FROM: Larry Vaughn
TO: Lance Vaughn, Link Vaughn
Sunday, July 10 @ 10:41 AM

Greetings! After three days of leisurely driving with our neighbors Joe and Pat Stroup, we have arrived at Prospect Harbor, Maine for vacation. Attached is a photo of the house we are occupying. It is foggy, chilly, and drizzly here. Hope it warms up, or at least, dries up! We will be available by cell phone if you need us, unless we are sleeping or taking a nap or sleeping.  We plan to leave here Friday, and arrive back in Atlanta Monday the 18th. Pardon me, I think I hear a lobster calling my name. Hope everyone is well.

House in Prospect Harbor, Maine

FROM: Lance Vaughn
July 11 @ 10:10 AM

I hope all is well with you!!! I will try to call you tonight!!!

FROM: Link Vaughn
July 11 @ 1:15 PM

Dad – Have a RESTFUL time! What is your cell phone number? For some reason, I do not have it… Be sure to check out Bill’s sermons on line… The last two weeks have been some of his best…

FROM: Link Vaughn
July 11 @ 4:13 PM

All three of the (Bill Barley) sermons on Acts have blown me away… #2 and #3 are especially good and appropriate for the struggles we all go through and the repentance required for each of us. God’s blessing and favor to you!

DAY ONE

FROM: Lance Vaughn
Saturday, July 16 @ 10:05 PM

Earlier this morning, our mother Lea was admitted to an emergency room in Connecticut for acute abdominal pain. She is in stable condition and has a morphine pump to help her manage the pain. The doctors are thinking pancreatitis, but will know more in the morning. Our dad (Larry) has been given a cot and will be spending the night in the room with her tonight.

So, the story goes: yesterday, Mom and Dad were on their way back from a vacation in Maine with their friends Pat and Joe when Joe began experiencing chest pains. He was admitted to the same hospital and is in stable condition and under observation. While Joe was being looked after yesterday, Mom was feeling ill and spent most of the day sleeping in the truck. When she awoke this morning feeling worse, Dad took her to the emergency room. You know as much as I do at this point.

In early summer of 2005, two middle aged couples, husband and wife, drove together from the Midwest to upper Maine for a two week vacation. The trip went just as they planned; occasional excursions to experience the lobster fishing culture of the area with plenty of time for reading, sketching and painting. Little did they know their lives would be forever changed by unexpected events that occurred during the return trip to Indiana.

Driving through Connecticut on the first day of their return trip, they were nearing the intended end of the first leg of leisurely travel back to central Indiana. Reservations had been made at a motel in Waterbury, just a short drive south of their present location on the Interstate highway south of downtown Hartford. They were looking forward to a nice, comfortable, dinner at the hotel’s renowned restaurant. Joe had been at the wheel all day when he, without a word, suddenly pulled the four-door pickup to the side of the highway, got out, and went around the rear to stand between the guardrail and truck.

As Larry stepped out of the passenger’s seat to approach Joe and find out what the problem was, he saw a look of panic on Joe’s face, and that he was clutching his hands to his chest. Joe was experiencing a heart attack.  In a matter of minutes, Joe was transferred by ambulance to an emergency room in Meriden, evaluated, and admitted to the Intensive Care Unit.

Later that night, after Joe was settled in, Lea and Larry decided they would rent a car the next day so they could resume the drive home. However, when they arose the following morning, Lea wasn’t feeling well to have breakfast. She said that her stomach was hurting her, indicating her lower right side. They both presumed it might be a recurrence of her occasional gall bladder flare up.  Lea’s pain got worse as the morning wore on; much worse. This might be the gall bladder attack their doctor had predicted for some time would convince her to have the gall bladder removed. What terrible timing!

But, they thought this attack would pass just as all the others had. During the drive to the hospital, Lea kept saying that she thought she might be feeling a little better. As they arrived in the parking lot outside the emergency entrance of the medical center she said she wanted to stay in the truck while Larry went in to get Pat so she could be taken back to the hotel to clean up after her all night stay in the waiting room. Larry went inside to get Pat, and upon their return to the truck a few minutes later, found Lea doubled up in the back seat moaning loudly. She had gotten sicker. Larry asked if she thought she needed to go to the hospital, and she replied that she needed help.

Larry lifted her down from the truck, while Pat took Lea’s right arm over her shoulder, and they helped her into a wheelchair in the admitting area. After several hours in the emergency room she was diagnosed with necrotizing pancreatitis, and admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. Her condition continued to severely worsen over the next two days. Her chance of survival was nil. The family was called in.

Meanwhile, she was airlifted to Hartford Hospital, a Tier One Trauma Center, where she remained for another six months, undergoing over thirty surgical procedures! Her heart stopped twice during her stay, requiring emergency procedures, one of which Larry witnessed bedside, and wrote about in the Update for that day. Her lungs failed twice during subsequent weeks, and she struggled desperately to regain control. Her survival chances were increased to 15%, then 40%, and finally rose to better than a 50% chance.

Over the 180 days of hospitalization, Larry remained at her side, documenting the daily travails they experienced as her condition worsened, improved, and worsened again. Larry distributed his daily “Updates” via email to family members and friends, who sent the messages on to others, until eventually there were perhaps thousands keeping track of Lea’s progress and Larry’s growing submission to the Lord’s will.

This series of communiques touched many hearts, causing many to rethink and renew their devotion to their family. Some stated that they returned to church for the first time in many years as a result of following Lea’s illness. Often readers, many of whom Larry has never met, shared their personal testimony with Larry via email to help him deal with the roller coaster emotions.  

This journal style publication is a compilation of Larry’s Updates and other emails sent between family members and friends with insight into their behind-the-scene efforts and concerns. Each entry lists the sender, and the day/time the email was sent. A reader is pulled into the story by the drama in the emails sent back and forth, asking for prayer for Lea and Joe. Then, a few days after Lea’s attack Larry sent out the first daily Update.

The journal continues with his Updates over the full six months of hospitalization. Experience the day by day drama and miraculous healing given Lea Vaughn, and marvel at Larry’s journey of faith as he documented her 180 days in Hartford Hospital.