FUSsa-talk Mailing List: Fw: Ideas and Resources for Tim Barger--and an update

[Carol Koepp (carolkoepp]

This is from Wendy Andberg.  She has my suggestion a little wrong, but close.  
I suggested the collection nest week could go to Tim, not the social justice 
collection.  Bill Weir's list of resources really sound good.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Wendy Andberg 
To: minister [at] firstunitariansociety.org 
Cc: 'Wendy Andberg' 
Sent: Monday, April 20, 2009 12:21 AM
Subject: Ideas and Resources for Tim Barger--and an update


 
Other very important message:  Fred Olson's mother just died; he has been with 
her in Iowa for two weeks, and today Becca Brackett, Andrew, and some other 
relatives drove down.

 

Hello, everyone.  

 

I am writing to people at FUS who asked what they could do for Tim, and who 
said they would talk about the situation in their group meetings.  I do not 
have e-mail addresses for everyone I'd like to send this to, and trust that 
each of you will forward this to anyone else at FUS that you believe should 
have the information, including your own committees, board, and staff.  Updates:

 

  a.. Jewel, Tim Barger's girlfriend, called me, at his request, yesterday 
(Saturday), followed by an update call this morning (Sunday).  When I tried to 
reach Jewel about 5:00 p.m. today, she handed the phone to Tim, so I have 
another update.  I talked to him, and said that, when he is ready, we have some 
resources for him, when the medical bills come.  He said, "I will declare that 
I am indigent, which I really am, anyway."  Also, "I need a good personal 
injury lawyer" to deal with what happened to me in the ER."  Finally, he said, 
"I'm not dealing with this until the big bill comes."  Of course-he has so much 
to focus on now. 
 

  a.. The other updates are that: 
 

(a) Bill Weir sat down with me at the FUS after-the-service social hour and 
provided the list of resources that is attached.

 

(b) Sue Tincher told me at an afternoon activity that Jim was planning to 
canvas FUS people to raise some money for Tim and his 

     expenses.

 

(c) Carol Koepp also suggested the possibility of diverting to Tim the Social 
Action Committee collection at next week's service.  

 

Here's the background and the rest of the update:

 

If you missed the Adele Hanson's announcement in the FUS service today, here's 
a quick summary:

 

Jewel Dijohn, Tim Barger's girlfriend, called me yesterday (Saturday) afternoon 
to tell me that Tim was undergoing emergency surgery, to remove a tumor from 
his spine, and to graft bone from his hip to his spine.  This apparently came 
on suddenly.  I had not known that he had back problems in August.  Tim went to 
Philadelphia to visit Jewel on Thursday, and then they planned to travel 
together to NYC to participate in his final session (of nine, over three years) 
and to graduate from The Humanist Institute (THI) in NYC.  

 

On Thursday, the day he arrived, his "back went out." He slept on the floor at 
her house Thursday night.  Then Friday, they were going someplace (perhaps the 
THI-I'm not sure), he tried to step up onto the train and felt excruciating, 
shooting pain in his left leg and part of his right leg.  Jewel called an 
ambulance, which took him to her choice of hospital.

 

The doctor he saw in the ER saw nothing on an MRI, and told him to go home.  
Jewel protested that she could not take care of him, being disabled herself, 
and, by then, he could not even walk-nor could he feel his left leg or part of 
his right leg.  She told the doctor, "Then I'll let you take him out and put 
him on the sidewalk.  We are staying in the hospital." Tim and Jewel put their 
heads together, and asked for a specialist.  I don't know all the details here; 
I assume it was a neurologist.  That doctor took another MRI and told Tim he 
had to have surgery immediately, if he didn't want to be paralyzed for life.  

 

He is in the right hospital, with the right doctor; it is a "neuroscience" 
hospital.  Tim is very lucky he was in Philadelphia when this happened-because 
of the doctor and hospital, as well as the fact that he is with Jewel and she 
can take care of him.  Coincidentally, and strangely, really, Jewel had a 
nearly identical surgery two years ago:  She, too, had a tumor on her spine, 
growing out of a nerve.  (She did not have a bone graft, however.)  The tumor 
was removed in this hospital; because she did not have help at home, she went 
to a rehabilitation hospital before going home.  She plans to take care of Tim 
at her home after he is released from this hospital; during the course of her 
recovery, she had her bathroom retrofitted, so it is accessible by a disabled 
person.  Also, by the way, she is still on Social Security disability and 
unable to work-after two years-because she is having so much follow-up work and 
experiences chronic pain.  Not a good prognosis.  I told Jewel, "Tim needs 
you," and she said, "I need him." She said he is so worried about money that 
she said "I'll clean toilets for the rest of my life to help him with this."  
She takes care of her parents, who live with her, and still has children at 
home.

 

In any case, the surgery went well, and, in her call to me this morning, before 
I went to FUS, Jewel said they were taking tubes out and he was being moved 
from ICU to the next lower-care unit.  What she didn't know yet, however, 
because they hadn't seen a doctor, is whether he was able to move his legs or 
"wiggle his toes."  When I called this afternoon to check on that, she handed 
the phone to Tim.  I verified that he had the tumor removed and the bone graft, 
and he said, "You know more than I know then." He said he can just barely 
wiggle toes, but that's it; he took that as a good sign.  He expects to see the 
doctor tomorrow and hopes to know more about whether he'll be able to walk.  Of 
course, we still have to wait for the results of the biopsy on the tumor.  

 

Tim also said today that he has no idea if or when he can come back to FUS or 
how long any recovery and healing will take. He has no idea when he can be 
anywhere; just taking one day at a time, and there is no other choice, of 
course.  I told Tim that Adele made an announcement about his situation, and I 
told him everything she said to the congregation; also, I said, people gasped 
and groaned to hear the news, and some were crying (me).  Further, I said, 
many, many people asked what they could do to help him.  While he was talking 
to me, he said he is always the one taking care of other people, and he had 
absolutely no idea how many people loved and supported him, and he started 
crying.  My hope is that we can all inundate him with cards and flowers and 
notes of good wishes.

 

>From the bad news to more bad news:  Tim has told me that he has huge student 
>loans, coming due in May (next month), and that he has no medical insurance. 
>Also, as you would know, because he did not "pass" his interview with the 
>Ministerial Fellowship Committee, about which he told the congregation 
>recently, his plan to become a settled minister has been delayed at least 
>another year-another delay in earning a full-time income, which was already 
>more than a year off, given the timing of the applications and candidacy.  
>Also, he has more work to do-another internship or hospital chaplaincy or 
>something.  

 

Kendyl and his ministerial internship committee (Kendrick Davies, Scott Eller, 
Mibs Pearson, and Jerry Edwards, and I as chair) know, perhaps better than 
anyone, except Jewel, just how much work and studying he packed in this year, 
during his internship.  He is supposed to graduate from Meadville-Lombard 
Seminar (in Chicago) in May and did the three-year fast-track program there 
during his three-year enrollment in The Humanist Institute; on top of that, he 
was reading, studying, and doing a number of activities to prepare for the 
Ministerial Fellowship Committee interview and decision this month.  Also, as 
you may recall, his mother died this year, and he "presided" at her funeral 
with his five siblings.  

 

I feel comfortable sharing all this with FUS people because I have told him 
everything, except people's suggestions for how we can raise money, and he 
doesn't need to know that now.  Jewel is contacting one person in each group, 
e.g., FUS, family, to spread the word on updates about Tim.  She talked to 
Kendyl and then called me, presumably because I am the chair of his internship 
committee, and he and I are friends from my first year in The Humanist 
Institute.  I am happy to be able to help in some way, even if it's just 
serving as a communicator.  A few weeks ago when our daughter Brie lost her 
condo she owns in a fire, Tim was there in an instant and spent the evening 
with us; when people were telling Brie all the things she had to do, Tim took 
out a piece of paper and wrote it all down for her.  He is a good man, a 
wonderful friend, a fine minister, and I adore him, and can't stop thinking 
about him.  My only regret with Tim this year is that I would loved to have 
spent more time with him, showed him around the Twin Cities, etc., but he was 
always studying, preparing a sermon, reading for his interview, writing a 
paper, etc. I wouldn't wish what happened to him on anyone, but the teeny 
consolation is he has time off to reflect and restore himself.

 

Anyone with other ideas about what we can do to help, including raising money, 
let's go for it!  I'm happy to be a communications conduit, unless it makes 
more sense for this to happen in a committee or the board or somewhere else.  
It seems a good role for a ministerial internship committee. I recommend, 
however, that we all continue to communicate and coordinate efforts.  As I 
wrote earlier, please pass this on to others; for some reason, I can't find my 
FUS directory, and I know I am missing people.

 

Thank you and love to you all, 

 

Wendy

 

 

 

 

Wendy Andberg
(763) 757-0161 Home
(763) 244-3334 Office
(763) 322-0351 Fax
wendya [at] perftours.com
www.perftours.com
 
Carpe diem.