Honea Path teacher fights to recover from brain injury

March 27--For years, the Rev. Gregg Loner and his wife Dee have urged their congregation at Princeton Baptist Church to live by faith.

They live in a modest house next to the sanctuary where he has preached for more than a decade. She is a veteran teacher at Honea Path Elementary School, and when she is not there, she has been instrumental in keeping children interested in church.

But the Loners never fully understood what it meant to live by faith until their lives changed in an instant.

It was a warm night last August, just hours before she was to begin the next term at the school. She was beloved there, with most of her 20-year career spent nurturing the 5-and-under set.

She was thinking about her prekindergarten class as she sat on her living room love seat beside her husband. She confided that she was apprehensive about starting a new school year. He reassured her, speaking softly and telling her to pray about her worries. They were turned toward each other, eye-to-eye as they spoke.

Their teenage daughter, Abigale, was filling the bathtub for a long soak. Their 14-year-old son, Tenrice, was in another room wearing headphones, bopping to something they couldn't hear.

As the clock neared 11 p.m., they talked about going to bed. Suddenly, Dee Loner began rubbing the center of her forehead. Her husband asked her what was wrong.

"I feel like I am going to pass out," she said.

As soon as the words left her lips, she slumped and hit the floor.

Gregg was frantic. He called for their children, neither of whom could hear him. He thought of moving his wife. But she weighed more than 200 pounds and he couldn't. He tried to find a pulse, but couldn't. Then, she began to make a snoring sound.

Relief flooded him. She wasn't dead.

He called 911.

When the paramedics arrived, Dee, 42, was sitting up and talking. They asked her if she could get up and walk to the stretcher. She did.

On the way to Self Regional Healthcare in Greenwood, Gregg asked the paramedics what they thought had happened to his wife. They speculated that she could have had some medical complication related to her diabetes. At the hospital, Dee complained that her head was "killing her," her husband says. But it was after midnight before a battery of medical tests and "another episode" revealed what had happened to Dee.

She had a brain aneurysm. A bulging artery had ruptured, causing blood to leak into her brain.

Doctors told Gregg that his wife would need to go to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston for surgery, and that a helicopter would get her there, he says. It's not clear what happened, but Dee didn't leave the Upstate in a helicopter.

Around 7 a.m., an ambulance left Greenwood to take her to Charleston. Around 11 a.m., she was in surgery. Twelve hours had passed since she had slumped on her love seat.

Her husband says he now knows that those were "the 12 longest hours of our lives."

KEEPING THE FAITH

Six months later, Dee stares out the window of her room at Brookdale, an assisted living facility in Greenville. Paper valentines line the walls. An episode of "The Golden Girls" is on TV and the audience roars when Blanche makes an entrance in a red dress. But Dee remains focused on the parking lot.

She isn't responding to most questions. When she does respond, the most she says is "yes" or "no," and even those answers appear to come after a great deal of processing.

This is a bad day, her husband says.

The day before, she had a lot of visitors.

"She always loves that, seeing people she knows, sitting up in the chair," he says. "But it can leave her overstimulated, sometimes. And the next day, she is really tired and doesn't say much."

Gregg has just rushed in carrying his breakfast -- a biscuit from Bojangles.

"I know it probably isn't good for me," he says, grimacing. "But there's just no time these days, you know?"

He burns up the road in the family's minivan, a 2007 Nissan Quest.

He has made his way back to Brookdale after dropping Tenrice off at Belton-Honea Path High School. He checked in on his daughter, too, who opted to be home-schooled this year after deciding it was just too hard to be 16 and away from her mother. Gregg still has to work on a sermon, because he returned to preaching in Princeton, a rural community neighboring Honea Path.

Gregg recounts all that has happened to his wife since she collapsed last summer, at first ticking off medical problems as though he is reading a grocery list.

Ten days after the aneurysm burst, she had a series of strokes.

A month later, her feeding tube dislodged, causing 7 liters of fluid to fill her abdomen.

She spent time in a medically induced coma.

She experienced cardiac arrest at least once, and doctors told the family to prepare for her death.

When Gregg Loner talks about his wife's medical battles, he typically does it without showing emotion.

"I don't have time to break down," he says. "I have to be strong for Dee and for our family."

He finds his strength in reading the Bible. He is particularly drawn to a passage in Isaiah 43. In it, God promises to be next to his children as they pass through waters without drowning and fire without burning.

And finally, as Gregg talks about that passage, the tears come.

"I can remember there being flooding in the streets in Charleston the night of the strokes," he says."I can remember having to take my shoes off to walk to a pharmacy near MUSC. I remember just asking: 'Lord, what are you doing here?' And I feel like he reminded me of this passage. I feel like he whispered to me to have faith."

RARE CASE

Dee's medical case is rare, according to Dr. Julio Chalela, who oversaw her care at MUSC. He is the medical director of the neurosciences intensive care unit at the university's hospital in Charleston. He spoke to the Independent Mail in a phone interview from Djibouti, a tiny country on the Horn of Africa, where he is stationed with the Army until early June.

Chalela said that only about 5 percent of people in the United States have brain aneurysms, and some live their whole lives without having one rupture. Most people who do experience ruptured brain aneurysms are older than Dee. It is even more rare for people to experience strokes after a ruptured brain aneurysm. That only happens in about 10 percent to 20 percent of patients, Chalela said.

He said that Dee experienced "many, many medical complications," including infections, abdominal problems and significant brain swelling.

Complications are more likely with lengthy stays in the intensive care unit, Chalela said. He said Dee's weight also contributed to her medical difficulties.

"She is one of the sickest patients I have treated in 15 years," he said. "And she has one of the most outstanding family support systems I have ever seen. Someone from her family was there with her day and night."

THERAPY

Dee is in a therapy room at Brookdale, where an object called a standing table allows her to bear weight on legs she hopes to use again. She has some movement in her legs, but isn't able to walk.

"Where's your smile?" therapist Carolyn Carroll asks her.

Dee obliges.

Among the reasons she is at Brookdale in Greenville is to receive skilled nursing and intensive physical and occupational therapies. It's the latest stop in a journey that included lengthy stays at facilities in Charleston and Mount Pleasant.

On this day, Dee is working on what her therapists call midline orientation. An arched piece of equipment in front of her contains brightly colored rings and her task is to move the rings from one side of the arch to the other, while following the movement with her eyes.

Dee's right hand trembles as she moves each ring.

"Keep your eyes on the ring the whole time," therapist Jessica Moss encourages when Dee starts to look away.

Moments later, Dee grabs two rings at once to move them.

"Cheater, cheater," Moss teases. "Remember, we have to move them one at the time."

Later, the therapists work with Dee's lower body, urging her to tap, stretch and lift her toes. She isn't quite able to kick this time, but they still encourage her to try. She wears special boots designed to keep her from getting sores on her heels.

"Everything we're doing in these feet and leg exercises is to try to facilitate those muscles coming back," Carroll explains.

Gregg stands near his wife, watching her.

"You're doing great, baby," he whispers. "You're doing great."

COMING HOME

Dee was discharged from AnMed Health Rehabilitation Hospital in Anderson on March 19, nearly seven months to the day that her nightmare began. She had been there for about two weeks after leaving Greenville. Her husband hoped she would get to stay longer in Anderson, but he said that her health insurance would not allow it and that other factors also contributed to her release.

He had a contentious meeting with staff from the rehab hospital. He hoped he would find a way to get her stay extended or to have her placed at another medical facility, he said.

When that didn't happen, the Loners headed home. Now, their modest house next to the church is outfitted with a ramp for Dee's wheelchair.

Dee speaks more freely now. Her eyes brighten when she talks about being a teacher, a calling she hopes to return to someday.

"I love watching those little ones grow and develop," she says.

She speaks in a soft voice. Her vocal cords still need to get stronger. But that single sentence puts her leaps and bounds farther ahead than she was a few months ago, when she couldn't communicate, or when the best she could do was give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

Her long-term prognosis isn't clear.

Chalela, who treated her in Charleston, said he could not offer one because he has not seen her in several months. Dr. William Vogenitz, who oversaw her recent rehabilitative care in Anderson, declined to be interviewed for this story, according to an AnMed spokesman.

Members of the Loners' church have promised to help them when they can, offering to run errands or sit with Dee if her family needs to do other things.

"I've never seen love like this family has for one another," church member Donna West said. "The devotion that Gregg has to Dee is unconditional."

Gregg says the family is still trying to adjust to being at home. He is worried about Dee's progress slowing, because instead of having daily access to therapy in hospitals, she now gets it just three times a week at home. But when he gets discouraged, he does not allow himself to stay that way.

"I have preached for years that we have to walk by faith and not by sight," he says. "This whole ordeal has taught me that I can't just preach that message, I have to live it."

Dee Loner doesn't hear what her husband said. But she has a similar, simpler explanation of how she plans to survive this ordeal.

"Faith," she says. "Total faith."

ANEURYSM FACTS

What is a brain aneurysm?

- It's a bulge, kind of like a blister or a bubble, in a blood vessel in the brain.

- Some people can have aneurysms their whole lives that never burst.

- Certain factors increase the risk that a person may experience a ruptured aneurysm. Those factors include smoking, cocaine use, high blood pressure and family history. Dee Loner struggled with high blood pressure.

- Signs that a brain aneurysm is about to rupture: sudden, severe headache and trouble with vision or eye movement. Sometimes, there are no symptoms before rupturing occurs.

Source: Dr. Julio Chalela, Medical University of South Carolina

THE TOLL

Since Dee Loner collapsed last August, her family has:

- Slept more than 180 nights away from their home in Honea Path;

- Spent more than $10,000 for hotel rooms near hospitals;

- Averaged more than 800 miles on their van most weeks;

- Moved with her to at least five medical facilities;

- Spent at least $200 a month on meals at hospital cafeterias;

- Incurred thousands in medical expenses not covered by insurance, including more than $300 a month for prescriptions alone.

WANT TO HELP?

Dee Loner Family Fund

First Citizens Bank

Give Online

https://www.gofundme.com/zq2fgak4

Follow Nikie Mayo on Twitter @NikieMayo

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