Red Lake family’s burden grows

 

 

By Howie Padilla

Star Tribune

 

      FARGO, N.D. -- For almost six weeks, Jodi May struggled with sleepless nights, stressful days and the ceaseless run of emotions that she felt after her son was shot while trying to stop the Red Lake High School shooting spree.

      A bus driver for the school district, she lived through the second deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. Then, as her 15-year-old son, Jeff, endured flashbacks, she relived it often while keeping him company in a North Dakota hospital room.

      Family members believe that on April 30, the stress became too much.

      "She had always been busy, but she was a healthy woman," said Barbara Fox, Jodi May's mother.

      That morning, Jodi sent her best friend, Irene Green, across the street to Jeff's bedside with a bundle of fresh clothes. That was a good thing in itself, because it meant that Jeff was no longer wearing the backless blue hospital gowns that were his wardrobe for his first month in the hospital.

      Irene's daughter Willa stayed behind with Jodi, who went to the bathroom to get herself ready for another day.

      "I wasn't gone for more than about 10 minutes," Green said. "When I came back there was all this commotion in the room."

      Jodi May was on the bathroom floor of the hotel where she and her family were staying, a stroke and heart attack victim who needed to be rushed across the street to the emergency room at Fargo's MeritCare hospital.

      The night before, she had complained to her mother of feeling dizzy.

      "There she was, right across from the hospital and we never even thought to have her checked out," Fox said.

     

Decisions to make

      Now, there were two Mays fighting for their lives. Doctors met with Jodi May's children and told them the prognosis wasn't good. She could survive another 48 hours without surgery, they said, and there was no guarantee that the surgery would be a success.

      Shane May, her eldest son, recalled how "they said she might end up like that Terri Schiavo lady," referring to the brain-damaged Florida woman whose family fought bitterly over whether to allow her feeding tube to be removed before she died in March.

      He gathered his siblings, including 20-year-old Trisha, 16-year-old Tony and 9-year-old Ashley, along with other family members. As a group, they decided that in the end there really wasn't a decision to be made.

      "We weren't just going to let her pass like that," said Shane, 21. "We had to give her a fighting chance."

      She is now listed in critical condition.

      Someone had to break the news to Jeff. Several family members and friends told him -- together. It was Irene Green who told him most of the details.

      "He had a real tough time at first," Shane said.

      Initially, Jeff was angry at not being able to see his mother, but before long he once again became the pillar of strength for his family members to rally around, said Shane, a pit boss at the Red Lake band's casino in Thief River Falls.

      Jeff May had been shot in the face when he tried to tackle schoolmate Jeff Weise during the March 21 shooting spree, during which Weise killed 10 people, including himself. May, a ninth-grader, was one of two students critically wounded and flown to Fargo. He suffered a stroke that family members feared would leave the left side of his body paralyzed.

      As part of his recovery, Jeff May has been moved to another MeritCare facility in Fargo, where he is in satisfactory condition and able to ride a van for the 3-mile trip to see his mother, where she is still in the intensive-care unit.

      The visits are squeezed between rehab assignments that involve everything from strengthening his limbs to speaking exercises.

      With a week passed since Jodi's surgery, her loved ones have seen what they believe to be signs that she will recover.

      Doctors have removed the tube that was connected to drain fluid from her head.

      "She gives us the thumbs up or down when we ask her questions," Trisha said, the same communication Jeff used during the earliest stages of his recovery.

      "She opens her eyes," Shane added. "She squeezes our hands when we ask her to."

      No one can say with certainty that she understands everything they say. But they believe.

      "I don't regret any decisions we made," said her mother, Barbara Fox.

     

Brother takes over

      Shane May has taken over Jodi's role of keeping the family together. He is the spokesman and the decision-maker, the family's main contact with the hospital. The casino has given him an extended leave of absence.

      He has adopted the optimism that people around the hospital had come to expect from Jodi May. He talks about being thankful that the stroke happened in Fargo.

      If it had happened while she was at her house in Redby, on the Red Lake Reservation, she might have been treated in Bemidji, four hours from Jeff's side.

      If it had happened on her drive from Redby to Fargo, she might have died.

      With a nod to Shane, Barbara Fox said she has found a new level of respect for him.

      "He's really doing a great job," she said.

      Shane welcomes the challenge, if for no other reason than to take the stress off the others.

      "I'm up to the task," he said. "I'm confident and they have confidence in me."

      Said Trisha May, "For a long time, we didn't have a father figure around. We'd just go to [Shane]."

      What Shane can't do is replace things the stroke has stolen. It robbed Jodi of chances to witness milestones of her son's recovery.

      Ten days before her stroke, watching Jeff stand for the first time, with the help of three therapists, Jodi almost came to tears.

      "It's amazing," she said. "I can't wait to see him take his first steps."

      That happened Thursday.