Tuesday, April 18th, was one of those days you hear people worriedly discuss in hushed tones, but hope you never experience.
For several days, my wife, Natalie West, had been under the weather. That in itself wasn’t out of the ordinary as she suffered from Autoimmune Encephalitis, Cushing’s Disease, Diabetes, and daily complicated migraines. To keep her Encephalitis at bay instead of causing inflammation in her brain, she was forced to take medication that kept her immune system at a minimum. This had the unfortunate side effect of making her susceptible to every virus she came in contact with. She was often sick, and it took her much longer to recover. This time was no different. She felt terrible over the weekend, so we took her to Heart of the Rockies Regional Medical Center on Monday, April 17th, where they diagnosed her with viral pneumonia and admitted her to the ICU.
After several respiratory treatments and antibiotics, she said was starting to feel better. When my 14-year-old son and I visited her that afternoon, she was in good spirits and thought they were going to move her out of the ICU and into a normal room. She was only planning on staying in the hospital for a few days. The three of us laughed, talked, and when my son and I left that night, we promised to come back and visit the next day with cheeseburgers—her favorite. Natalie and I even talked on the phone that night and I told her to “try and rest and feel better so you can come home soon. I love you.”
It all felt very normal, but we had no idea that everything was about to change.
Tuesday morning, April 19th, after I had dropped my son at school, my phone rang, and I heard the statement all of us dread: “You better get down here. Right now.”
During the night, Natalie had aspirated into her lungs, which were already overworked fighting the pneumonia, and her heart couldn’t keep up. She went into full cardiac arrest. The doctors and nurses performed CPR for 12 minutes and managed to resuscitate her. She was intubated and placed in a medical coma to help her body heal. We were all hopeful that Natalie would be fine. Just like always. But this time she didn’t wake up. The decision to transfer her to to UCHealth Memorial in Colorado Springs came quickly as they were better equipped to deal with her as a level one trauma center.
The day I arrived in Colorado Springs, Natalie’s Neurologist warned me that her brain had been damaged by the hypoxia due to her cardiac arrest. Hope was in short supply, but it wasn’t non-existent. They wanted to monitor her for a few days to see if she would wake up on her own, but there really wasn’t anything they could do for her. There was no surgery, no medication, no magic pill that could reverse the damage. Even if she did come back, there was no guarantee that she would be the same woman I knew and loved.
I had seen her fight through so many illnesses and surgeries. My wife was tough. I would not accept that we had reached the end of our story. I sat alone in the ICU with her for days talking about anything I could think of. I cried, I told her stories, I poured out my soul to her… saying anything I could think of, hoping that she could hear me and find her way out of the coma, if not for me, for her 14-year-old son Jack and 23-year-old son Garson.
But Natalie didn’t wake up. She couldn’t.
On Sunday, April 23rd, surrounded by her family, we spoke with Natalie’s Neurologist one final time and learned that the damage was so severe that there was no hope of regaining consciousness. I knew she wouldn’t want to live like that, and as her husband, ultimately the decision fell to me.
I chose to let Natalie go.
Then something wonderful happened. As they were preparing for Natalie’s end of life care, woman from the Donor Alliance pulled me aside and informed me that my wife had chosen to be an organ donor. The statement shocked me as I knew she had always been against the idea. I had teased her that there was no reason not to be a donor, after all, what was she going to do with them after she was gone? Apparently, I had changed her mind. Through her decision, her passing meant something. She helped others on what could have been their darkest days… and I love that. She would have loved that. Her decision to be a donor was a gift for many including me.
Natalie Jean West was born on September 4th, 1977, in Twin Falls, Idaho, and passed on April 25th, 2023, at the age of 45 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She was a daughter, sister, wife, mother, aunt, and best friend to so many.
She suffered almost every day of the 15 years we were married from daily complicated migraines, yet she fought through it. For me. For her two boys. For her family. For her friends. For herself. She would do anything to help anyone. She was a vibrant, beautiful, unique, and kind soul that made every person she touched better in some way. She was my best friend and she made me stronger. Natalie taught me to believe in myself because she believed in me.
I miss her so much, and I love her in ways that I am unable to fully articulate, but I am also incredibly proud of her.
In a world of horses, Natalie was a zebra.
