The First Time My Wife Died

By

John Penman

On March 20, 2003, I had staff duty at my battalion.  Basically, I tried to stay awake and answer telephone calls.  My wife, Julie, had been ill for several weeks.  Tonight, she called me and told me she needed to go to the hospital.  Our friend Dan picked her up and took her there.  Later that day she was diagnosed with pneumonia.  A day or two later, she was diagnosed with Stage IV ovarian cancer.

The Army hospital was not the best place for her treatment, so she was transferred to the Medical College of Georgia.  We met with her oncologist, Dr MacFee.  The plan was to stabilize her and then begin chemotherapy.  They needed to get her blood clotting under control and treat her pneumonia.

That took about a week, and her sister and brother-in-law flu down from Chicago.  They helped a lot.  I had staff duty again on Thursday night.  Chemotherapy was to begin the next day, and her family left the same day.  We are all tough, realistic people.  But we were cautiously upbeat about the situation.  The problem had been identified, and now action was being taken.

I got home around 8:00 or 9:00.  My plan was to go to sleep for a few hours, and then visit Julie at the hospital.  So, I hit the sack.

I’m not sure what time it was but the hospital called me and woke me up.  I was told there was a problem, and my wife had been moved to ICU.  I arrived at the hospital and began navigating the maze that is MCG.  I found the ICU and asked about my wife.  They would not let me in to see her.  I knew that was a bad sign.

Being a good Soldier, I called my chain of command for assistance.  At some point, someone suggested that I request a priest to deliver the Last Rites.  Somewhere in this process, I had been told my wife had coded twice, and was not expected to live.

As I have mentioned, I am a tough guy.  Not a Rambo or anything spectacular, but I have had my share of hard knocks, and it takes something to stun me.  I went into a state of shock.  My Company Commander was there and was asking me to call the airline to get a hold of my in laws.  I couldn’t do it.  All I could do was sit there in stunned silence. My Company Commander called the airline. As I sat there, I started hearing my chain of command issuing instructions on how to help me.  Things I didn’t want to hear.  “Take Penman off the duty roster and have the battalion van available to pick his family up at the airport”.  There were other things, but I don’t remember them.

The priest came and administered that Last Rites.  Julie was raised Catholic, and I was raised Lutheran.  We were married in a Lutheran church and worshipped together as Lutherans.  I asked the priest if she should have a Catholic or Lutheran funeral.  Her family was devout Catholic.  He told me that it would be cool for her to have a Lutheran funeral.

Eventually, her family returned that night, and Dan was assigned as my battle buddy.  I went home and got some sleep.



My wife lived until December 2009.  A lot of stuff happened between the night she died the first time, and when she finally died.  I will write about it later.