Did You Hear What Happened Today?

Caregivers help couple of 63 years share final moments

Six decades of love

Thanks to her caregivers, Charlotte Sellers was able to spend her final days with her husband, Wally. Both were patients. These memorable moments were documented in a snapshot taken by their daughter, Pattie Sellers. Here’s another photo of the couple, taken in 2003.

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Charlotte Sellers was pragmatic, grounded and told it like it was. Wally is a dreamer ruled by emotions and romance. “Together they shared a love like I’ve never seen,” says their only child, Pattie Sellers of New York City. Here’s their story:

The same day Wally Sellers had surgery to repair his broken arm, his wife called their daughter: “I’m having trouble breathing,” said Charlotte, who suffered from emphysema. Pattie called 9-1-1, then raced to meet her mother at the hospital. Fortunately, they had spent over a year preparing for this moment, so they knew what to do.

Charlotte was treated in the emergency department and then admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) with end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Meanwhile, after surgery, Wally developed blood pressure problems when caregivers tried to take him off a ventilator. He, too, was admitted to the ICU.

Charlotte, 87, and Wally, then 86, were in serious condition. Cared for in different ICU patient rooms, they worried about each other and the stress on their daughter. “Charlotte decided she couldn’t go on any longer,” says her nurse, Patti Notte, R.N. “She wanted to end aggressive treatment and die peacefully.” Charlotte had been battling COPD for a long time.

For more than a year, she, her family and care team had been working with Risa Denenberg, C.R.N.P., of OACIS (Optimizing Advanced Complex Illness Support) Services. The program helps chronically ill patients and their families meet physical, emotional and spiritual issues. They were all prepared for the time when Charlotte’s lungs would inevitably fail. Wally had only one request: to be with his wife.

Notte and her colleagues went above and beyond to grant his request. They used portable monitors and planned for what they would do if Wally should arrest. After taking all necessary precautions, they wheeled Wally into Charlotte’s room, beside his wife.

Soon everyone was buzzing in amazement: “Did you hear what happened today?”

Over the next few days, the couple visited in two-hour increments. “They held each other’s hands and cried,” Notte says. When Wally’s condition improved, caregivers moved the couple to a medical-surgical floor where they could share a room together. “For the last 10 years my mom had to sleep in a recliner to breathe,” their daughter says. “But in their hospital room, nurses put their bed railings down and let them lie together. It meant the world to them.”

When the nurses situated Wally in a chair so he could give Charlotte their last kiss, she spoke her final words: “I love you.” Six hours later, she died. “It was the perfect death,” her daughter says. “My mother wanted to close her eyes and not wake up, and that’s how she died: peacefully, painlessly and lying next to my father, holding his hand.”

For caregivers like Notte it was the perfect example of how colleagues create an environment where they can do the right thing for their patients. “This special moment came to fruition because everyone (family and caregivers) cherished the same goals and values,” Denenberg says.

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