‘Even the bad days are miracles'
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BY CARA PESEK/Lincoln Journal Star
OMAHA — It is a dreary Wednesday afternoon, and Lisa Stevens is not having a good day. She doesn't want to lift her head. She doesn't want to talk to her mom or answer questions or even open her pale blue-green eyes. "Are you being a pouter?" Pam Plager asks her daughter.
Lisa nods her head. Pam pokes her daughter in the ribs. She tickles her elbow. She holds her hand in a room in a rehabilitation center in Omaha. Tomorrow will be better.
Easter was a good day. Lisa went to her parents' home near Table Rock. She held her cousin's baby. She played with a relative's puppy. She ate dinner with her family.
But even the bad days, Pam says, are miracles.
Lisa has the same type of brain injury Terri Schiavo had, one that occurs when the brain is temporarily unable to receive oxygen.
And, like Schiavo, Lisa, now 29, was 26 when she suffered brain damage, and is married.
Unlike Schiavo, Lisa has a child. Her mom and dad, Gene Plager, and her husband, John, agree she could get better. They agree she needs therapy and that she definitely needs a feeding tube.
Lisa's problems started while she was pregnant and suffered a gall bladder attack. Tyler Stevens was born June 2, 2002, six weeks early. Lisa was home with him for three days before medical problems, including pancreatitis, set in.
She went to the hospital and never came home. On Oct. 13, 2002, Lisa's blood pressure plummeted and she began to hemorrhage.
For 10 minutes, her heart stopped beating, and her body was unable to deliver oxygen to her brain. Since then, Pam Plager has considered Lisa her miracle girl.
Doctors initially said Lisa would never breathe on her own. She does now, and she can say a few words and phrases — "mom," "bite," "please," "I love you." She can move her arms and raise a spoon to her lips, but she still has a feeding tube.
And her mother, who until 2002 hadn't known anyone with a serious brain injury, understands what Terri Schiavo's parents went through.
Even immediately after Lisa's heart stopped and her brain changed, Pam said, she could tell her daughter was aware of what was going on around her.
For weeks afterward, she said, she would stroke Lisa's hand and say the same thing over and over: "I know you're in there."
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It's impossible to know exactly how many other people in Nebraska are in situations similar to Lisa's because the state Department of Health and Human Services doesn't keep track, said agency spokeswoman Kathie Osterman.
Earlier this week, the St. Petersburg Times reported about 344,000 Americans use feeding tubes in their homes. The Florida newspaper said another 112,000 patients in long-term care had feeding tubes in 1995.
Pam Plager has gotten to know some of those people. She's met their families. The parents, spouses and children of people with brain injuries is like a big, extended family, she said.
Others in her situation, she said, are the only people who truly understand.
And many, like her, have changed their lives completely. Instead of a full-time job, Pam does temporary work so she can spend at least two or three days each week with her daughter in Omaha. She tries to arrive at the rehab center by 9 a.m. and stays until 4 p.m., feeding Lisa, going with her to therapy, celebrating when she makes progress, crying on the drive home on days she seems to revert.
She said Lisa's three grown brothers and sisters understand their sister needs their mother's attention right now.
"I never thought I could be so strong in my life, as strong as I am," she said.
While Pam cares for Lisa, her son-in-law, John Stevens, cares for his and Lisa's son.
John lives in Kearney, where the two met in 1997 while working at a local bar and grill. They married in 1999 and lived together in Kearney until Lisa's injury.
John tries to visit his wife at least once a month. Every six weeks or so, he said, he leaves Tyler with his grandmother, who takes him to see Lisa every day.
The past few weeks were a reality check for John, who said he was reminded of his wife every time he saw a picture of Terri Schiavo.
Three years after Lisa's injury, having a wife with a severe brain injury seems normal, he said. But before newspaper reports on Schiavo's condition, television interviews with doctors and lawyers, he hadn't considered his wife could go years hooked up to a feeding tube without getting better.
"It's only been three (years) for me," he said. "Just thinking she could be that way for that long — it's been hard."
It has crossed his mind, he said, that he might want to start a new life with someone else.
But that's still years away.
After Lisa's injury, he moved back in with his parents in Kearney so they could help him care for Tyler. He works as a cook at Perkins.
And he takes things one day at a time.
"I know it's all up to Lisa whether she wants to get better or wants to give up," he said. "I think she'll let us know in her own way. I think she's getting better."
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Pam Plager thinks so, too.
Over time, she said, she has begun to catch glimpses of the bubbly young woman who was salutatorian of her high school class, loved working as a nurse and was incredibly stubborn.
Lisa thinks it's funny when her nurses tease her, calling her Lisa Marie Presley instead of Lisa Anne Stevens, her mother said. And she's still stubborn, refusing at times to cooperate during physical therapy or ignoring Pam as she needles her daughter to answer one more question, lift her head for just another moment.
She doesn't expect her daughter to fully recover, but they've set goals.
John hopes that someday Lisa can live at home with Pam or with him or in a nursing home closer to Kearney so he and Tyler can visit more often.
Lisa's mother wants Lisa to be able to go with Tyler to his first day of kindergarten.
Maybe that won't happen, she said, and that's OK.
She's learned to be patient. She's learned to be accepting. And she's learned to believe in miracles.
"I'll never give up on her."
Reach Cara Pesek at 473-7361 or cpesek@journalstar.com.
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