Jeneane, Her Mom, and Husband

“This is a true Iowa story."

Jeneane, from Iowa City, says it all.

“On a March Monday, my husband had surgery to remove parts of his colon, lymph nodes, and liver, as part of stage 4 colon cancer treatment. My dad, a retired doctor, came down from Oelwein to be with me.

“Early Tuesday morning, my dad was pounding on my bedroom door saying my mom, back in Oelwein, had gone into respiratory arrest and stopped breathing three times. The Oelwein hospital was sending her to Iowa City yet that morning. The resident who took care of Mom’s admission in the MICU was someone my dad had delivered twenty-some years ago.

“For a week or more, I was going back and forth between my husband’s unit and Mom’s unit. The compassion these two units showed for my family was phenomenal. My kids and I were so comforted.

“Everyone pulled through. I like to say it was one-third divine intervention, one-third kick ass care, and one-third awesome drugs that were part of a clinical trial. My husband had his last chemo treatment six months later and so far there are zero signs of the cancer on his scans. My mom finished her rehab and is back to her usually busy self. I don’t think if they had gone to any other hospital they would be alive today.”