Another Hospital Stay for My Wife: C.O.P. (Correctional Officer in Prison)

One thing that really disappointed me while I was working at CIW (California Institution for Women) is if there was an emergency call from home you generally didn't get the message right away. Cell phones were not allowed and in the early days when I first started work there cell phones had not even been invented yet. I don't even remember the first year they came out but I know they didn't start to get popular to the late 90's to where everyone started getting them. And when they did, I remember the first staff that got busted using one in a tower and was fired for using it. With that in mind I wouldn't have brought one in myself, even when they did become available, just because I did not want to be caught and fired for doing so.

I guess on that particular day someone from our church was coming over to take my wife Lori and kids to a church activity that was going on that day. When Lori answered the door I guess she hadn't been feeling well, anyway, from the symptoms of her Lupus, so I suppose just getting up too fast and her blood pressure problems didn't help any. As she opened the door, and turned to walk away to get the kids, she lost consciousness and fell over the coffee table. Her church friend immediately called 911 and the paramedics rushed her to the hospital.

I believe her church friend called my work around 8 or 9 in the morning but I didn't get the message until around noon or later. I don't remember if it was the sergeant or someone else that told me but when I got home and found out she had been in the hospital for 4 hours already I was not too happy. The message that I got from the institution was that I needed to go home because my wife was sick. When I got home and found no one home, I panicked, but then I remembered about the church activity, so I called the lady in our church to see if they were still at the activity. That is when I found out her friend was taking care of the kids and that Lori was in the hospital.

I confronted this particular sergeant, Sergeant Jester (name changed) of why he did not let me know about my wife until 4 hours later and he said that he did not take the call, that it was someone else that took it. I don't know if I ever believed him fully because he was kind of a scatter brain sergeant and appeared like he was on drugs as it was. In fact, I believe he was fired years later for possession of drugs or anyway that was the rumor, whether it was true or not is a different story.

When I got to the hospital that day Lori was very, very sick. And this was going to be one of many hospital stays that she would have before her death on November 11, 2003. But before that happened she came very close to the gates of death several times but was too stubborn to die prematurely. She wanted to see all of her kids all grown, which she almost achieved, or could say she did because Tiny Tim was 16 when she died. I guess it depends on how you define grown. Timmy never grew another inch at age 16, at his present height of 5'9. So in that way you could say all her kids were fully grown.

I was to miss a lot of work because of my wife but because of the good benefits and the sick time I accumulated on a monthly basis I was able to, most of the time, get a full pay check. Sometimes I was able to go months without her being sick so I was able to build up my sick leave so when she did get sick I would still get a full check. I accomplished this as well, because I was able to use all of my vacation time and time I accumulated working on holidays. And there were times when I was involved with sports (basketball and volleyball) that I got injured myself playing in recreation leagues so I can't blame my wife for all the time I was off work. Luckily, because of the good state benefits and the time I accumulated I was able get enough money for our family to get by.

The most most important thing was that the Lord extended Lori's life as long as He did so that she was able to reach out and accomplish most all of the goals she had set out in her life.