judi, who was always at his side. “The hardest part for me was digging down to keep a positive attitude when I could see him drop down. Keeping him positive was important.”
On April 25, Tom, 68, who is retired but works as a substitute teacher for the Shawano School District, was helping at the high school track meet at Shawano Community Middle School when he started feeling poorly.
“I knew something was really wrong,” he said.
He drove himself to Shawano Medical Center.
“I told them I thought I was having a heart attack,” Tom said. “I was soaking wet.”
Emergency personnel immediately scrambled, working on him and doing tests. The chopper was called to take him to ThedaClark Hospital in Neenah. Tom was told that if he had waited 20 minutes more before getting help, he would have been dead.
“Neenah knew exactly what was wrong,” Judi said. “The doctors said Shawano did everything absolutely right.”
There was so much inflammation that the doctors couldn’t do surgery at that point. For three days he was at level 10 pain. Then Tom went into bronchial trauma and began filling up with fluids.
“His whole body was getting distended,” Judi said.
He was put on a breathing machine, which stabilized him, and after a week, the doctors started to work on his pancreas. Tom was put in medical paralysis while his brain waves were monitored.
The next step was to clean the pancreas, which had digested itself.
The doctors called in the whole Bartels family before surgery.
“The doctors didn’t think he would survive the surgery,” Judi said. “The doctor told me it was the worst case he had ever seen.”
Tom was in surgery for four hours, during which the doctors could remove only a little of the dead pancreas. His kidneys began shutting down, so he was given dialysis. The incision was left open to flush out the dead pancreas a little at a time. Almost all of the pancreas was eventually removed except for a little tail, which was too close to vital organs and blood vessels.
That little tail became a miracle when the doctors found out it was producing insulin.
“Up until then we thought he would be a diabetic his entire life,” Judi said.
After six weeks in the intensive care unit, Tom was moved to a medical wing. He came back to Shawano Medical Center for rehabilitation therapy and extended nursing care. He went back to ThedaClark for cautionary purposes when he was spiking a fever.
After getting that under control, Tom came back to Shawano, where he developed abscesses in his body that protruded through his back.
So it was back to Neenah to treat that problem with antibiotics. Then the doctors tried to put a stent into the pancreatic duct to get it working. When that was unsuccessful, Tom was sent to Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee, where doctors were able to do the delicate surgery that let the duct drain naturally. After two weeks there, he went back to Neenah.
“I saw a remarkable change from that point forward,” Judi said.
Finally all the tubes that were feeding him and giving him antibiotics came out, along with the tracheotomy. Tom had gone from 212 pounds to 149 pounds.
“I wanted to lose about 10 pounds,” Tom chuckled.
He stayed in Neenah for rehab learning how to chew, swallow and walk. For a week he had speech, occupational and physical therapy.
“He made remarkable strides,” Judi said. “He blew them out of the water. They were amazed at what he could accomplish.”
On Nov. 14, Tom was finally back in his Shawano home where he will get in-home therapy, with Judi there to assist him while he gets his appetite and strength back.
“He has puncture wounds all over his torso,” she said.
Tom had around 25 CT scans, which he said were painful because he was so thin.
The couple recently got some good news: insurance will cover a large part of the hospital bills, something that Judi said didn’t even cross her mind while going through the long journey.
“I didn’t even think about it,” Judi said. “We could have lost everything.”
“She was there for me all the time,” Tom said. “When I needed encouragement, I got it. She was there. That meant a lot.”
The couple got a lot of support from family, friends, co-workers and neighbors who sent cards, visited them in the hospitals, mowed their grass, watched their house and prayed for them.
“It was unbelievable,” Judi said.
On Thanksgiving Tom and Judi will be with their daughter and son-in-law, Lisa and Rich Andreas, and their two children, of Sobieski, along with their other daughter and son-in-law, Dani and Nat Hoeper, and their three children, of Oshkosh.
“You couldn’t ask for a better holiday to be your first one at home,” Judi said. “It’s going to be special.”
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