August 26, 2007
Rob Vallera sent out e-mails, desperate for prayer. He needed people to seek a special help in the healing of his sister.
Vallera knew that his older sister, Sharon Clark of Crest Hill, was in danger. She was in a coma, suffering from necrotizing fasciitis, a deadly infection that kills human tissue. She lay motionless this spring in a room at Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet.
Sharon Clark (right), of Crest Hill, hugs her daughter Tammy Studnicka after Sharon’s recovery from necrotizing fasciitis, the deadly infection known as flesh-eating bacteria.
LIZ WILKINSON ALLEN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
One night, Vallera received a message: A friend had seen the plea for prayer, knelt down at his desk at work, and prayed for Clark’s healing. At that point, a warm feeling came over this friend, and somehow he knew that things would turn out for the better.
Glimmers of hope like this were vital to Vallera. That week, however, something happened that was far more than a glimmer: When a priest and Clark’s family stood around her hospital bed and prayed, Clark physically moved for the first time in four days — she struggled to sit up as her stunned family watched, family members say.
The very next morning, Friday, March 30, Clark awoke from the coma. Her son James Studnicka discovered her awake, but she could not communicate with him because of the tube in her throat. Other family members flocked to the hospital and were amazed to find their mother awake.
Earlier this month, The Herald News told this part of the story of Sharon Clark, 54, a mother of five. However, after Clark woke up, there remained for her a battle of excruciating pain and loneliness in the recovery process. She also would enter a realm of medical treatment — relatively painless — where her body would traverse ups and downs, warm and cold, as if she were underneath the ocean. Though painless, this was symbolic of her entire journey through the depths.
Where others had prayed for her, Sharon Clark herself now turned to God for help in these overwhelming waters.
Surgery and healing
After a brief stay at Silver Cross, Clark was transferred to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.During several weeks starting in April, doctors and specialists performed several procedures geared toward removing infected tissue, stopping the bacteria’s spread, and killing the bacteria that caused necrotizing fasciitis.
“The problem with these necrotizing — soft tissue — infections is getting the wounds under bacteriological control so your body, in conjunction with antibiotics and local wound care, can handle the infection,” said Dr. Loren Schechter, Clark’s surgeon at Lutheran General.
Schechter, division director of plastic surgery at the hospital, performed two surgeries to remove infected tissue in Clark’s legs.
He had to make substantial new incisions, removing much of the skin off the right leg, from the groin to the foot. Substantial excisions — removing infected or dead tissue — also were made, Schechter said.
Schechter also performed one surgery involving skin grafts, transferring skin from other parts of the body to the legs, where skin loss was great.
Clark compliments the hospital’s staff, who showed patience during her painful moments.
“When they removed my bandages, the pain was almost unbearable, and that’s an understatement,” Clark said. “They kept telling me, ‘You can scream, you can call us any name you want.’”
Eventually, Clark had 87 stitches removed from her legs. Her husband, Roger Clark, helped her through this painful process.
“I clung on to Roger. I’m crying. I’m like, ‘You have no idea what this is like,’” Sharon said. “It’s like your skin gets pinched the hardest you can imagine. It was excruciating, just unbelievable.”
However, there is a pain that exceeds the physical. And Sharon was made to understand that.
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In northwest suburban Park Ridge, Sharon was far away from her family in Crest Hill. Roger was there every day. But as for her mother, Dorothy Prajzner Vallera, and Sharon’s siblings, children and grandchildren — they could not see her every day. Visits were limited, and treasured. The separation hurt like nothing else.
“We’re close,” Sharon said of family life at her home. “They’re in and out of here all the time. Being up there, I wouldn’t have that. I hug them, I kiss them, even though they’re 34 years old. I just kept thinking, ‘I’m not going to see my family.’ It tore me up.”
‘Submarine’ journey
At Lutheran General, Sharon made another journey that tested her courage. This one did not involve pain, but brought her into an unfamiliar realm of medical treatment. A realm similar to the depths of the ocean.Sharon was treated in Lutheran General’s hyperbaric chamber, in which patients breathe 100 percent pure oxygen under additional barometric pressure.
Dan Mazzolini, a licensed respiratory therapist, coordinated a team that administered the treatment to Sharon.
Hyperbaric treatment attacks harmful anaerobic bacteria: Oxygen can kill such bacteria, Mazzolini said.
“In her condition, what we’re trying to do with the hyperbaric oxygen is stop the bacteria from reproducing and, in the best-case scenario, kill the bacteria,” Mazzolini said.
The chamber at Lutheran General is the only one of its kind in Illinois, Mazzolini said.
It is a “multiplace” or “multiperson” hyperbaric chamber. This means that more than one person can fit inside. As many as eight patients can be treated inside, with accompanying staff. Other chambers in the state are “monoplace,” allowing only one person at a time.
Lying on a stretcher, Sharon was placed in the chamber, which resembles a small submarine, Mazzolini said. The chamber is cylindrical, about 6 feet in diameter and 22 feet in length.
Not everyone with necrotizing fasciitis receives hyperbaric treatment. Sharon received six treatments — twice a day for three days — which is typical for hyperbaric treatment of the infection, Mazzolini said. Each treatment was about two to 2½ hours.
The submarine-like setting — and the change in barometric pressure — created an unusual feeling for Sharon.
“It was like scuba diving,” she said. “When I was in there, they were like, ‘Here’s the earplugs.’ I’m like, ‘What?’ And they said, ‘This is going to be like you’re undersea.’”
Indeed, the change in barometric pressure gave Sharon the sensation of descending and ascending in the deep, even though the chamber was on dry ground and did not move. Clark reached the equivalent of being 66 feet below sea level.
“My ears popped,” she said.
At certain levels of pressure, the chamber would become cold. Staff members would pile blankets on Sharon, and then on themselves.
The first time she approached the chamber, Sharon knew she was entering an unfamiliar place that would demand a resolve which she did not have in herself.
“When I saw where I was going, I turned to prayer,” she said. “I said, ‘Give me courage to get through this.’”
After five weeks, Sharon eventually was able to leave Lutheran General with no loss of limbs. However, she was weak. She returned to Silver Cross for two weeks of rehabilitation.
“The staff was compassionate and loving. The nurses and rehab on Fourth Floor were outstanding,” she said of her time at Silver Cross. She also compliments the Second Floor intensive-care staff for encouragement and support.
On May 23, she came home.
“When someone survives, doesn’t require amputation, and is able to perform daily activities — I would say, in a case like this, that they’re pretty fortunate,” Schechter said.
Sharon remembers her important moment of prayer near the chamber. No family member could accompany her on that up-and-down journey, through the great depths that were so important for healing.
“I remember saying, ‘If Jesus suffered for us, I can handle this.’” she said. “I just turned to prayer. It worked. I found my comfort through prayer.”
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