Archives For Jamie Caulk

50 Years of Brain Death, Being Questioned

June 18, 2018 — Leave a comment

Brain scans

5o Years

50 years ago, an ad hoc Harvard Medical School committee declared that patients in an “irreversible coma” were dead from a legal and ethical point of view. By irreversible coma, the committee had in mind “comatose individuals who have no discernible central nervous system activity”. In making this pronouncement, the committee was seeking to resolve a series of ethical and legal questions that had arisen since the advent of positive pressure ventilation and research into vital organ procurement.

The criterion was rapidly enshrined in law around the US and, indeed, the globe, and it became the most common standard by which vital organ procurement and the withdrawal of treatment were regulated.

Yet 50 years on, the brain death criterion for death is under intense criticism, with several high profile legal cases in the US calling into question the claim that brain dead patients are really dead.

Doctor’s Question

In two recent JAMA articles (one co-authored with lawyer Thaddeus Pope and psychiatrist David S. Jones), Harvard Medical School’s Robert Truog evaluates the brain death criterion, arguing that, while the rationale behind the brain death criterion is defensible, it nevertheless lacks philosophical justification.

Truog states that the brain death criterion was intended to provide a clear biological criterion in which we could ground our legal definition death. The law needs black and white distinctions, and brain death provides one such distinction:

The law necessarily depends on bright-line determinations to standardize many important societal distinctions, such as when a person becomes an adult, when a person is blind, and when a person is dead…By drawing a bright line at the level of permanent unconsciousness and ventilator dependence, the [Uniform Determination of Death Act]* has defined when a person should be considered dead, making it permissible for the person to be an organ donor if they wish and making it permissible for the health care system to refuse to continue to provide the patient with life support.

Yet Truog also observes that “attempts to find a conceptual justification for linking this diagnosis (i.e., brain death) to the death of the patient remain incomplete”. He recounts how neurologist Alan Shewmon has shown that virtually every function undertaken by a healthy living body can be carried by a brain dead person on a ventilator. He also questions the 2008 attempt by the President’s Council for Bioethics to define death in terms of the absence of the “fundamental vital work of a living organism”. While xenotransplantation and 3D printing may one day provide a solution to organ shortages, the brain death criterion will remain for some time a source of spirited debate.

*The Uniform Determination of Death Act is a 1981 act adopted by most US states according to which “An individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead”.

Link to original story.

On a personal note: The brain scan above was what caught my attention because Jamie’s had blood flow and the radiologist said, “there is blood flow”.  Vanderbilt said, “oh, we expected to find some blood flow”.

Then why didn’t they give him more time? Will I ever get over this? 

BioEdge Creative Commons

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Jamie Caulk, Four Years Later

October 20, 2015 — Leave a comment

Four Long Years

Today makes four years that my son, Jamie passed on from this earthly life and went home. Home is where God is and where those who believe in Jesus will spend eternity. Heaven is not the default location of where everyone will go, heaven is where we will spend eternity based on our relationship with Jesus while on earth.

Buzz LIghtyearOne of my children, Andrew, use to say like Buzz Lightyear in Toy Store, “to infinity and beyond”. That’s a pretty good description of eternity..infinity and beyond.

When you go to funerals it sounds like everyone has gone to heaven. But that is a false supposition and one that can keep people from the good news of Jesus Christ.

C. S. Lewis in his book, The Problem with Pain writes of Hell, “There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, especially, of our Lord’s own words; it has always been held by Christendom, and it has the support of reason.”

Matthew 7:13-14: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to LIFE, and only a few find it.”

So heaven is NOT our default location.

What  keeps us out of Heaven is universal: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Sin separates us from a relationship with God (Isaiah 59:2). God is so holy that he cannot allow sin into his presence: “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong” (Habakkuk 1:13). Because we are sinners, we are not entitled to enter God’s presence. We cannot enter Heaven as we are. Randy Alcorn, Heaven Book

James 4:14 says that we are a mist, a vapor. We do not know what tomorrow brings.

I am sure Jamie did not have a clue his life would end here on earth on October 20, 2011. 

Matthew Henry said in his commentary on James 4:14

What is your life? It is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away, Jas. 4:14. God that wisely left us in the dark concerning future events, and even concerning the duration of life itself. We know not what shall be on the morrow; we may know what we intend to do and to be, but a thousand things may happen to prevent us.

We are not sure of life itself since it is but as a vapour, something in appearance, but nothing solid nor certain, easily scattered and gone. We can fix the hour and minute of the sun’s rising and setting to-morrow, but we cannot fix the certain time of a vapour’s being scattered; such is our life: it appears but for a little time, and then vanisheth away; it vanisheth as to this world, but there is a life that will continue in the other world.”

The Good News

The good news is that the price for Adams’ sin and ultimately ours as it was passed down to us from the fall, is that hell does NOT have to be our default destination. When Jesus died on the cross He said, “it is finished”. This simply means the debt has been paid. Finished, done, debt cancelled. In Greek the words, “it is finished” means paid in full.

You may think you have done too many things wrong in your life to be forgiven, but that is simply NOT true. There is no sin or behavior you have done that can’t be forgiven…when you repent and ask.

Repent sounds like a religious word, but it just means to turn in TURN AND GO IN A NEW DIRECTION. There is nothing you can do to work for or earn your salvation. It is a gift. Jesus paid the price, he took on the cross what we deserved and paid for it. God see’s everything anyway so when you ask for forgiveness be real, you can’t hide anything from him.

C. S. Lewis, said, “All your life an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond the grasp of your consciousness. The day is coming when you will wake to find, beyond all hope, that you have attained it, or else, that it was within your reach and you have lost it forever.”

You can never resolve your sin by “working on it”. It is all grace. Jesus is absolutely crazy about you, He adores you and when you walk in that truth every day you feel loved and accepted.

St Augustine said, “If we but turn to God, that itself is a gift of God.” My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.

 

How Do I Know I Am Going to Heaven?

Over the years, I have had many people ask me, “how do I know IF I am going to heaven”?

John the Apostle said in 1 John 5:13, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may KNOW that you have eternal life.” So yes we CAN know, we don’t have to “hope so”, we can know.

Do you know?

Can you say yes, I am going to spend infinity beyond in heaven?

Today is the day of salvation, if you do not know or are not sure. I Cor 6:2

Today is the day my son went to his eternal home. He has been there four long years for us who miss him so. Yet we KNOW we will see him and Mike and “Lilly Bear” again.

The Solution

Jesus provided the solution to live with him and our loved ones forever.

1) Admit you are a sinner  (1John 1:9)

2) Ask for forgiveness

3) Accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior

4) Recognize he came to earth and paid the price and settled the debt. It is finished.

5) Accept that you are forgiven and your sins are forgiven.

Psalm 103:10-12 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for you;as far as the east is to the west, so far as He removed our sins.

East and West can NOT be measured so they are gone forgotten.

Jamie Caulk This is my post today for you in honor of my son who has gone before me and enjoying LIFE forevermore.

I love you Jamie and miss you SO much, see you soon.

Mom

 

 

 

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Jamie Caulk in hospital

Jamie Caulk, Chapter One

October 15, 2015 — Leave a comment

Yesterday was four years since I got the call that no mom ever wants to get. It is always such a numbing day. In fact, the next six will be just as hard as we approach the day we finally had to let Jamie go. I’ll give a quick update and then I am going to share Chapter one in my book, Hold Me Long Enough to Fight.

I picked this title for two reasons, one being it is the name of a song Jamie wrote and produced. It is linked in the side column and two it reflects how I feel about any loved one being given TIME to fight if they are in a horrible accident.

Four Years

I find that hard to believe it is has been four years since I have spoken to my son. He is never far away from my thoughts and yet the pain is not so intense and for that I am thankful. It is just painful as the days approach that he went to our eternal home and left us behind. I know he is fine, and wouldn’t come back IF given the chance but for those who miss him, it is a continual void in our lives every day.

In January, I went out on my own and started Savvy Realty Group. I have a fabulous team of buyer agents and we have had the BEST year in real estate since Jamie’s accident. So career wise life is good. We have had our up’s and down’s as a family as I have walked through numerous challenges with some of my children. I’m not going into details as it is their stories to tell if and when they want to.

I started a Healing Care course, support group that my former ObGyn and his wife teach in Ann Arbor and I am learning to let go of painful things that have happened over the years when Mike and I were in ministry. Although I had forgiven it is a deeper work that God is doing in my life. I desire more than anything to finish my race and accomplish the rest of what He has for me on planet earth.

I hope you enjoy Chapter one.

Chapter 1

A Miracle for Jamie

Jamie Caulk I was humming along to the music on the car radio when the ringing of my cell phone interrupted me. I fumbled in my purse for it. Being a Realtor I was constantly on the phone and knew I’d probably let it ring through to voicemail this time. I glanced at the screen. It was a 615 number—a Nashville number, but not one I recognized. I was on the way to Nashville from Ann Arbor, Michigan to celebrate my granddaughter’s first birthday.

Thinking that my son Matthew, or Sharon, my best friend in Nashville, might be using a borrowed phone to check and see how far along I was, I answered.

A perfunctory female voice at the other end said, “Ma’am this is Vanderbilt Hospital Trauma Unit calling. Are you Jamie Caulk’s mother?”

Immediately, even before I had processed her words with my brain, my heart pounded, and my mouth went dry. “Yes, I’m Jamie’s mother. I’m driving to Nashville. What’s wrong?”

I knew I was speaking too loudly into the phone, but I didn’t care. Something was wrong, very wrong. Thoughts tumbled over each other, vying for my attention as I tried to understand the context of the conversation. Jamie must have given this person my number. Was he in trouble? Why was I talking to this woman and not Jamie?

Why didn’t they put Jamie on the line?

“Ma’am can you pull the car over?”

“Hold on,” I said as I pulled the steering wheel to the right and eased the car onto the shoulder. I sat for a second acutely aware that I was about to hear something unfathomable. I took a deep breath and said, “Okay, I’ve pulled over; please tell me what’s wrong.”

The woman’s voice remained flat and detached. “I am a social worker in the Trauma Unit. Your son,

Jamie was in a car accident early this morning. The accident was near Vanderbilt Hospital, so the EMTs were able to get to him very quickly. He was conversant when he was brought in. The doctors were stabilizing him so they could perform surgery on his neck when he had an episode and had to be intubated. He has not had any feeling below his nipples since he arrived.”

I struggled to take in what was being said. What did she mean stabilizing him for neck surgery and no feeling? Was she telling me my son was paralyzed? Was that what the surgery was for? And it all happened early this morning. Why hadn’t she called hours ago? Hadn’t I checked my phone before I started out? There were no messages. It made no sense. Perhaps it was a huge mistake. I checked the clock.

“It’s 10:00 A.M., why am I just now being called?”

“Your son is 27, he’s an adult. On his admission form, he requested that no one in his family be informed. When he was no longer able to communicate, the medical team deemed his situation critical and were legally able to override his request.” ( Found out when I got the medical records this was not true as in his own handwriting he had written down my name and cell phone number.)

I felt my body start to shake. It was all I could do to hold the phone. No longer able to communicate…deemed critical… neck surgery… paralyzed… Visions of Jamie throwing the football 40 yards down the field to Seth Belinsky flashed in my mind; Jamie skating down the ice with his arms raised when he scored a goal in hockey; Jamie sitting at ESPN in Nashville doing a radio broadcast.

Now I imagined him laying on a gurney in a room filled with electronic devices, all alone with none of his family there with him.

Thoughts of my youngest daughter Allyssa being in a car accident in 2007 flashed through my mind too. I remembered the roller coaster ride; first the terror of being told she’d been t-boned by a truck then the relief of hearing she was not badly injured, followed by the shock of seeing her the next day and realizing she had a broken pelvis, ruptured bladder and a traumatic brain injury. That had been five years ago. But look at Allyssa now, I told myself, she’s healthy and fit. Jamie is strong and fit and young, he’ll pull through this. I just need to get to him.

“What should I do?” I asked the social worker.

“You need to get to the hospital quickly but safely, ma’am. How far away are you?”

“About seven hours,” I said, “but my son Matt, Jamie’s brother, lives in Nashville. He can be there in

twenty-five minutes.”

“Fine,” said the voice. “Have him go to the entrance of Vanderbilt Trauma Unit then up to the tenth floor.

“Drive safely,” said the social worker as the phone clicked off. I speed-dialed Matthew’s number, knowing that I was about to change his plans dramatically; his daughter Presley’s first birthday would be taking a back seat now.

“Mom?”

“Matt, we don’t have time to waste,” I said, imagining how odd this must sound. “Get over to Vanderbilt Trauma Center, Jamie was in a bad car wreck early this morning.”

“Early this morning? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I just found out. Apparently he didn’t want any of us to know, but now he’s critical. You have to go now.”

“What’s wrong with him? Did they tell you what’s wrong?”

I took a deep breath, Matthew, my second child, and oldest son, was always the one who needed answers, but now was not the time. “I don’t know Matt. They said something about him being okay when he got there and then some neck surgery and then he crashed. Please, I need to hear you tell me he ‘s going to be okay. Get in your car now, okay?”

“On my way, Mom,” Matthew said, “I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

“Thank you,” I replied, “And pray Matt—pray hard.”

“Yes, Mom,” Matt replied softly. And I knew he would. Matthew had a close walk with the Lord. As a family, we had always been there for one another and prayed together during challenging times.

I don’t know how long I sat motionless in my car on the side of the freeway. I wanted to go but was afraid I was too panicked to drive. My mind raced a mile a minute over the conversation with the social worker at the trauma center. Had she said Jamie was still alive just to get us there? Was he already dead and she didn’t want to tell me on the phone? It was something that happened in movies, wasn’t it? I imaged Jamie lying with a sheet pulled over his head. Waves of nausea rolled over me. I wanted to wail, but I forced myself to stay calm. I dialed Matt again.

“I’m almost ready to get off I-65, Mom, only about ten minutes away. Not much traffic. Have you heard anything more?”

“No,” I said. “Matt, find out if Jamie is dead and they are just telling me he is okay until I get there. Promise; make them take you to him. You have to see him. Don’t take no for an answer.”

“Okay, Mom,” said Matt, “I’ll make sure I see him, and I’ll call you as soon as I do. If there’s something…wrong”—he choked up at the word—“I’ll tell you, I promise.”

I took a few deep breaths and remembered my husband. Mike was a social studies teacher at Belleville High School. He’d be in class now. If I called he would pick up the phone since he knew I would only interrupt him in an emergency. But I couldn’t tell him the little I knew over the phone. He’d already had two heart attacks and needed to hear this news as gently as possible. Instead, I called our oldest daughter Christa. As calmly as I could speak, I told her what I knew. I asked her to drive to Belleville and tell her dad in person. I also asked her to call the rest of the family to let them know what was happening.

After I’d flicked the phone shut I turned the car key and eased the Lexus back onto the freeway. I felt numb—empty—useless—a million miles away from my beautiful son who might be dying right that minute.

I gripped the steering wheel as tears flowed down my cheeks. “Keep him, safe Lord,” I prayed, “Keep him safe. Wrap your arms around him and keep him safe. We need a miracle right now, a miracle, please Lord, a miracle for Jamie.”

Thanks for reading Chapter 1.

I love you, James Lindsay Caulk, I miss you so much, but I will see you soon.

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God Nod’s Bring Comfort to the Grieving

September 1, 2015 — Leave a comment

Jamie’s Journal

Jamie Caulk Journal The last 18 months I have been doing a lot of remodeling to my home of 25 years. In the middle of painting, going to Salvation Army, renting three 150 ton dumpsters you learn to be careful that you are NOT accidentally getting rid of something important.

My husband was a pack rat…” you never know” he use to say.

Living in the same house for 25 years…we accumulated a lot of stuff.

My great-grandfather was a Methodist minister and my grandmother had a lot of his library. When she died Mike and I took boxes of his books. It was fun to look through them, read some of them and see the handwritten notes in the margins. I have given a ton of books to the Saline Library but not really sure what to do with these very OLD books.

Today I was going through some shelf’s and I came across Jamie’s diary. I didn’t even know he had a diary. He must have ditched it because he had only one entry, but it was a good one.

 

He wrote this on Thanksgiving Day 2009.

God is so faithful, what could have been a tough day became one the most blessed days for me EVER. Writing about it now is bringing some of the same feelings back to me. Praise God. He does renew. He does restore. He is so good. I am so thankful to be chosen and loved and able to share such things with others. The fellowship and love and laughter we shared will never be taken from me. It will go with me to eternity. I love you Jesus. I am yours.

Jamie Caulk Journal WOW, He did take that into eternity as this was written only 2 years before the Lord took Jamie home.

I don’t know why I found it today, but I love those God nods as we call them in my family. It brought such joy to Andrew and Christa when reading it. As a grieving mother anything like this brings such comfort.

The last two weeks have been particularly hard, as another young man in the Saline community died from injuries sustained in an auto accident. My heart was breaking for the pain I know the family is going through and how their lives will never be the same.

I was in Nashville when I heard the news and was also able to spend time with Jamie’s girlfriend. It is hard to see her still learning to deal with the loss of Jamie and yet oddly comforting to know someone else loved him as much as we did.

It’s also been hard with Michigan football starting in a few days. I know right? But, our family especially Mike and Jamie were so intense when it came to Michigan football. We are so excited about our new coach as both Mike and Jamie wanted Jim Harbaugh to come back years ago.

Now Jim is here and they are not. 

With all that has happened the last two weeks, reading Jamie’s journal was a much-needed God nod.

Jamie's journal Dr. John Rice said in his book Bible Facts about Heaven,

“Not one in that blessed land would, if he could, return to the decaying form he left, to live out the life he had planned, to see the happiest future he could imagine on this earth. Death for a sinner is horrible, but never to a child of God. “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them” (Rev. 14:13). Blessed and happy are the Christian dead!”

The majority of the time we sit and talk about Jamie, Mike and Lillian we always end up saying, “but…they wouldn’t come back even if they could.

As King David said when his son died, “he will not come back, but I will go to him.”

 

 

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Happy Birthday Jamie, 3-6-84 to 10-20-11

March 6, 2015 — Leave a comment

Happy Birthday Jamie,

Jamie Birthday Card

To say we miss you seems so trivial… I keep waiting for this “new normal” to happen that everyone says will happen. I’m not sure I really believe in that concept because our family is just NOT the same without you and dad and “Lily”.

I’m not sure I really believe in that concept because our family is just NOT the same without you and dad and “Lily”.

I think that is one of the hardest things for all of us, Christa, Matt, Andrew and Allyssa, is that the whole family being changed in such a short time has thrown us all off-balance.

It just doesn’t “feel” right, like being in a new family.

How is that normal?

All of us have grown closer if that was possible.

Life Lessons

 


I have learned that everyone who is living will experience loss and suffering and only then do people understand grief. Recently, I was visiting someone in the hospital and got to chatting with a family who was standing outside. They were going to see their 80-year old mother who had just lost her son. She was the sister and it was her brother who had died. The mother just could not handle the grief so they had to admit her.

I understood, but many people would have not understood how a 80-year old mother could be in such crippling grief over the loss of her 62-year-old son.

The first year you went to heaven I was completely numb and in shock.  When the numbness and shock wore off, I walked around dead or on auto-pilot. I did what I had to do, sold homes and read so many books on Heaven I could write one myself.

The second year I focused on writing your story to be able to help other families going through a traumatic situation. The book is finished and I am just waiting for a physician to finish editing the medical part. Working on the book and doing all the research allowed me to focus beyond my pain.

We are now in the third year and again I am going through ANOTHER transformation. In the book, You Can Heal Your Heart, by Louise Hay she says and I have found it to be profoundly true is that:

“Grief is the window that provides the opportunity to examine your primal thinking about relationships.”

When death invades a home, in the beginning friends, family, acquaintances rally around, bring food, text to check on you, call and do all the wonderful things to help you get through your loss. Then it stops, perhaps they think we are “over it” and we are “back to normal”.

Truthfully, what else could they do?

People have their own lives to live, with all of their own challenges.  But we are still HERE facing the days and nights without you and dad and bear. Life for someone grieving can be a very dark, and lonely place. There have been so many times where I had to beg God to give me the love and forgiveness He has for them and to heal my heart from the disappointments.

The joy I get is when I am helping and advocating for others in worse situations than me. Children who have been ripped out of the arms of their loving parents due to the crisis in medical kidnapping; parents whose children are suffering from cancer.  So heartbreaking and I can “feel” the pain and grief they are walking through.

So yes I am being shaken up on what is important in life and what does God want me to do to finish my race.

Celebrating Jamie Caulk

Jamie caulk on set at Lee University So here we are on your 31st birthday and even though you are not physically present you are still inspiring and motivating me to live life with a sensitivity to others. You were amazing at this and gifted in understanding when people were in pain.

One of the sweetest most inspiring letters we got about you was from this girl:

I guess five years ago or so I was at Starbucks completely utterly totally overwhelmed. I had been assaulted and had just found out that I was pregnant.

I had no clue what I was going to do. I went to Starbucks. And your brother was in line and he pulled me aside and asked if he could pray for me. He prayed for the life that was to be.

He prayed that I would have peace and that God’s grace and love would surround me. He looked at me and said “Be brave. God never gives us something we can’t handle. We serve a faithful and mighty God.”

I cried and cried to this complete stranger and poured my heart out of all the questions I had wondering where God was and how my plans had failed. And he looked at me without judgment and said “God’s plans are so much bigger than ours. You have to trust him. Your faith will get you through this!! Sometimes God has to take us through pain to get us back where we need to be. To make us remember that we are not in control and that He has this bigger and better plan than we could ever imagine.”

I cannot tell you what those words did for me. I now have a little girl and I cannot imagine my life without her. Never did I imagine my life like this but never would I change it.

I never got to thank your brother. He was a complete stranger to me and as far as I was concerned he was God’s messenger to me that day.

So even though I cannot thank him here on this earth I will get to thank him in eternity. And I wanted You to know how thankful I am for his life here on earth!!

 Jamie Caulk See you soon

Jesus says, in John 16:33 to “Be of good cheer”.  The new house is nearly ready for you. Moving day is coming. The dark winter is about to be magically transformed into spring. One day soon you will be home—for the first time.

Meanwhile, we on this dying Earth can relax and rejoice for our loved ones who are in the presence of Christ. As the apostle Paul tells us, though we naturally grieve at losing loved ones, we are not “to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Our parting is not the end of our relationship, only an interruption. We have not “lost” them, because we know where they are. They are experiencing the joy of Christ’s presence in a place so wonderful that Christ called it Paradise. (excerpt from Randy Alcorn’s , book Heaven)

When I think of you which is every day, multiple times. I don’t look at the sky and clouds. I look around at our lake house, our home in Saline, the earth I am now living on and the places I visit.  I KNOW that one day we will all be together on the New Earth without the curse of sin and death and without the suffering and corruption of our political systems.

I take the advice you gave the young lady as my own from you, “God’s plans are so much bigger than ours. You have to trust him. Your faith will get you through this!!

Mostly I long for never having to say, good-bye again.

Happy Birthday “Jamo-Pup”, I love you to the moon and back,

Mom

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