Lives rebuilt

Editor’s Note: This is the first in the “Lives Rebuilt” series in which the stories of locals who have conquered life’s obstacles are highlighted in celebration of the hope of the holiday season.

WASILLA — Dawn Gordon’s story is one of multiple challenges packed into a window of time far too compact to process.

Her husband, Ben Gordon, died on April 16, 2012.

That tragedy was just the first in a long string of events that sucked the Wasilla woman into a seven-month spiral of stress that brought on health issues compounded by the the associated emotional issues.

But she is living proof of the old adage, “that which doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.”

Officially, Ben’s death certificate has the words, “cardiac arrest.” But before the heart-related episode, he’d been drinking – far too much and more than enough to somehow keep him from putting his sleep apnea mask on before sleeping.

She suspects his blood alcohol content at the time of his death at home in their bed just shortly after she’d talked to him during her 3 a.m. break at her nursing job was well over .30.

“I believe that because when he stopped breathing about a week and a half before that, and I had to call the paramedics and have him taken to the hospital when they did his blood work, his blood alcohol count was .34,” Gordon said. “He was drinking and drinking heavily. But I kept it from our friends.”

She doesn’t know for certain because the authorities would not do an autopsy. The official cause of death was indeed a heart attack – something not uncommon to happen to people with sleep apnea – a disorder in which pauses in breathing or very shallow breaths occur while sleeping that last for a few second or minutes and may occur as many as 30 times per hour.

“The doctor said that because he was overweight for so much of his life, he had a heart attack,” Dawn said.

Ben’s death came just three days after the death of her closest lifelong friend, Kelly.

Kelly knew everything about Dawn. She was the one person that knew every detail of Ben’s battle with alcohol. She had helped Dawn secure rides for him when he was unable to drive himself.

“Ben dying was even worse because the one person I would have called to just let it all out, I couldn’t because she was dead, too,” Dawn said.

Kelly knew Dawn had given Ben an ultimatum.

She told him to stop drinking or she would leave.

She didn’t say divorce.

She just had run out of the ability to protect him from getting yet another DUI; she couldn’t handle watching him drink and drink and drink. She knew it would take a monstrous toll on his health.

“I told him, I just cannot stay here and watch you drink yourself to death,” she recalled when he asked if she wanted a divorce. “I told him, I never said I wanted a divorce. I just told him, ‘I cannot watch you do this to yourself anymore because I love you.’”

And she knew he loved her.

They had met at an ice fishing party on Finger Lake for patients who had had gastric bypass surgery. Both had bypasses; both were finding some success at maintaining their weight loss.

“I remember the first time I saw him,” she said. “I thought he was so cute. He was talking on his phone.”

His belly-busting laugh infected her heart and soul. Soon, they were inseparable and married within months.

Another loss

Since age 12, Dawn had excoriating menstrual periods with heavy blood flow.

For about six months prior to Ben’s death, she was bleeding more often than she was not.

Her body was low on blood. She was pallid and tired constantly. Her general medical doctor referred her to see a gynecology specialist in early April 2012. The soonest appointment was at the end of May.

The endometriosis that invaded much of her lower interior torso hurt, yet, hearing that a full hysterectomy was the gynecologist’s only recommendation was beyond devastating, she said.

It was one thing to have Ben gone; it was one thing to lose the man with whom she would have perhaps conceived a child

On June 1, 2012, her entire reproductive system was removed.

Still leaking blood; but bottling up emotions

Within a week of surgery, Dawn’s stitches were not holding up. Her mother was repacking her wound a couple of times each day.

Worse yet – the prediction and warning by her gynecologist that Dawn was still too sick to fully process the emotions associated with what was happening in her life was coming true.

“She told me, ‘don’t be surprised if in the next few months when the amount of blood in your body is back to normal and you are physically better that you might start having a lot more problems emotionally. You just are too sick right now to fully feel it all,’” Dawn said.

While she did not want to admit it as a possibility, Dawn knew it to be true. She knew she was just going through the motions of daily life. She felt helpless and powerless to get past that status.

And then she got pneumonia.

A lack of activity is often the cause for pneumonia.

Such was her case in August 2012. She was exhausted.

Then – in her early 40s – Dawn got the shingles. Her depleted body could not suppress the virus that lives in the adult bodies of people that had chicken pox as children.

She thought to herself: “What more can happen?”

Unfortunately, plenty more.

It was mid-fall and she was seeking a different job. As a registered nurse, she had a skill set that could secure her a job with a good hourly rate and medical benefits.

She not only found one working at a facility that housed at-risk youth in the Valley.

She was prepping to move out of the rental home she and Ben shared in Eagle River. She had found a condo out on the Knik-Goose Bay Road and the 1987 graduate of Wasilla High School was eager to resume residency in her old stomping grounds.

Icy driveway

Dawn had returned to the Eagle River home after a shift in Anchorage to load her vehicle with belongings on her way to the condo. She was still wearing her nursing shoes as she scooted across the icy driveway. Perhaps not the best choice, she thinks now. She slipped and shattered her ankle in each of the three places it connects to the foot.

That was on Thursday, Nov. 10. She was supposed to start the training for the new position the following Monday. Instead, she was recuperating from surgery.

Her new employer wouldn’t hold the job.

Because she would be working around at-risk juvenile males, she could not have a cast or any other physical restriction.

“I thought, ‘oh great. I just got this place to live and signed a one-year lease and now I don’t have a job and I can’t work anyway.’ I had only had the keys to the new place for two days,” Dawn said.

She had to live in the downstairs portion of the condo after her surgery for the three months she couldn’t put weight on her foot. She couldn’t get up the flight of 16 stairs to the second level.

Her mother put all of Dawn’s living expenses on her credit card for several months. After she got back to work, Dawn paid her back.

Fast forward to 2015

In late November, Dawn was hired at the Hiland Mountain Correctional Facility as a RN. In terms of pay and professional development, it was and is a dream job.

She felt financially secure even though she was still paying off more than $100,000 of debt she became responsible for after Ben’s death. Most of it was credit card debt he had racked up before they were married; some of it was debt from medical bills incurred when neither had insurance and Ben’s drinking landed him in the emergency room several times.

Nonetheless, she finally saw the possibility that her financial life could improve.

Still suffering

Despite obtaining a better job; despite having a roof over her head she had made into a home and despite having the support of her family, Dawn was not even close to having processed Ben’s death.

She entered 2017 with hopes that her life would move on, but the urn with his ashes still sat on the mantle in her living room.

In May of 2017 she took a fishing trip out of Homer. It was a choppy day and the party landed only one fish, but Dawn experienced a major emotional victory: She was finally able to let Ben go.

In the afternoon of the first Saturday in May, the swells decreased to about a foot and a half and Dawn spread Ben’s ashes into the waters of Kachemak Bay.

“That is when I finally felt as if I was turning the corner,” she said.

Reconnecting with old friends and dating again

Dawn has an active profile on Facebook. Social media being just that, her old friends from high school began reconnecting with her.

Most said they were shocked by all she had been through and were sad that they had not been there for her.

“Ya know, I just don’t know quite how it happens, but I lost touch with them and then I just felt as if I couldn’t reach out,” Dawn said. “But after people found out what was going on with me, so many reached out to me and said, ‘hey, we are here for you.’”

And, Dawn opened herself up to the possibility of a new love.

She set up profiles on four dating sites and decided to give each one three months to produce candidates.

“They are on probation with me,” she said with a laugh brimming with possibility.

She’s met a few gents she is interested in. She admits she is enjoying the idea of dating.

She really doesn’t view herself as a “Life Rebuilt.” She said there is still more to do – debt to pay off, perhaps weight to lose, her retirement account to fund. But she does see that that long list of challenges placed in front of her a few years back has check marks on many of the items.

Those things are done – crossed off the list.

And while she is moving on, Ben will always hold a part of her heart. Yet, she also knows that his journey is finished; hers is not.

“My life did not end just because his did,” Dawn said. “I had to put myself back together. It took a lot longer than I wanted, but it does seem that all the pieces are together now.”