Unexplained illness robbed man of 41 days

Published 10:10 pm Thursday, December 25, 2008

EVERETT — Cory Zoutte lost five weeks of his life and still doesn’t know why.

One day the 38-year-old Gold Bar man was living an ordinary life. The next day he had a chest cold.

By the third day, death skirted close enough to take a swipe.

But Cory Zoutte lived.

He lived through a massive infection that filled his lungs with fluid and attacked his vital organs. Through five weeks on life support, through kidney failure, through blood clots spreading to his legs and arm. His affliction was so serious, so severe his family and doctors doubted he’d live.

Even today, after dozens of tests, no one can explain what caused a healthy man in his prime to become so ill, so quickly.

Cory Zoutte is just glad to be alive.

He remembers the chest cold that crept up on him that Sunday morning.

Just the day before, he’d been shopping at a home improvement store with his wife, Misty. He was planning to work on an addition to the family’s 1,100-square-foot home. With four children, their home is a tight squeeze.

Instead, he spent the day curled on the couch. A deep, thick, dry cough worsened throughout that day, Oct. 26.

By the next morning, Zoutte was driving himself to a clinic in Monroe. He didn’t know it, but his lungs already were filling with fluid.

Staff at the clinic quickly realized he needed to go across the street to Valley General. By then, Zoutte — a man hearty enough to spend a week hunting deer in the backwoods just a few weeks earlier — couldn’t breathe well enough to make it across the parking lot.

His next moment of clarity wouldn’t come for 41 days.

Prayers from everywhere

Zoutte can’t remember the trauma his body endured.

That might be a blessing.

His condition had worsened so quickly, he nearly didn’t survive an ambulance ride from Monroe to Providence Regional Medical Center Everett. There, machines did the necessary work of running his failing body as he lay in the critical care unit. Doctors heavily sedated him so his body wouldn’t work against the respirator.

For weeks, his wife sat at his bedside and watched the love of her life flirt with death. One day he’d show signs of improvement. The next, he’d suffer some seemingly insurmountable setback.

She held his hand. She talked to him. She prayed. Always the glue of their family, Misty Zoutte felt her will to get through crumble at times. In the lowest moments, she’d come home, red-eyed and weary.

Family, friends, strangers did their best to shore up the Zouttes.

Misty Zoutte’s coworkers had people halfway around the world praying for him. Churches all over Snohomish County added him to their prayer lists.

There were hugs, sympathy calls from strangers, small gifts of kindness. People who didn’t know the family held fundraisers for them, to help with mounting medical bills. They brought meals and so much food Misty Zoutte finally had to say stop. One man gave his last $10 and his prayers.

Their 15-year-old son Jordan wrote a story about his stepdad, wrapped it around a collection can and placed it at a Monroe lube shop to raise money for his care. People gave hundreds of dollars.

Misty Zoutte just wanted her husband back, whole and healed.

The foot of the bed

The moment of truth came in early December.

Cory Zoutte had been transferred to the University of Washington Medical Center. Finally, he stabilized enough for doctors to wean him from the respirator and reduce the sedatives. Doctors thought the infection might have caused him irreparable brain damage.

He would nod his head yes or no to questions, but his family didn’t know if he really understood. Doctors hadn’t measured his mental acuity.

Misty Zoutte just wanted to hear him speak.

A doctor pulled the tube from his throat then put her finger over the hole in his tracheotomy, a surgical incision in the windpipe, so he could speak.

Misty Zoutte, her father Gary Watne and a close friend, Kim Krist, watched from the foot of his bed.

The doctor asked: Who are these three people?

His voice emerged hoarse and raspy.

“That’s Madison,” he croaked, eyeing his wife, Misty.

“That’s Stephanie and that’s Big Jack,” he said, motioning to Krist and Watne.

One horrible heartbeat passed. Misty Zoutte thought her husband’s mind was gone.

The doctor pulled her finger off his tracheotomy and he tried to speak again. The doctor quickly put her finger back.

And then this from Zoutte: “I wasn’t serious!”

“He’s got his sense of humor,” Gary Watne said. “And we knew Cory was there, Cory was there.”

A handful of medicine

At first, Misty Zoutte didn’t tell her husband how long he had been ill. When he learned it was December, that he had been in the hospital for nearly two months, he was shocked.

He missed Halloween, the presidential election and Thanksgiving.

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around this,” he said. “I’m missing two months of my life.”

The first few days he regained consciousness, Zoutte simply remembers feeling confused.

“It’s all very little — what I can remember,” he said.

Weeks of lying in a bed have left him weak, his muscles atrophied. He lost nearly 40 pounds. At Providence Regional Medical Center’s Pacific campus, Zoutte grew stronger. By last week, his brown eyes were bright. His sense of humor was sharp as a bowie knife.

He faced a daily regimen of exhausting procedures and therapies to regain what he’s lost. Speech therapy. Occupational therapy. Physical therapy.

He can use his fingers and move his forearms. His wrists hang limp, immobile. Braces support them and doctors aren’t sure yet if he’ll regain function of his wrists.

His kidneys now function well enough that he won’t need dialysis. Blood clots in his legs and arms remain, dangerous and unpredictable, so he’ll take a blood thinner for the foreseeable future — maybe for the rest of his life.

“If he has to take a handful of medicine every day — that’s pretty good after what he’s been through,” his wife said.

He’s still struggling with some higher-level mental functions, such as planning and organizing. He has trouble with basic mathematical problems that used to come easily. Doctors are optimistic his mental function will continue to improve over the coming months.

“I can walk around,” he said. “I can hold a cup and drink. I’ve still got a long way to go physically.”

His comeback qualifies as a minor miracle, said Liz Torrence, a registered nurse who manages the critical care unit at the hospital’s Colby campus. The nurses who first cared for Zoutte continue to follow his progress even after he was transferred.

“It’s pretty astounding he’s doing so well,” she said. “We’re all really excited.”

Home for Christmas

Misty Zoutte looks joyful, her face radiant when she’s with her husband now.

She is helping him relearn everything: how to walk, how to dress, how to eat.

“A lot of it is, ‘Get me this, get me that,’” she said, laughing. “It’s like having a husband again.”

In the back of her mind, money worries remain.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills and lost time from work have ravaged the family’s finances.

She’s cashed out her retirement and emptied what savings they had.

He hopes to return to his job at a Redmond duct-cleaning company. Part of him fears he picked this up at work, he said, but there’s no way to know for sure. Doctors ran every test imaginable, including for the flu and hantavirus. Nothing was conclusive.

“We still don’t know why he got so sick to begin with,” his father-in-law said. “We were told there are viruses floating around and some people get them and some don’t. They don’t know why.”

The family isn’t sure how they will cope without his salary. And what if he doesn’t regain the use of his wrists; how will he work?

The Zouttes can’t focus on that now.

“He’s taking it one day at a time, I’m taking it one bill at a time,” she said. “You just start over. As long as he’s here, it’s OK.”

At the start of this ordeal, Misty Zoutte had hoped her husband would be home for Thanksgiving. When that didn’t happen, she prayed for Christmas.

She got her wish.

Tuesday, Cory Zoutte came home.

A load of Christmas presents, donated by hospital staff, waited under the tree. The gift he wanted was hiding under the kitchen table.

After a long slow drive home on icy roads, the family pulled up at their Gold Bar home.

For the first time in 58 days, Cory Zoutte walked through his door. The family hadn’t told their 4-year-old Madison he was coming. There she was — under the table.

Gingerly, Zoutte got down on one knee and gave his daughter the biggest, longest, warmest hug.

“It’s great to be here, out of the hospital,” he said. “I’m just happy to be home.”

Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com

How to help

An account has been set up for the Zoutte family’s living and medical expenses. The family said donations of any amount would be greatly appreciated and can be made to the “Zoutte Family Care Fund” at any Bank of America branch.