Paul

Posted by Timothy Krause on

Something happens to me when I travel – especially when I travel for business. I am in a hurry. I am in a hurry to get there, and in a hurry to get home. Anything that detracts from this mission, such as the person in front of me who can’t grasp the simple rules at the TSA pre-check, the person with four large suitcases who is delaying the departure of the rental car bus, the person in front of me at the hotel check-in who is asking the front desk agent for a comprehensive review of all nearby restaurants and their menus – I could go on. And God save your soul if you are the unlucky one delivering the news that, “We are out of cars right now,” or “You’ve been randomly selected…”

Two days ago, after I mindlessly left my roller bag on the rental car bus because I was on a phone call and had to wait for the bus to come back around, I was walking from the parking lot into the hotel at what some of my in-laws refer to as the “Krause pace.” I barely noticed the man sitting in a wheelchair on the front drive sidewalk as I blew through the revolving door into the lobby. I always notice someone in a wheelchair, but it is more like the way a wild animal notices a person in a car and considers the two together to be just one big thing. I notice someone in a wheelchair, but I don’t notice the someone who is in the wheelchair. I don’t notice this especially if I am in a rush.

Well, because I had been in a rush, I had an extra forty-five minutes before I needed to meet my colleagues for dinner. That was too much time to sit around and not enough time to go to the gym. So, naturally, I went to the bar. Just as I was squeezing the lime into my “club soda,” the wheelchair bundle rolled up next to me and said, “Do you mind if I squeeze in here?”

Now, I am an introvert. If I could complete an entire business trip without talking to a single person I don’t already know, I would consider the trip to be a success. Give me an app, a few kiosks, and my “don’t talk to me on the plane” AirPods and I am all set. I already know everyone I like.

“Sure, no problem,” I said. We shook hands.
“Paul,” he said.
“Tim,” I replied. “Nice to meet you, Paul.”
His grip was weak, and I noted that he handled his drink with his left hand.

This is usually the last moment I remember someone’s name. Anyway, I thought I struck the right tone. I sounded convincing enough to avoid seeming rude, but not so convincing that he thought I was inviting an actual conversation. “So, what brings you to town?” he asked. And thusly it began.

Paul was in town to receive stem cell injections to his spinal column. This piqued my interest, because I try to keep up with progress in stem cell research especially as it applies to healing potential in spinal cord injury. I pressed, explaining my personal interest in the topic, at the highest possible level. I had a son and he was injured – that’s it. Paul had had two treatments so far with no results.

“So, did you break your neck?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Three years ago.”
“What happened?” I asked. “Did you fall off a roof or hit a tree skiing?”

“No.” He conceded. He paused briefly to purse his lips and shove them into his right cheek. He went on. “Nothing that interesting. I was walking through my living room, tripped, and hit the coffee table with my chin. My neck snapped back. It broke my C2 vertebra.” (C2 is the second one down from where your head hooks to your body, so damaging your spine there pretty much screws up everything.)
He returned with, “How about your son?”
“Mountain biking. C4 to C6”
Every conversation between two people impacted by SCI starts this way. It’s instead of showing a passport.

“Can you walk?” I asked.
“Yes, a little, but I don’t have much stamina,” he answered.
I launched into Theo’s story, careful to point out that learning to walk again turned out to be just the beginning of his battle. I have developed a reasonably concise pitch by now, and occasionally Paul interrupted with a “Wow,” or “That’s inspiring,” especially when I mentioned Theo was able to snowboard again.

Paul seemed particularly focused as I went on to explain how Theo had battled depression and thoughts of suicide. “And where is he today?” Almost apologetically, I explained how well Theo functioned independently and that he was living in DC, although there was plenty he couldn’t do. Paul pushed. Paul, forty-eight years old, requires constant care. His wife is the sole care-giver.

Paul’s eyes widened, and he sat straighter in his chair as I described some of Theo’s lingering limitations, and Paul shared his own. Just then he froze, his shoulders hunched and drew sharply in to his neck, and his eyes glazed. The searing shot of nerve pain, a common by-product of spinal cord injury called neuropathy, took his breath away as it enveloped his entire body. Five or ten seconds went by before he was able to recompose himself.

“Wow,” I finally said. “Do you take something for that?”
“I used to, up until about a year ago. Percocet – Lyrica – everything. Now it’s just Tylenol.”
“Why did you stop?”
“I decided it was better to feel everything than to feel nothing.”
“Ironic,” I thought to myself as I glanced down at my almost empty glass.

Realizing I was now late to meet my colleagues for dinner, I began to excuse myself. I slurped the last watery sip, and I was just pushing back the stool when Paul said, “Mr. Krause, I have been having some of the same thoughts as your son. My walking is actually getting worse, not better, and it’s very frustrating. I used to be the operations director for Outback Steakhouse and was always active. Until I met you tonight, I’ve been seriously considering whether I want to continue to work at it, or just let it all go. But your story has inspired me. I want you to know that you have changed my life today.” Now I was the one doing the recomposing for the next five or ten seconds.

At this moment, you may think I told you this story so that you could be impressed that I had changed someone’s life – that I had done something special and you would click the “Wow” face instead of only the “Like” button on this post. I’ve thought about that for two days before finally deciding to post this.

Paul continued: “Yesterday a pastor was sitting here.” (I smiled at that one.) “Today, it was you. Between the two of you, I feel like God is trying to tell me something. I believe He brought us together for a reason.”

“God may not be finished with you,” is about all I could come up with. After all, I was just there to waste forty-five minutes. But, unable to leave it completely alone, I continued: “Maybe you need to see this through. If you do, you might end up somewhere you never expected, doing something more fulfilling than you ever dreamed. Imagine the story you would have. Someone might need to hear that story.”

Here is the thing. I didn’t do anything special. In fact, I did everything possible to avoid doing anything special. Ultimately, I just told my story to another person. Everybody has a story, and someone needs to hear it. If you tell someone your story, they might tell you their story and that might be just what you need to hear at that moment. I think that’s the stuff of miracles. When Paul rolled up to my side, he didn’t know I had spent two hours that afternoon walking around Craig Hospital in Denver, a place that stores some difficult memories for my family. I know I will never forget Paul’s name.

The Goodness of People: Rob Weisbaum and Erik Forsythe

Posted by Timothy Krause on

Rob Weisbaum has never forgotten how lucky he is to be alive, and that thought galvanizes his sense of duty. In his early twenties, he was making his second skydiving jump out of a plane near his hometown of Detroit, Michigan. During the jump he miscalculated a turn, starting it too low, and slammed into the ground at sixty miles per hour, shattering both legs. His feet were literally turned backwards by the impact, splintered bones protruding through his skin.

His dad, Jerry, was initially unfazed when he received news of Rob’s accident. Rob had been an adrenalin junkie all his life, played hockey, and was an extreme skier. His dad had seen nearly every kind of injury that could happen to his son. It wasn’t until the trauma doctor at the University of Michigan hospital said bluntly, “Jerry, it’s really bad,” that he realized this one was serious. Rob was fortunate to be alive.

When the same doctor explained to Rob he would never walk again the news changed the course of Rob’s life. The experience of his first ever ride on a CareFlight­–this one as a patient–had captivated him. He was so enthralled by the way the flight medics had worked with him, the ominous prognosis only flamed his motivation to prove the doctor wrong. More than anything, Rob knew he wanted to become a CareFlight medic.

The idea of being involved in emergency rescue services was not new to Rob. As a young boy growing up in suburban Detroit, he wanted to be a firefighter, similar to many other boys his age. But unlike most of the other boys, the idea did not fade as he grew older. When he was eighteen, he bravely strolled into a fire station situated just down the street from his house to ask them what he needed to do to become a fireman. “Get an Emergency Medical Technician’s license first,” they said–which he did. By the time he earned his license he had completely fallen in love with the field, and he continued his training to become a full paramedic. Ultimately, though, he thought, “I want to be a leader somehow–not a follower.”

After the sky diving accident, Rob endured a frustrating year of surgeries and grueling physical therapy. Remaining determined throughout, not only did he learn to walk again, he also met his goal to become a licensed flight medic. He was working for a flight rescue operation in Arizona when he saw a posting for a new job with CareFlight. He applied and was hired in 2009 to become the leader, not the follower, of a brand new CareFlight operation in Montrose, Colorado. Only a week after starting the job, he already had secured a helicopter, hired a nurse and a pilot, and was looking for additional support personnel.

Almost three years later, Rob’s good friend Erik Forsythe was newly appointed as Emergency Medical Services Chief at Gunnison Hospital, a role he had taken after retiring from a 19-year career as a ski patroller in Crested Butte.  Coincidentally, like Rob, Erik was also from Michigan, but the two had never met before working together in Colorado.

Erik Forsythe and the Colorado mountains had met each other, though, when he was twelve years old, on a family vacation. And, it was love at first sight. Back in Ann Arbor, Michigan, his heart was never again far from the wilderness and the mountains. Describing himself as a late bloomer in sports, he says he “took an unsuccessful shot at playing football” in the ninth grade, finally turning to track and specializing in the pole vault through high school. While he was good at pole vaulting, he still remained heavily involved in the Boy Scouts and spent most weekends camping or skiing.

Erik could easily have followed his father, who was a successful second-generation attorney, into the family business. Instead, as soon as high school was finished, Erik followed his heart to the Colorado mountains without any clear notion of what he wanted to do once he got there. He eventually landed at Colorado University in Boulder where he says he “hacked” his education, spending two painful years as an economics major. He dropped out of CU to concentrate on becoming a ski patroller.

Then a new degree program at CU in environmental conservation caught his eye. The structure of the program would afford him the flexibility to go to school in the summer and take the winters off to follow his passion for skiing. He returned to CU to complete his degree while still working toward his license as an Emergency Medical Technician, a requirement for ski patrollers. After college, armed with a degree in environmental conservation and his EMT license, he began to expand his expertise in wilderness rescue.

Today, Erik is recognized worldwide for his expertise in wilderness rescue as a member the Wilderness Medical Collateral Associates, an international group dedicated to specialized wilderness medical training. He continues to travel across the US and around the world teaching the specialized techniques involved in wilderness rescue.

A particular piece of that teaching curriculum guided him on the afternoon of September 17, 2017 when he fielded a 9-1-1 call about an injured mountain biker on Doctor Park Trail. “Most EMT training is designed around metropolitan ambulance services, where you are always a relatively short distance from a hospital,” he explained. “No matter how bad it is, you get them into an ambulance and take them to the nearest hospital. But in wilderness rescue you have to make some big decisions based on the complexity of the situation which can make life and death differences.”

His immediate decision to bring Rob Weisbaum into the rescue operation may have made that kind of difference. Having made the call to Rob, Erik raced to spearhead the mission and join the rescue party on Doctor Park Trail. After reaching Theo and triaging his injury, he began exchanging text messages with Rob, who was already in range in the helicopter but was desperately trying to identify a suitable landing spot.

It became clear that Erik, at the bottom of a ravine in the forest, was in no position to direct the pilot to an appropriate landing site, which would have been their normal protocol. Erik and Rob agreed, finally, that the pilot would break convention and find his own landing space. The rescue team, then, carried Theo down the trail to start, then followed the sound of the rotors up the side of the ravine to the landing site to deliver him into Rob’s care.

When Erik looks back on Theo’s rescue, what makes him most proud is the way the multiple agencies worked as a team. “We just worked together, and we problem solved,” Erik told me. “By doing that, I think we saved Theo four or five hours in the time it took to get him to a surgeon.”

As the helicopter lifted off and headed towards Grand Junction, Rob looked down at Theo lying on the deck beneath him, and his memory flashed briefly back to that very first CareFlight. He understood exactly how Theo felt. Rob encouraged him to hope for the best, telling him that often things turn out to be completely different than what was presenting, and proclaimed, “Theo, let’s just do it.” Rob knew what he was talking about.

To learn more about Theo’s extraordinary rescue and recovery, buy the book, FINDING THEO: A Father’s True Story of Loss, Courage, and Discovery

Over 10K Watch Moving FINDING THEO Interview

Posted by Timothy Krause on

Watch “Good God” as host Dr. George Mason interviews Timothy Krause, author of Finding Theo, in a two part series

Timothy Krause was recently interviewed about his new book, Finding Theo: A Father’s True Story of Loss, Courage, and Discovery on “Good God”, hosted by Dr. George Mason. If you’ve ever been through a time of doubt and darkness, or been the parent to someone in crisis, you will want to hear this honest, raw conversation, which aired in two parts.

Timothy, the former chief marketing officer of one of the worlds largest telecommunications suppliers,  went through a crisis of faith after his young adult son suffered extensive injuries from a mountain bike accident and beat the odds to recovery. Interview topics range from miracles, science, and faith to career, purpose, and legacy. Timothy’s conversation with Dr. Mason contains moving moments you will want to share with family members and friends.

“Good God”, conversations that matter for people who care about the positive contribution of faith to public life, is the creation of Dr. Mason, who is also one of the most influential and progressive Christian theologians in the U.S. today. His weekly episodes touch on subjects such as religion, politics, education, science, law, the arts, philosophy and philanthropy. “Good God” episodes can be seen at www.goodgodproject.com or on Facebook at @goodgodproject. Audio podcasts are also available on iTunes.

Replay the interviews with Timothy Krause here:

Part 1 (Episode 11) – miracles and the goodness of people:

Part 2 (Episode 12) – when you realize you can’t fix your kids:

Buy your copy of Finding Theo at your favorite local bookstore, online retailer, or by clicking this link to Buy The Book.

 

 

 

 

Pathway to Legacy

Posted by Timothy Krause on

I was only four years old, but I have distinct memories of my mother and father sitting around a dining room table that is adorned with a manual typewriter and an arrangement of tidy stacks of paper. Organizing, categorizing, typing, scribbling changes, and retyping, they labored over something important. I didn’t care much about what they were working on, but I knew it was important and not to interrupt.

Only lately have I come to a more complete understanding of what they were up to. The work was published in a book called Scattered Abroad: The Story of English-language Baptist work in Europe in 1966. Mom and Dad were serving as missionaries in West Germany at the time, and this book was Dad’s first–and only book ever published. I do not know how many copies were sold or more likely given away but I still have one of them.

On balance, the book is fairly technical, pre-occupied with the who, what, when, where, how, and why of Baptist mission work in Europe at a time when America’s military presence was at a peak following the end of World War II and the Korean War, and with the conflict in Vietnam just heating up. It is full of detail about which church was started where and by whom. The interest much of this content generates for me as I read it today rivals the interest it generated for me as a four year old watching my parents work.

But the prologue and epilogue are different. They are snapshots of my father’s theology and serve as sign posts of the legacy he and Mom left to my three siblings and me. My book,  Finding Theo, begins with a quote from Dad’s epilogue in Scattered Abroad: “The farmer stands at the fountain head–he is closest to the source. He knows for sure ‘God sendeth the rain.'” This, in a phrase, captures just about all you need to know about my dad, who was raised on a farm in southwestern Oklahoma. I will write more about that another time.

Dad often commented, especially later in his career, how he would enjoy the opportunity to teach or mentor young preachers as they exited seminary about the practical aspects of being a pastor. Running a business meeting, preaching, officiating weddings and funerals, counseling, and the myriad of other tasks a pastor faces can be daunting, especially early in a career and can make the difference in success or failure.

When I learned about the Pathways to Ministry program at Wilshire Baptist Church, I knew it was exactly the sort of thing Dad envisioned. So, here I am with a book of my own fifty years after Dad published Scattered Abroad. I don’t know how many copies will be sold or given away. Whatever happens, I know the very first fruits of Finding Theo belong to the legacy my parents left as they helped people find their way, their calling, their great gift to a world in need. Learn more about Pathways to Ministry at http://www.wilshirebc.org/learn/pathways-to-ministry/. All the proceeds for sales of Finding Theo in hardback between now and May 6 benefit the Pathways Endowment fund.

In the prologue of Scattered Abroad, Dad refers to Romans 8:28 and says, “God will put the shattered pieces together–but this time in a new and more beautiful way.” Essentially, we wrote the same book.