Success Stories

Meet a Real Miracle: Terry Dunham

This was the day it began: November 19, 1999. Terry Dunham, age 41, was admitted to Highland Park Care Center in Alliance, NE. She was in a vegetative state, with internal hemorrhaging and minimal spontaneous movement.

Terry's prognosis: very poor. It would take a miracle to give Terry any quality of life.

Before she was admitted, remembers Maxine Benson, administrator of the facility, the staff met with Terry's family. They seemed to have unrealistic goals. Terry's family was assured that Highland Park staff would do their very best, but stressed that they were unable to do miracles.

In characteristic fashion, however, Highland Park staff members considered Terry's recovery a personal challenge. They took a weeklong crash course in caring for Terry, with her tracheotomy and feeding tube.

Many of the staff knew Terry, so they talked with her about community happenings and people she knew, even though she did not respond.

One day, about two weeks after admission, a nurse insisted she saw Terry flash a tiny smile. "We all questioned it," says Maxine. "Then a couple of days later, Sister Mabel said Terry had mouthed the words 'Thank you'."

Could it be a miracle in the making? The entire Highland Park staff took it that way and began working with Terry every free minute. "We talked to her like any other resident," Maxine remembers. "We read cards, gave her phone messages, took her to church and more." The positive, hope-filled attitude of the family was beginning to rub off on the staff.

Terry's family said she had a playful sense of humor, so the staff began to use humor in their conversations. The speech therapist began noticing more response. Nurses noticed Terry was beginning to "help" a little with the movements during passive exercise.

"Maybe, just maybe, Terry could have quality of life, we thought," Maxine remembers. However, they all were afraid they had gotten too involved, and were being unrealistic.

It didn't help that the staff received comments from physicians like this one: "I believe the chances that this patient will have a meaningful recovery and return to consciousness are extremely poor." They could not get a rehab center to believe that intense rehab would gain results. They had hit a brick wall.

They did, however, get a local physician in Scottsbluff to meet with Terry, and after two months he wrote his opinion: "I believe this patient is a rehab candidate."

Terry visited rehab hospitals in Colorado and Lincoln, and her quality of life began to improve remarkably. When she returned to Highland Park, the staff undertook her care with high energy. Finally, more than three years after her admission to Highland Park, Terry began to walk!

Maxine beams when she reports Terry's current status: "She feeds herself, walks to the dining room with one assist and a walker. She kids and jokes with residents and staff. She even helps with Bible classes at church."

The Highland Park staff feels victorious. "It is so exciting to see the growth, the development of speech, cognition, and the whole person right before your eyes," says nurse Deb Glendy with feeling. "That's why I'm a nurse."

Terry's family members are grateful to Highland Park for seeing her potential and never allowing her to give up. There is no doubt that Terry was a full partner in her own treatment. Her perseverance and indomitable spirit were the best medicine of all.

Maxine told Terry this article would be written about her, and Terry asked that we tell everyone she has a wonderful family - her children, her sister, and her mother - who never gave up hope. "She's just a miracle, isn't she?" says her sister Kathy Toedtli affectionately.

- From the April/May 2003 issue of
Vetter Health Services' Insight newsletter