THE RALLYING PLAN
Instant tragedy and lifelong recovery helps unite a family
BY:ANNE HOSANSKY
Photography by Fran Collin
The saying that your whole life can change in an instant was never more true than on an April afternoon in 2003, when 25-year-old Jim Vanecek of Lyons, Illinois, was driving his toddler daughter Caleigh home from their outing at the zoo. Suddenly, a stolen car driven by a teenager fleeing the police crashed head-on into Jim's vehicle. By the time an ambulance got Jim and Caleigh to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Jim wasn't breathing. Doctors revived him, but tests showed he had a severe brain injury. Caleigh, just a year and a half old, had a dislocated collarbone and soon recovered. For Jim, however, recovery continues nearly five years later.
At the time of the accident, Jim's sister Victoria, who is five years his junior, was working at the gym as a trainer. She heard the radio broadcast something about a "major accident," but she had no idea her brother was involved—until she was summoned to the phone to hear a frantic message from their mother. The police had called from the hospital to alert them: "Better get here right away!"
Neither woman was prepared for what they found. "Jim was hooked up to a machine," Victoria says, "tubes coming out of him everywhere" and he was in a drug-induced coma to sedate him—a coma that lasted 30 days.
His divorced parents, Kathy and Jim Sr., and his siblings, Victoria and then-16-year-old brother John, united to keep vigil over Jim, who had recently been divorced. Jim's older sister, Valerie, flew in from her home in Las Vegas, but because of the distance wouldn't be able to provide ongoing daily assistance.
"My brother used to be so vibrant, he'd be bouncing off the walls," Victoria says. "It was difficult to see him lying there so emotionless." She kept trying to connect with him and keep him informed about his kids—in addition to Caleigh, Jim has a son James, who was five at the time. "I'd talk about how he was going to get out of this. I'd talk about God, too." The family's Catholic and, as Kathy says, "We've all become a little more prayerful."
It was touch and go for weeks, including two bouts of pneumonia when Jim's lungs became infected. After a month, doctors brought him out of the coma, discharging him after a total of 40 days in the hospital. But his condition was precarious—unable to walk or speak beyond a mumble. "He couldn't feed himself or go to the bathroom by himself," says Victoria. Jim went from the hospital into a nursing facility, but the first day there he fell and hit his head. His horrified mother declared, "He's coming home with me!"
To provide the exhaustive care Jim needed, Kathy took a six-month leave of absence from her shipping-company job and Victoria dropped out of her college classes, coming each week from her home in nearby Brookfield. "We had to feed him, change him; it was like caring for a young child," Victoria says. Fortunately, they had professional help from an aunt, Jean Palumbo, who's a registered nurse.
But there wasn't much help with the quarter of a million dollars in hospital bills! Jim, an electrical engineer, had lost his job shortly before the accident. His father, who works for the Chicago Board of Education, had helped him get a job as a math teacher, but the employment was too recent for health coverage to have kicked in. Jim now had to have extensive therapy for various functions, including speech. "Each time I took him to a therapist or doctor, I had to pay the out-of-pocket expenses," Kathy says. "I went through all my savings." Jim Sr., who owns the house Kathy rents, helped out by foregoing rent for the duration.
Kathy went from agency to agency, pleading for financial assistance. Social Security rejected Jim, but after about 18 months he was able to get on Medicaid.
At the same time, lawyers were finally able to negotiate with the state of Illinois to pick up the hospital bill, with the proviso that a portion of any settlement from the car insurance would go to the state, which would receive the entire amount if Jim were to die. A small amount is in a trust fund for Jim, but it's a mere "stipend," says a bitter Kathy, who now fervently supports the need for universal health coverage.
"We flew by the seat of our pants," she says. "It's amazing how resilient you can be." For instance, Jim couldn't stand up in the shower and the tub seat was only on loan. "So we improvised and put a lawn chair into the tub."
After a year, Jim took his first steps. Speech therapy enabled him to communicate more. "If you stay with him, you can see where [his conversation] is going," Kathy says.
Even during that first year, Jim was aware of how the accident had changed him. "He'd get down in the dumps," Kathy says. To cheer him, she kept inviting his children to the house. "Jim would brighten whenever he saw them." And aunts and uncles phoned and visited. "Jim's expression changed when someone walked in. He knew he was still loved."
But the family realizes Jim will never be the person he was. "That's been the hardest thing for us to accept," says Victoria. "He was so brilliant, a mathematical genius. But now he loses track of things, can't remember what he went into a room for. He loses a lot of memories." Also, she says frankly, there are anger issues. "He gets aggravated easily, and explodes because he's frustrated. That's what we're focusing on now. I tell him, ‘If something upsets you, sit down. Eventually, you'll get over it.'"
Because of this "social aspect," as she calls it, and his physical limitations, Jim's unable to hold a job. But he's become a volunteer with Helping Hand, an organization that collects clothing and other items, which are then sold to benefit handicapped children. Jim works there several days a week, sorting and packing donated clothes. It's good for him to interact with people, Victoria says. "He was a very social person. But most of his friends stay away; it's hard for them to see he isn't ‘good old Jimmy.'" She tries to fill the void by "just hanging out with him."
Victoria is listed on records as the official caregiver. In 2007, Kathy took "a sabbatical of sorts" and moved temporarily to a town near Raleigh, North Carolina, to explore ministerial work. Since Jim still has memory loss, his brother has moved in to keep watch over him.
But Jim is increasingly determined to do things on his own. "His attitude is: ‘Just because I can't do things I used to before, it doesn't mean I can't do something,'" Victoria says. He's linked up with the national Brain Trauma Foundation because he wants to "give back" in gratitude for having survived. Last April 14, the fourth anniversary of his accident, he embarked on a 500-mile walk from his Illinois home to Kansas City, Missouri, to raise money for the foundation and to heighten awareness of the effects of TBI. His father posted an appeal on the Internet for volunteers to join him, but Jim insisted on making the trek with only one "very good companion"-his dog, Fujo.
"We were all scared about his doing this," Victoria admits. "But it was encouraging that he wanted to do more for himself. He had two cell phones with him, and we monitored his progress to make sure he didn't get off track." At one point, John went to check up on Jim.
A determined Jim completed the entire walk in 40 days-the same amount of time he'd spent in the hospital! "My brother's a remarkable person," Victoria says proudly, "with what he's gone through and to want to help other people." There's something else that's "remarkable," adds his mother. When you look in Jim's eyes, she says, "You see hope."