View full sizePaul "Steve" Gaylord, shown here before he contracted the plague from his cat, still faces weeks in the hospital and more time after that in rehabilitation.His doctors expected the worst. His family braced for the end. But beating the odds,
now faces a new beginning.
The 59-year-old Prineville man hospitalized in critical condition with
in June is out of intensive care. Next week, doctors will sever the top half of his fingers. They'll also cut off the tips of his toes. He'll never be able to work again as a welder.
But Gaylord is just grateful to be alive.
"They tell me I'm doing really good considering," he said Tuesday in a telephone conversation from his hospital bed at
. "I do feel lucky. I'm going to have a long row to hoe but at least I have one."
Family members, who have camped by his side since he was hospitalized June 9, are overjoyed. They thought they would lose him.
"His heart stopped," said his mother, Almeda Gaylord. "His lung collapsed. They told us he wasn't going to make it."
Gaylord spent nearly a month on life support, suffering from a disease that wiped out whole villages in the Middle Ages. Although the plague is rare -- he's the 17th person sickened in Oregon since 1934 -- the bacteria never vanished.
To help
Paul Gaylord's family has set up an account in his name at US Bank for donations. People also can make contributions online via PayPal to
. His niece Andrea Gibb is managing the account. She said the family has raised less than $8,000 and needs $30,000 to build a home.
Gaylord was infected by a cat named Charlie that most likely was infected by a flea, which can carry the plague. Charlie came home one day choking with a mouse stuck in the back of his mouth. Gaylord tried to pull the mouse out and in the process, Charlie bit him. When he couldn't help the cat, Gaylord borrowed a weapon from a neighbor and put Charlie out of his pain.
Public health officials sent the cat's body to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It confirmed that Charlie had the plague. But tests on 18 other dogs and cats in the neighborhood and at the local shelter turned up negative.
That indicates the disease isn't widespread in Crook County, said Emilio DeBess, state public health veterinarian.
Gaylord never even considered the plague. He thought he had the flu when he developed a high fever two days after the bite. He sought help from the veteran's clinic in Bend, which turned him away. He ended up getting antibiotics from an urgent care clinic in Redmond. Several days later, when the lymph nodes under his arms swelled to the size of lemons, doctors rushed him to the hospital.
He remembers little after doctors put him on life support in the ICU. "I was delirious," he said. "Things didn't seem real. The clock ran backwards."
His days passed in a haze of hallucinations. Doctors warned his family members that they might face a decision about whether to continue life support.
"We were planning his demise," said Diana Gaylord, Paul's sole sibling who lives in Prineville.
Paul Gaylord's son flew in from Austin, Texas, to say goodbye. The family called the hospital's chaplain. Gaylord had always wanted to be baptized, so they held a ceremony in intensive care about a week after he entered the hospital.
With Gaylord unconscious, tied to a web of tubes, the chaplain read the liturgy and performed the rite. He took a ball of cotton, dipped it into a tiny pitcher and traced the sign of the cross on Gaylord's forehead, hands and feet.
Hours later, doctors told his family that he had improved.
"It was a miracle," Diana Gaylord said.
His progress has been bumpy but steady. About a week ago, Gaylord was moved out of ICU into a private room, his baptism certificate near his side. He has lots of visitors, and enjoys the company.
"He likes us taking care of him," Diana Gaylord said.
He's learning how to use a spoon that's attached to his wrist. On Monday, doctors will sever the withered, blackened ends of his fingers and tips of his toes. The plague causes an infection that kills cells. Fingers and toes can become gangrenous.
Gaylord will have to learn how to walk again and use his hands.
"It will be a long rehab," he said. "I have to learn to do everything again."
He will need a new place to live. The single-wide manufactured home that he's lived in with his wife, two dogs and another cat isn't suitable for someone with a weakened immune system. The roof leaks. Mice sneak in and leave droppings. The entrance isn't easily accessible.
Andrea Gibb, Gaylord's niece, has has set up an account at US Bank and an email at
for donations of money and construction materials.
They hope to get the house built before he leaves the hospital. That could be weeks, even months away. But it won't be a year, as his family had feared.
They're with him daily, giving him back rubs, keeping his mood up. His mother parked her motor home in the hospital's parking lot and spends her days with her only son.
Next Tuesday, she will turn 82. She's thankful she won't be spending it in an ICU room or worse: mourning her son.
"I've never been a happier mother," she said. "This is the best (present) I could ever have."
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