WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM HIS FRIENDS
A son of the '60s benefits from the love generation
BY:JEAN JOHNSON, PHD
"Well," says David McKee, thinking about the seizures that plague him and pausing the extra moment it takes to collect his thoughts since a stroke paralyzed his left side three years ago, "when there's enough warning, I can get to my bed where I'll be safe. But if there's no time, the thing just launches me out of my wheelchair."
The bruises and battle scars from winding up on the floor when "the thing"—a seizure—strikes, though, haven't been too high a price for 65-year-old McKee to pay for his independence. Indeed, while the man is soft spoken, the four decades he spent hiking, skiing and rafting in the backcountry of the American West appear to have toughened him sufficiently to endure what others might never consider possible.
"When I come to, I can usually crawl to the phone and call Bob Goforth," says McKee. "He does carpentry and roofing out of his home shop five minutes down the road, so he's around pretty much if I need help."
A workable system, perhaps, for friends who came of age in the Sixties and live in a small community 15 miles outside of Flagstaff, Arizona. Then again, just when you think you've got things sorted out, life has a way of upping the ante.
"Unfortunately, when this latest seizure hit—they seem to come about every six weeks—I got stuck under my wheelchair and couldn't reach the phone," McKee says. "I lay on the floor seventeen hours before someone stopped by and found me."
While McKee reports no lasting physical effects from that experience, the panic and fear that possessed him while he was trapped made an impression. "That was the worst part," he confesses. "I worried that everyone would decide I couldn't live here alone anymore, that they would stuff me back into that ‘weirdo' assisted-living place—like when I had my stroke."
Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of McKee's stroke, professionals in charge of his case repeatedly questioned the wisdom of his trying to live independently with a little help from his friends. Even with an exceptionally well-meaning and highly organized support group, the doctors and therapists maintained, he would need more help with the activities of daily living than he could realistically expect from friends who had their own lives and jobs.
The standoff back then ended in a compromise. McKee endured a six-week physical therapy stint in the nursing home wing of an assisted-living facility. When that ended, his pals drove their impaired buddy back home to his digs—a single-wide trailer on a chunk of Ponderosa pine forest in full view of Northern Arizona's spectacular San Francisco Peaks.
"Getting stroked out is bad enough. You want to try and keep what you have left going the best you can," McKee reflects. "For me, that's my life here at my hooch. It's always been the place everyone's come. I can crank up Bob Dylan when I want. And there's my library of books and hiking maps, plus the coffee always being on and beer in the fridge."
As it turned out, there was no mention of waving the white flag in the aftermath of the latest seizure. "Everyone was cool. Kevin Whalen, another of my friends, got me a second phone and duct-taped it to the arm of my wheelchair," McKee notes, adding with his understated humor, "I should be able to dial out if this chair attacks me again."
Whalen and Goforth are only half of McKee's unique team of caregivers. Michael Schabacher and Steve Kilmer, also longtime friends and community residents, round out the hardy, off-the-beaten-path quartet. The wives of these men also have helped out, but it's mainly the male constituency that's provided the long-term ballast on which McKee relies. In part, that's because he's needed at least as much carpentry and plumbing work as he's needed help with daily activities. "But it's worked out," says Goforth. "When one of us gets burned out, someone else steps in. All of us have sort of feathered back and forth that way."
"It's all been pretty amazing," McKee says. "First, they worked my singlewide over for wheelchair access. Then, once we sprung me out of the nursing home, we realized that my old digs were pretty small for a wheelchair." After someone spotted a doublewide—14x70 feet and light-filled-for sale, the troops rallied around to get it set up on his land and adapt it for his wheelchair. "It all took about a year, since everyone works fulltime jobs, but eventually they even scrounged up a washer and dryer. Now I can do my own laundry."
The unorchestrated yet steady beat of the Sixties goes on with respect to other aspects of McKee's semi-independent home life as well. "Schabacher works in Flagstaff, so he's the one that mostly does my drugstore runs and sees that the beer doesn't run out-the important stuff," McKee says, squinting his blue-green Scottish eyes into a smile. "Then Kilmer usually takes the trash out, and whoever's around helps me change the bottom sheet on my bed. On the food scene, my ex-wife got Schwann's frozen-food service started for me, and I can do my own cooking and dishes. I can sweep up some, too, when it needs it."
McKee also pays his own bills and writes the occasional letter in a laborious, slanted script that reveals how much, as he puts its, "my brain has been scrambled." When it comes to personal care, though-things like keeping the full beard he's had since the Sixties trimmed or ensuring he gets his clothes on the right way-things tend to slip a bit. Yet, even there, McKee is characteristically upbeat.
"I do mix up the holes on my shirts sometimes, but if it's too bad, someone will help me straighten it out when they stop by. And I hooked a small carabiner on the laces of my right boot so I can remember which foot to put it on."
Only when pressed does McKee run his good hand through his shock of white hair and speak of minor difficulties. "Yeah, my hair and beard are a problem, actually. My ex-wife trimmed them when she was here at Christmas. Goforth has too, but they grow so fast. My ex will do it any time, but she has to fly all day to get here. Right now, she's trying to see if I can pay one of her friends to come out from town with some scissors, so that might work out. I'm sure any one of my friends would do it too, if I asked them, but I'd rather not." Ditto with fingernails, toenails and showers. "I guess my nails get a little long sometimes, but not too bad. And I can clean up pretty well without taking a shower."
McKee agrees that a good shower feels great. Then again, he's read enough history to realize that he's not the first person to get by with only a Saturday-night bath.
More to the point, impaired as some of his cognition is, McKee's mind works sufficiently well for him to keep his priorities clearly in place. "The main thing is that I'm able to stay home and I have enough friends around to keep things down to a dull roar. It seems to work for them, and it works for me."
The real reason it's worked, though, Goforth points out, "is because we've always gone over to McKee's. If it'd been any other single person, it never would have happened."
Clearly, all the hardcore years-the learning how to put one foot in front of the other no matter how steep the trail or how inclement the weather-has paid off for David McKee and company. "The thing is," says Kevin Whalen, his Forest Service buddy who worked with McKee for 20-some years on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, "Davy's back home where he wants to be-and where we want him to be. It's the least we can do for one of our own. Plus, without him and his digs, we wouldn't have a place to hang out."