High Top Tennies, Rick Kahle and a Whole Lotta' Prayer

By Kris Kellar Kahle

Rick Kahle, wonderful husband and father of a beautiful five-year-old daughter was struck down in his third Lupus attack. He was not expected to live and his future looked very bleak, yet no one gave up on him. The sicker he became, the harder everyone on his medical team tried to fix him. Every medical procedure and treatment that might make any sense at all was tried on him as he lay in the ICU of the hospital. Six and a half weeks of lying motionless, comatose in the hospital Rick suddenly awoke but he was in a different world than the rest of his family. Yes, he was twenty years behind everyone else. 110 days later and after countless medical treatments and nonstop praying, Rick walked out of the hospital amid much celebration.

Jump in and see what it's like to have your husband awake from a coma and not know you. Jump in and join the Kahles on this journey of a thousand miles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 31, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462017713

Kris Kellar Kahle

Kris Kahle is a shopaholic, chocoholic and a blogger at www.kriskahle.com. Yet she still finds time to advocate for Lupus. Born in California, living in Texas, shes just returned from speaking in Washington DC. This author of several articles on Lupus also enjoys speaking locally about her family's triumphs over Lupus and their journey of a thousand miles.

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Copyright © 2011 by Kris Kellar Kahle.

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-1770-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-1771-3 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 05/25/2011

FOREWORD

This is Rick’s story. Although it’s told from my perspective it is not my goal to glorify all that I did, all that I went through nor all that I witnessed. I simply wish to portray all that happened within our little family and how it affected each and every one of us. It isn’t merely an account of what happened though. It isn’t merely a story of what one man went through during a Lupus flare up. No, it’s not. It’s a story about triumph. One man’s triumph against insurmountable odds.

Lupus is a woman’s disease. Actually, a condition. Not even a disease. It’s actually not easy to put Lupus into any category. And Lupus rarely affects men. Rick defied the odds from the very beginning… over and over again.

This may be Rick’s story, but more importantly, it’s Rick’s story to tell. And he loves to tell it with passion. He also loves to give credit to the God that so wonderfully healed him and kept our little family together… the loving God who brought me to my knees, showing me so much more about who He is.

Yes, it’s Rick’s story… . but God is the one who orchestrated it all. He walked beside each of us on this long, crazy journey. And He proved he had other plans on this earth for Rick.

Rick made the comment to me that although he gave up once, God’s grace never gave up on him.

And Rick knew this all along. Rick’s new mission in life, aside from spreading the word about Lupus and how badly we need a cure is to let everyone around him know exactly who saved his life and why he’s alive today.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:11

Lupus can be

a real pain

in the neck.

or a rash.

or a sore in

your mouth.

or a low

grade fever.

or fatigue.

or hair loss.

or death.

It’s no wonder Lupus is so difficult to diagnose.

The symptoms are as diverse as the people who have Lupus.

Which is quite unfortunate. Because when caught early,

Lupus can be controlled. But if left unchecked, it can end in death.

Lupus has no specific known cause or cure.

And the next time you have a pain in the neck, don’t think of it as an annoyance. Take it as a warning.

The Southern California chapter of

The Lupus Foundation of America

I was scared. I had never been so scared in all my life. The ride to the hospital seemed to take forever.

Driving along the 605 freeway, in bumper to bumper traffic, I began to think we were never going to get there. It didn’t help that my very, very sick husband was beside me in the front seat and my five-year-old daughter was in the back seat, terrified. Life had never looked so bleak.

I’d driven this route before but suddenly the scenery all looked different. It could’ve been the pace we were keeping which was equivalent to a slow walk, if that. It didn’t help that my husband Rick kept insisting we’d already arrived and was continually taking off his seatbelt and trying to open the car door. It also didn’t help that traffic was nearly at a standstill now. No, nothing about this trip was fun. Memorable, yes; fun no.

Strange things went through my head at that moment.

I found myself planning a speech. A speech about my husband’s awful illness. Somehow I just knew I’d be talking about this moment again… for years to come. Somehow I knew.

It was a Monday morning in March of 1997.

I readied our five-year-old daughter for kindergarten and was ushering her out the back door towards the car. I had come downstairs earlier and had found Rick sitting on the edge of his bed looking as pale as a ghost. I knew that I couldn’t go to work that day and leave him home alone. There was no way. But if I could just get Elizabeth to school that would be one less person to keep an eye on. I told Rick to lie back down and I’d return to him just as soon as I dropped our daughter off.

On the way out the door, I noticed a Tupperware pitcher lying on my kitchen floor. I hurried past it but felt compelled to ask Rick why it was there. He admitted he’d been up all night using the toilet but it had broken sometime during the night and he’d sought out a urinal to use. Tupperware had come to his mind. Why it was in the middle of the kitchen floor though was curious.

My heart began to break. Rick was so weak that I realized he must’ve crawled into the kitchen looking for something, anything to use as an aid to his bathroom problems. And my heart hurt because I hadn’t known. I’d been upstairs in our bedroom while he was banished to the living room because he was too weak to climb the stairs the night before. I convinced Rick to lie back down and stay in bed while Elizabeth and I continued on our way. Her school was an hour away so I told Rick that I would drop her right off and return to him as quickly as I could. No more than two hours would I be gone.

In the morning rush hour traffic, I realized that two hours was WAY too long to be gone. And with all the Monday morning traffic I was seeing, I knew it could easily turn into three hours.

Twenty minutes into our journey, I was a mess. I didn’t want to continue; I wanted to return to Rick. I couldn’t shake the image of that make-shift urinal on the kitchen floor… and I was terrified that he would become worse while I was away. So we turned back.

Using my cell phone, I called Rick’s Lupus doctor immediately and was that surprised when I reached him so early in the morning. Normally there’s plenty of red tape to cut through, begging and pleading to speak with the man in charge. But not today. Dr. Gelfand was available. And he took my call.

His advice? GET HIM TO THE HOSPITAL IMMEDIATELY.

Rick had already been in the throes of a Lupus flare up. For three weeks now I’d been monitoring him and treating this current flare up but had seen absolutely no improvement. He had continued to worsen with each passing day and even as recent as the day before he had been in a hospital with what appeared to be a seizure. But on that infamous morning in March of 1997, our lives were changed forever.

Only one day before, Rick had accompanied me to watch our daughter, our five-year-old daughter yet, speak at her school. She had been selected to memorize and recite a morning prayer at her school/church and Rick was not going to miss it. Sick or not, Rick was determined to be there and no amount of promising to videotape it was going to change his mind. I was frustrated with his decision… but it turned out to be a very good one. Had he stayed home, I would’ve missed the seizure that occurred just moments after the speech which led to an Emergency Room trip, which actually started this whole story.

At the hospital I’d taken him to, near the church that my daughter spoke at, he was