A Labor of Love and Remembrance
By Peter Schaumberg
When our son David Schaumberg was flown by helicopter to Georgetown University Hospital on Christmas Eve 2007 suffering from extreme liver failure, we actually thought our prayers were finally being answered! We were so grateful that perhaps he would get the transplant and gift of life he deserved after courageously battling liver disease for more than 20 years, since he was a small boy. However, when David arrived that cold and rainy night at Georgetown’s Intensive Care Unit, we were met with a “surprise” — David had developed an unusually severe pulmonary complication. In his condition, transplant surgery was impossible. The doctors said that it would take weeks to bring this pulmonary condition under control. We could tell from the look on the doctors’ faces that they didn’t think David had that kind of time. But we knew our son. He would fight for that liver transplant. And so the waiting began.
Peter Schaumberg knows his gift to renovate the ICU waiting room will be meaningful for many families during difficult times. He is beside the new flat screen TV, just one part of the gift donated in his son’s memory.
When you have a loved one in the Georgetown University Hospital ICU, they are being cared for by the best medical team in the world. But the patient is not the only one who must endure. Family, friends, clergy and coworkers spend countless hours in the ICU waiting room, hoping, praying, eating, sleeping, occasionally laughing — but mostly hoping — that there will be a happy result. The ICU waiting room was our “home” for almost three months as we devoted ourselves tirelessly to our son’s day-by-day battle to gain strength for the life-giving liver transplant. We slept there on nights David needed to have us nearby. We frequently ate meals balancing food on our laps so we could be available to talk to the ICU doctors and, most importantly, provide the moral support David responded to so effectively.
The ICU waiting room is its own community. It brings together as one extended family people who only days before were total strangers and now are united in pulling together for the recovery of their loved ones in the ICU. You spend hours each day with your new waiting room “family,” sharing the exhilaration of every bit of good news, and comforting each other when the news isn’t so good. It didn’t matter whether our community was white, black, rich, poor, Jewish, Catholic or Hindu — we all were focused on hoping and praying for a successful outcome for one another. Often it worked out okay — occasionally it didn’t. During our three months at the ICU several families came and went while we remained week after long week — it was the most difficult experience any parents could imagine — yet the ICU doctors and nurses told us on numerous occasions that our being close by for David helped him immeasurably.
David astounded his doctors and nurses, and on Easter Sunday he actually was placed on the transplant list. Any moment we just knew we would get the news that David was heading for surgery. We spent the next several nights sleeping in the waiting room wishing that he would at least get the opportunity for a liver transplant.
The final night in the waiting room with family, friends and our rabbi was the most difficult. David lost his extended battle on a dark March morning. We gathered our belongings and looked back one last time at our “home” for the last three months as the elevator doors slammed shut.
We certainly don’t wish our experience on anyone. No one wants to spend days, weeks, months — or even one night — in the ICU waiting room. But they will. So we decided to devote ourselves to making the waiting room as comfortable as possible for the families and friends of future ICU patients. Thanks to the generosity of so many, our vision will soon be a reality. The waiting room will be remodeled with new lighting, walls, seating and, of course, what David would have wanted most — a big flat screen television!
The ICU waiting room never will be a “pleasant” place. But we felt it should reflect the same standards that make Georgetown University Hospital the world-class institution that it has become both for patients and those who love and care for them. Our family is grateful to Georgetown for the skillful care they gave to our son, David, and to us, and we will continue to devote our efforts to its future enhancement.
For more information about lending support, contact: Susan Skinner Vice President of Development 202.444.2239 or susansk@gunet.georgetown.net
