Carbon monoxide poisoning: Ginger Aldrich comes back, one step at a time
Published: Sunday, January 29, 2006
By Jill Fahy
Free Press Staff Writer
Ginger Aldrich talks to Jeff Rodliff these days the only way she can -- in the quiet of her own thoughts.
Before drifting off to sleep each night, Aldrich tells Rodliff "good night," and "I love you." Upon waking, she bids the man she loved, and lost a year ago Monday, a good morning.
"I tell him I'm going to have a better day today," she says, "or I say, I hope today's going to be a better day than yesterday."
Jan. 30, 2005, was the worst day in the lives of Aldrich and her family. It also was an impossibly tragic day for those who knew and loved 23-year-old Jeffrey Rodliff, a native of St. Johnsbury. He and Aldrich were asleep in their Burlington apartment early that morning when a ventilation pipe detached from the basement furnace directly below them. Carbon monoxide spewed into their bedroom and on up into the rest of the apartment building.
Rodliff died. Several people were sickened. Aldrich's body was saturated with nearly fatal levels of the gas.
Since then, Aldrich, 23, has been battling for better days. Those who don't know her well or meet her for the first time see only a young woman who made a miraculous recovery against impossible odds.
She looks the picture of health. Her skin glows with a midwinter tan. The wheelchair, once indispensable, is gone. The clunky leg brace that helped keep her steady for months is put away. She is charming, engaging, ebullient.
Surely, Aldrich is something of a miracle. Doctors say the level of carbon monoxide measured in her blood the day of the accident should have killed her. Physical therapists shake their heads and smile as the vivacious blond tears through an exercise regimen and then leaves the parking lot driving her own car.
But life for the Champlain College graduate and sports enthusiast is and likely always will be many miles from normal. Carbon monoxide deprived Aldrich's brain of oxygen, permanently affecting her ability to concentrate, reason and remember. She has lost sensation in her right leg. Fatigue, anxiety, depression and mood swings are now a part of her life. And all this against the backdrop of the grief of losing Jeff. They planned to marry. A recent visit
Ginger's mother, Shari, greets her guests alone at the door of her Waterford home one recent day. Ginger is upstairs resting, Shari says. She will be down soon; a morning of physical therapy has taken its toll, and naps have become a necessary part of Ginger's daily routine.
In the kitchen, 21-year-old Tiffany joins her mother, who stands behind a black and white countertop. There is no mistaking the resemblance between Shari and her youngest daughter -- their faces framed by blond hair that looks bleached by years of summers spent in the sun. Both have smiling eyes that reveal a hint of sadness in the corners.
A short time later, Ginger enters the kitchen with a gait that is cautious and deliberate. She is the image of her mother and sister.
The group leads the way into a living room filled with late afternoon winter light and comfortable furniture. Shari's husband, Greg, a former high school football standout, quietly takes a seat near his wife.
The family waits for a cue from Ginger. It comes in the form of a photo album. Ginger opens the cover and touches a picture of a memorial service for Rodliff, her boyfriend of seven years. The remaining photos show Ginger in various stages of recovery at Fletcher Allen's rehabilitation center in Colchester. She points to one snapshot in which she's sitting in a hospital room weeks after the accident. In the background is a hand-written "to do" list:
"Get dressed without any reminders," it says. "Practice handwriting, knitting or typing once a night for 15 to 30 minutes."
For the next two hours, the Aldriches pick their way through the events of 2005. They carry with them a range of emotions -- grief at a grim prognosis, relief at a life saved and anger because they say none of it should have happened.
On the morning of Jan. 30, 2005, Ginger was discovered, unconscious, by rescue workers. She was immediately flown to Sacre-Coeur, a Montreal hospital, for emergency treatment. Oxygen was pumped into her body to replace the carbon monoxide that had inundated her system.
The family is haunted by the memories of Ginger lying deep in a coma in Montreal. The doctors offered no hope and said they had never seen anyone in Ginger's condition survive. The level of carbon monoxide in her blood measured nearly 63 percent -- a level experts say usually results in seizures, coma and death. Shari and Greg Aldrich, frustrated by the lack of encouragement at Sacre-Coeur, had their daughter flown five days later to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H.
At Dartmouth-Hitchcock, the Aldriches made a pact to keep it together for Ginger, who still lay in a coma, breathing with the help of a ventilator. There was no room for negative thoughts, they say. The family remembers the coats they wore in a freezing hospital room, where Ginger was packed in ice. Sweat poured from her body as it purged carbon monoxide.
"It was such an odor, I can't explain it," Greg Aldrich says, flinching. "It was the smell of death coming out of her." Improvement
Ginger began to show improvement 10 days later. She started breathing on her own Feb. 11. She opened her eyes on Feb. 14, the day Jeffrey Rodliff would have turned 24.
Tears well in Tiffany Aldrich's eyes as she recalls when her sister woke and couldn't remember Tiffany's name: "That was the hardest thing."
Ginger spent the next three months at Fletcher Allen's rehab center, learning how to do the things that once came so easily. She learned how to walk again. She learned how to eat and brush her teeth. She learned how to get dressed by herself. It was during rehab that Ginger learned the phrase "slow and safe," a gentle reminder to all patients that their bodies are more fragile than they once were.
Just before the accident, Greg and Shari Aldrich were on the verge of selling their spacious home. Their kids were grown, so a permanent move a few miles away to the family's summer house on the Connecticut River made sense. But those plans were quickly scrapped. Ginger needed to come back to what was familiar, what was comfortable, the Aldriches said.
Their daughter's homecoming in April was bittersweet. She was alive, she had made great strides, but she was very different. Ginger, once calm and mild-mannered, was having emotional outbursts. She swore and snapped at family members without provocation. She broke down in tears. "There are just so many things that have happened that we weren't prepared for," Greg Aldrich says.
All her life, Ginger had been healthy. She'd never broken a bone or received stitches or spent the night in a hospital. She had been an avid runner. She played golf. She hiked and loved to swim.
Now she tired easily and needed frequent naps to recharge. Weekly physical therapy, counseling sessions and doctors appointments wore her out. In August, she walked farther than she had since the accident -- about a half-mile up the road to an overpass and then back to the house. It was a costly milestone. The walk ended in uncontrolled bouts of vomiting and a fainting spell in the bathroom. Shari called an ambulance. "Flu-like symptoms" was the diagnosis. Deeper problems
The Aldriches knew better. As summer wore into fall, it hit home that carbon monoxide had robbed their daughter of more than the feeling in her leg.
In November, the Aldriches flew to Colorado for some answers. Dennis Helffenstein, a neuropsychologist who specializes in evaluating carbon monoxide patients, told the family that Ginger's recovery, while extraordinary, was marred by irreversible brain damage.
"My evaluation was a little bit of reality testing," Helffenstein said. "While I did acknowledge that it's a remarkable miracle that Ginger is here, she did not come out of this thing unscathed."
Helffenstein was given permission by the Aldriches to talk to the Free Press about Ginger's medical condition.
A battery of 40 cognitive tests revealed that Ginger's left brain -- which controls language and motor coordination on the right side of the body -- was severely damaged. Results, Helffenstein said, showed about a 95 percent permanent reduction in left brain function as compared to that of the right brain.
Helffenstein said the ability of Ginger's brain to process and retain new information has been affected. Her attention span is shorter, making it more difficult for her to stay focused. She is prone to depression, anxiety and mood swings. Her tolerance to physical and emotional stress has been greatly diminished.
Reading is slower for Ginger, Helffenstein said. Doing mental math will more difficult. Grocery shopping for even a few things without a list will be a challenge. Pursuing an advanced degree, or holding down a 40-hour work week, which would require stamina Ginger no longer has, would be next to impossible, according to the neuropsychologist.
"There are going to be limitations," Helffenstein said. "Will she live a full life? Most likely, but it's not going to be the same life she would have lived. She will battle a lot of limitations she would never have had but for this poisoning." Determination
Before her accident, Ginger was an athlete with an athlete's sense of drive and determination. If someone told her she couldn't do something, she'd "prove them wrong."
Ginger says she has approached her recovery in the same way.
"I don't believe I have life-long debilitation," she said. "I'm determined to work 40 hours. I'm determined to run. I'm determined to ski. I want a better life, so I'll do whatever I have to do to have it."
Ginger pushes the envelope on Tuesdays and Fridays. The 23-year-old powers through 2 1/2 hours of physical therapy exercises, checking off each one on a piece of paper as she completes it. Sweat beads on her forehead as she negotiates an obstacle course of rubber steps and a trampoline. Her face registers a hint of satisfaction when a personal goal is reached, then surpassed. She often comments to Bud, one of her trainers: "That one was quite good," or "that's better than last time."
Ginger is adjusting to what she calls "a different kind of normal," living at home with her parents. Most of her week days, once spent working as a customer service representative at Fletcher Allen Health Care, are now filled with physical therapy, counseling sessions and medical appointments. Often, Ginger visits with her parents or reads. She cooks dinner for her family and shops with sister Tiffany. She learned to drive last summer.
Whatever her daily schedule, Ginger doesn't allow Rodliff to stray far from her thoughts. He is everywhere in the Aldrich house. End tables and sideboards are covered with family photographs. There are nearly as many pictures of Jeff, who was practically family. He and Ginger met on Halloween during their sophomore year of high school. They became inseparable. Rodliff died by Ginger's side.
Ginger says she keeps going by keeping Jeff's name alive and by making public appearances to warn about the dangers of carbon monoxide. She has become something of an unexpected celebrity in recent months, making a speech at St. Johnsbury Middle School, recording radio spots about the need for carbon monoxide detectors and attending the signing by Gov. Jim Douglas of a new statewide carbon monoxide detector law. She also hosted a golf tournament in Rodliff's memory.
On Valentine's Day -- Rodliff's birthday -- Ginger will talk to Jeff in private, says her sister, Tiffany.
"She wants to go to the cemetery and let 25 balloons go." Rodliff would have been 25 years old.
Contact Jill Fahy at 660-1898 or jfahy@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com PHOTO GALLERY
For more photos, go to burlingtonfreepress.com
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