The "BLANK" Story !!!
DentalProfessional
Hello All,
You may find this, a whole story of a movie!
Just go thr' it !!!!
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Soothing strains of "O Holy Night" filled the bedroom where Dr.Ronald
Blank(a dental school professor) lay in a special bed, while Liz van
den Hoven stood nearby performing her violin solo. Blank's eyes
fluttered open - it was all he could do to acknowledge the dental
student's gift to him on his 55th birthday.
Ten Loma Linda University dental students who became members of the
extended Blank family during the past two years were at his bedside,
along with his wife, children and two-month-old grandson. Despite final
exams looming the next morning, the students took time away from
studying to be there for Dr. Blank.
They listened in solemn silence, their spirits dampened by the ominous
reality that Blank s life, like the song, is nearing an end.
Lou Gehrig's disease has taken its toll on Blank. His once robust
frame, now frail and thin from years of battling the disease, is
shrouded beneath a blanket. It has been months since Ronald Blank has
been able to say "I love you" to his wife. His ability to speak is
limited to muffled moans only his wife and children can interpret.
Every night, weary from another day spent caring for her husband as he
battles amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Sandy Blank goes to the room
they once shared to wish him good night.
"I love you, Ron," she says softly.
He struggles to respond, each sound leaving him tired and breathless,
yet Sandy knows the three short muffled sounds that escape from his
lips are his "I love you" now. The neurodegenerative disease Blank was
diagnosed with in 2001 affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal
cord. Eventually the motor neurons begin to die and the brain can no
longer control muscle movement. Muscles atrophy and victims of the
disease are reduced to a skeletal image of what they once were.
There is no cure and few treatment options exist. The mind is
unaffected by the disease. Blank is trapped in the silence of a body he
cannot move.
Sandy is his voice.
After nearly 33 years of marriage, she knows her husband well, but she
now retreats to the spare bedroom at the end of the hall each night,
while a caregiver spends the night in his room. She admits it s hard on
her to leave him each night, but it s the only way she can sleep.
"Even when Ronald is awake, he doesn t want to be alone," said Sandy.
Unable to swallow, Ronald spent six months sleeping only 15 minutes at
a time out of fear he would choke on his own saliva. Although hospice
nurses come several times a week, Sandy is his primary caregiver. When
the couple met on a blind date decades ago, he was a dental student at
Loma Linda University and she was a nurse at the Medical Center s unit
7100. Now Sandy is nursing again.
"In a lot of ways it s easier because I know a lot of things that need
to be done, but it s harder because my husband is now like my patient,"
she said.
"Because of him, a lot of our classmates made it and are in dentistry
today because he was always there to help them understand," said Boyko,
his classmate.
Within three years of teaching career, Blank was the chairman of the
School of Dentistry's oral diagnosis, radiology and pathology
department. When the time came for the university to send someone to
review the National Board Dental Exams in Chicago, they sent Blank.
"He s known for his memory," Sandy said.
He planned to continue teaching with future plans to retire and travel
with Sandy.
The disease has changed everything.
When hanging Christmas lights in 1999, Blank noticed he was fatigued.
It was not until 2001, when he suddenly had difficulty speaking, that
he realized something was wrong. Even after the April 11, 2001,
diagnosis, he remained optimistic. He thought he was going to beat it
and reverse the disease.
"I think every ALS patient has that mentality," said his son, Travis.
Blank founded ALS Foundation of Research and Clinical Evaluation to
provide financial support to those with the disease. The organization
seeks to help find a treatment that will slow, stop or even reverse the
disease.
"His dream was to reverse it and go on the lecture circuit and help
other people," said Sandy. "But that didn t happen."
Blank's decline has been gradual. Despite ALS, he kept teaching. He was
the School of Dentistry s 2002 Teacher of the Year, but retired in
February 2003 when it became a battle to walk. Strides shortened until
eventually he was in a wheelchair. When the Blanks daughter, Cariann,
married in 2003, Blank s goal was to walk her down the aisle. They made
it to the altar together, where he proudly presented her to her fianc .
Later at the reception father and daughter shared a spin around the
dance floor while she sat in his lap and he maneuvered his wheelchair.
Today, Sandy watches the video of the wedding with a heavy heart.
"It brings me to tears to see him walk down the aisle because that was
the last time he walked that long," she said. "It was also the last
time that he was able to eat a meal."
Blank has been on a feeding tube for two years.
Each day became a milestone for the family. When Cariann and her
husband Garret brought their 2-day-old son to the house to meet his
grandfather, Blank was able to say only "beautiful baby."
"That was one of the last things he said," Sandy remembers.
Sandy relies on family videos to hear her husband's voice, but she said
it is painful for her to watch them. "You see how he s changed and it
reminds me of what he used to be. We thought we were going to beat the
disease and he was never going to get to this point," she said.
E-mail Staff Writer C.L. Lopez at clo...@redlandsdailyfacts.com