Strength in Struggle: Rhonda Chartier's Story of Hope

Episode Summary

In this episode of the Courage Wolf Podcast, host Terry Oliver speaks with Rhonda Chartier, wife of John Chartier, who became a quadriplegic after an accident in The Bahamas. Rhonda discusses the immediate aftermath of the accident, including dealing with a hospital that demanded large sums of money and threatened to remove her. She shares how she coped with multiple tragedies, including her brother's death at a young age and John's earlier heart failure. Rhonda explains her methods for maintaining mental health through walking, yoga, and social-emotional learning techniques she teaches her students. She also highlights the importance of accepting help from friends and family, staying positive, and setting personal goals, such as an upcoming 75-mile hike with her daughter. Rhonda's story imparts a message of resilience, hope, and the power of community support, reinforcing that even in the darkest moments, there can be light and joy. The episode concludes with a mention of John's new book, "Embracing the Waves," which details his journey and the waves of life he has faced.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Terry Oliver: Hello everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Courage Wolf podcast. As you know, we focus on stories of courage. What happened to someone, how they got through it, and how their experience can help the rest of us get through our own challenges. It's funny, you know, we all have a tendency to focus on what happened to someone and not even think about how this has affected others in their lives, and tragedy does affect others in our lives very deeply.

John Chartier was our guest for episode 42 of the podcast. John and his wife Rhonda, were vacationing in The Bahamas with two friends of theirs when their lives were changed in an instant. We've already heard how this affected John. Episode 42 is our second most downloaded episode of the podcast, and I know that there are a lot of people who want to hear Rhonda's story, so please join Rhonda Chartier and I on the podcast to hear how this accident has affected her personally and how it's affected the lives of their family.

[00:00:59] Rhonda Chartier: You just [00:01:00] need to really remember that your darkest moment light seems so changed and so difficult. It can also change for the better just as quickly.

I hope that John's story and my story together can give you some hope, maybe some inspiration that if they can do it well, certainly I can do it.

[00:01:24] Terry Oliver: Welcome to the Courage Wolf Podcast, where we share with you powerful stories of courage and inspiration to help you live a successful life of courage and freedom. We'll speak with people from all walks of life. Who have overcome challenges and struggles while bringing to light the solutions and inspiration they found to help take back control of their lives.

Now, please welcome the host of the Courage Wolf podcast, Terry Oliver.

Today we're going to hear the story of how the accident that instantly made John [00:02:00] Chartier a quadriplegic, affected his wife and partner of 38 years, Rhonda Chartier. I know that there are a lot of people out there who've been wondering when we're going to do a podcast with Rhonda, they wanna know how this has affected her and how she's coping with a life that's drastically different than how she and John envisioned it.

Rhonda and John Chartier were vacationing in The Bahamas when the unthinkable happened. A wave hit John from behind and face, planted him into the ocean floor, instantly turning him into a quadriplegic. John was taken to a hospital where he was told that the insurance he had for medical emergencies was not valid and that they needed $10,000 cash for him to be treated.

What could they do? Rhonda and their friends got the money to begin treatment, and then they were told by the hospital administrator that they would need an additional $20,000 by 9:00 PM or Rhonda would be escorted out of the hospital, leaving John there to fend for himself. I'm still amazed and shocked when I think of this.

I want to welcome [00:03:00] Rhonda to the show. She'll finish this story a little later, but before that, we're going to delve into who she is and how she's coped with more than one tragedy in her life. Hello, Rhonda, welcome to the show. I'm glad we could finally get you here talking with us. It's an honor.

[00:03:15] Rhonda Chartier: Oh, hi Terry.

I'm really excited to be here too.

[00:03:17] Terry Oliver: Now, I'm not sure whether John suggested that I speak with you or if I suggested to John that you might consider being on the podcast. How long have you and John been married for now?

[00:03:27] Rhonda Chartier: Oh my goodness, since 1983. I'm not a math teacher.

[00:03:32] Terry Oliver: 38 years.

[00:03:34] Rhonda Chartier: Yes, that's about right.

[00:03:35] Terry Oliver: 38 years.

Okay. That's great. Tell us a little bit about your family. How many children do you guys have and what do they do in the world?

[00:03:42] Rhonda Chartier: So we have two children. Our son, Brandon, he does a lot of computer work and don't ask me to explain it because I don't understand. And he lives in Cleveland, Ohio. And then our daughter works in cybersecurity and currently she lives in Herndon, Virginia.

[00:03:57] Terry Oliver: Good. Now, getting to you, I know you're [00:04:00] so much more than this, but you're a teacher, aren't you?

[00:04:02] Rhonda Chartier: I am. I'm a teacher of fifth grade students, ages 10 and 11, sometimes turning 12. I teach basically reading and language arts.

[00:04:10] Terry Oliver: And I assume that you're teaching virtually now.

[00:04:12] Rhonda Chartier: This has been a very trying year.

And yes, I teach all virtual, and I've been teaching virtual since August of last year. We have one and a half more weeks to go and we will be done. It's been a very different and difficult year in some ways. In other ways, we have spent more time trying to build relationships and connections because we're virtual.

Mm-hmm.

[00:04:34] Rhonda Chartier: So in some ways I know some of these kids better about their emotional and their personalities a little bit better, and I don't quite know what they look like physically. Whether they're tall or whether they're short. Some of them I have never met in person. So yeah, in that way it's been very difficult.

[00:04:48] Terry Oliver: Is virtual teaching, I know it's difficult on the teacher, but is it difficult for the student as well? Is it actually harder for the student?

[00:04:54] Rhonda Chartier: You know, I think in some ways it is because again, it's hard to build those relationships. [00:05:00] Between students, with other students, I do a lot of things. I put them a lot of times into breakout rooms or like small groups where they can share their answers and talk together with one another.

But yeah, I think it is a little bit harder for them in that way, at least building relationships with other students. Academically, I would say a lot of my kids have really done quite well. But yeah, there's been a few kids that it's difficult for.

[00:05:21] Terry Oliver: You were telling me in one of our conversations that you actually teach your students some breathing techniques to lower their own stress, don't you?

Can you tell us about that at all?

[00:05:28] Rhonda Chartier: I really do, and I, that's not something new just for this year, virtually. It's been something I've done the last few years.

Oh, great.

[00:05:34] Rhonda Chartier: We've been trying to incorporate a lot more social emotional learning into our curriculum. Things that we didn't learn when we were children, like how to cope with frustration, how to understand the size of a problem and then have your reaction match the size of the problem.

We do a lot of social emotional learning, and one of them things that we use is called the zones of regulations so kids can stop and think about what zone they're in, so we kind of color code it. And [00:06:00] then green zone is where you want to be calm, ready to learn. And then you could be in the rain, red zone if you were angry or upset or frustrated.

You could be in the yellow zone if you are just being very silly or, um, overexcited and you're hard to calm yourself down. Or you could be in the blue zone where maybe you're feeling sick that day or you're tired. And then I, we try to teach them some different things they can do when they can identify what zone they're in first.

And then how to get into the green zones as they're ready to learn. So that's something we've been doing for the last few years, and I actually think it's wonderful because we were never taught social and emotional learning about ourselves and why we feel the way we feel and what can we do to calm ourselves down.

So, so I've been doing breathing techniques with students for a couple years now. It really does help even virtually. There's been a few times I've had to use it this year, and it's really cool for them to learn it so early, at a young age when we didn't have that.

[00:06:51] Terry Oliver: That's fantastic. Tell me, Rhonda, are you looking forward to the end of the school year?

[00:06:56] Rhonda Chartier: I'm, we have, uh, six days left.

[00:06:59] Terry Oliver: Not that you're [00:07:00] counting, right?

[00:07:00] Rhonda Chartier: No, and I'm not counting, not at all. I'm looking forward to going back into the building and, and meeting with my students physically next year in that regard. It will be very nice to be able to do that.

[00:07:10] Terry Oliver: Well, thanks for telling us a little bit about what you do as a teacher.

I appreciate it. Before we get into what you and John have faced together, you had some personal tragedy in your life before you even met John, didn't you? Can you tell us a little bit about that please?

[00:07:21] Rhonda Chartier: Everybody faces hard things in their life and tragedy in their life, and I don't think that the things we face are any harder than anyone else, but everybody has things to deal with in life.

'cause life is difficult. Life can just be really hard for everyone. Some people don't have tragedy until they're older in life. Tragedy hit my family pretty young. I was 15 and I had a brother die from a drunk driver. He was put on life support for a few days and then our family had to make the decision to turn off the life support.

I was quite young and that year my mom had lost her mother and her father and her son all within one year.

Mm-hmm.

[00:07:57] Rhonda Chartier: That was very difficult on our whole family. [00:08:00] Back up then. People didn't really do a lot of therapy. I didn't know people who went to therapy school didn't even acknowledge my brother's lost to me.

Not a single teacher, not a counselor. Today, that's unthinkable. Today when a student loses a family member, like a whole team comes together to help support them. That wasn't the case back then. It was very difficult and it was something I didn't really deal with for a very long time.

[00:08:25] Terry Oliver: What was your brother's name?

[00:08:26] Rhonda Chartier: Brother's name was Gregory. My mother named him after Gregory Peck, a famous actor, and I was named after Rhonda Fl on also a famous person. Well, then my third sibling came along and they named him after my father, and then the last two just randomly pulled names out of a hat.

[00:08:45] Terry Oliver: Now, you told me in one of our conversations that you have a story to tell.

So is it okay if we start to get into that story?

[00:08:52] Rhonda Chartier: Sure.

[00:08:53] Terry Oliver: You've been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress in the past, is this correct?

[00:08:58] Rhonda Chartier: Yes.

[00:08:58] Terry Oliver: What happened in your [00:09:00] life to bring you to that diagnosis?

[00:09:02] Rhonda Chartier: One of those things was the past trauma with dealing with my brother and circumstances of his death, and then John had.

This was before his spinal cord injury, what we thought was bronchitis, and it turned out to be heart failure. He had been treated for the bronchitis. It just wasn't getting any better, and he wasn't able to sleep at all laying down. It was a Memorial Day weekend. He was going to just go to the hospital to see if they could help, and I almost let him go by himself because it was just bronchitis, right?

Mm-hmm. But I decided to go with him, and when we were there, they said that he was in heart failure, which. We didn't believe. We thought they must have been in the wrong ER room. You know, you're just a curtain away from the next person. So we thought for sure they came into the wrong room and no, it was true.

And they said that he had to go to Cleveland Clinic, up in Cleveland. I said, okay, well I'll drive him up there. They said, no, you don't understand. He's in complete [00:10:00] heart failure. You are not driving him anywhere. He has to go by ambulance. And that's when it really first hit us. I, I still didn't believe it was real.

You have the wrong room.

Mm-hmm.

[00:10:10] Rhonda Chartier: You know, he just has bronchitis. So he got there by ambulance and I followed by car and then it was a whirlwind of meeting with, uh, heart specialists and we actually even met with the transplant team because that's how bad it was. They were going to put him on the heart transplant list.

Then they decided that they would try doing an aortic valve replacement, and then if that did not work, then he would be put on the transplant team. He was in the hospital for 18, 19 days. It really threw me for a tailspin and it really, it was just a lot of different things that just kind of put it all together.

Yes. Within that next year, I lost my job. They did a reduction in force at work, so I did not have a teaching job, and John has just gone through all of this. I did get another job, but it was not a good placement. It was not a good fit. [00:11:00] And things just spiraled. I just went down a deep hole and the only way I knew to get out was I needed to go seek some help.

So that's how I found out that I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and then I started to learn some coping skills.

[00:11:15] Terry Oliver: So did you continue to work through this or did you take some time off? Everything was happening at once, wasn't it?

[00:11:21] Rhonda Chartier: It really was, and I really was not able to work. I did take time off.

I do remember being at home and being startled by every little noise, like the phone would ring and I literally would like jump as if we were totally startled. Looking back now, I feel like I just sat in place for months. It felt like I don't even know what was happening. I was just in a fog.

[00:11:43] Terry Oliver: Was it during this time off, did you found the trauma therapist?

[00:11:46] Rhonda Chartier: Yes, it was. We have a close friend who is a psychologist and she lives out of state, but she recommended someone to me. Her name was Renee, and she did a particular therapy called EMDR, which is eye movement [00:12:00] desensitization and reprocessing. It's the psychotherapy that help people heal from symptoms of post-traumatic stress.

One of the things she taught me was affirmations to tell myself that I was okay. That was one of the first ones that she taught me that I was safe, and I was okay at that moment in time to help with that being on high alert. And she also taught me tapping, which is another skill that I, I still used on occasion, and it really does work.

I did take medication for depression at this time, which also helped me deal with my, uh, post-traumatic stress disorder. I would definitely recommend medication if that's what your doctor recommends for you.

[00:12:36] Terry Oliver: So you'd already built up a repertoire of coping skills before John's accident, hadn't you?

[00:12:41] Rhonda Chartier: So when his spinal cord injury happened, I had already gone through dealing with some of my past stressors and had already built up some coping skills.

While his accident was stressful, it wasn't nearly as stressful as the heart surgery. It didn't send me into a tailspin. My whole life did [00:13:00] change. It really was another traumatic event, but I didn't spiral downward. There were times that, you know, yes, I was angry. Yes, I was down and I was even, maybe even say somewhat depressed about things, but I didn't spiral out of control.

I was able to function

[00:13:15] Terry Oliver: well. You know what, Rhonda? I can't imagine how anyone would've handled what you and John had to deal with without your friends and family and the skills that you'd already learned. I'd like to talk about the accident if we could, because I want our listeners to know that John most likely would not be with us today if it weren't for you.

Can you take us back to the hospital and what you were told by the hospital when you got there?

[00:13:36] Rhonda Chartier: When we arrived at the hospital in The Bahamas, we were put into the hallway. This was the better of the two hospitals. We were stuck in the hallway and we weren't even taken into an emergency room, and they wanted money right away for treatment.

And of course, they would not take our insurance and they wanted $10,000. I had to start calling our credit card companies and my parents to [00:14:00] wire us money. It was wired finally, and they then saw him in triage. Then some decisions were made about surgery and we really didn't want the surgery. We just wanted to get him home, get him out of The Bahamas, but we could not get, we could not secure a life flight for him.

And the surgeon did say to us it was not good medicine to let John lie there and do nothing. So the decision was made to do surgery, but then again, they wanted more money. Meanwhile, our friends had to get back on the cruise. The cruise line actually let them call us in the hospital. We had met a doctor sometimes on cruises, they put you at group tables.

If anybody knows John, John is the outgoing one of our family, and John will make friends everywhere. So we have already made new friends on the cruise in two nights, and one of the new people was a doctor. John can make friends at the gas station. Our new best friend everywhere we go.

[00:14:58] Terry Oliver: John told me that as well about [00:15:00] himself.

[00:15:00] Rhonda Chartier: It's very true. And people who know me well, they think that I'm outgoing also, but I am really kind of an introvert. John brings me out where I might not go, but I've learned a lot of ability to make small talk and meet people and just stretch myself in that area because of John.

Right?

[00:15:18] Rhonda Chartier: So we had this new doctor friend.

He is a doctor that practices in Florida. He recommended that we tell them, no, we were not going to give you any more money, that they could bill us or they could bill our insurance. And upon me stating that they stopped treatment of John, he had already had his first surgery there. And they basically walked outta the room and handed me suction John's quadriplegic.

And at the time, John lost all ability from his neck down, couldn't even swallow on his own

right?

[00:15:48] Rhonda Chartier: So he was being suctioned all the time, and they literally walked outta the room and handed the suction and put it into my hand.

Really?

[00:15:55] Rhonda Chartier: Now, they didn't show me how to use it. I'd just been watching them as they were using it, [00:16:00] but no one like trained me on how to do it.

So now I am panicking that it's up to me to keep suctioning him. And then they came in the room and said that at 9:00 PM is the end of visiting hours. Now mind you, I'm literally in my swimsuit. And my friend, when they left us at the hospital, she left me with her hooded sweatshirt. So I was in my swimsuit with a hooded sweatshirt.

It was cold in the hospital, air conditioned, and I'm in a room in a swimsuit. This is almost 24 hours now since the accident happened. And I also am wearing contacts, which I don't wear overnight. I'm in a hospital, so I had asked them for some saline so I could at least take them out and rinse them and put them back in my eyes.

They told me that I could go out of the hospital and flag a taxi cab and go to a pharmacy and buy those materials for myself.

[00:16:49] Terry Oliver: That's absolutely amazing.

[00:16:50] Rhonda Chartier: I was not going to leave him because there's no one to suction him. I'm in my swimsuit still and they were not going to treat him.

[00:16:57] Terry Oliver: And they also threatened toss you out of the hospital, didn't [00:17:00] they?

[00:17:00] Rhonda Chartier: They said at 9:00 PM visiting hours would be over, and then I would have to leave. And when told this, I said, well, you didn't make me leave last night at 9:00 PM It's different. These are the rules now, even though they weren't the rules the day before. And I said, no, I'd like to speak to the next person in charge.

And they brought some administrator into the room and they again said that at 9:00 PM I would be kicked out. Meanwhile, I had spoken with the embassy twice, the American Embassy, and they had given me a list, given me a list of life flight companies. I am running out of minutes on my phone. I don't have a charger.

I'm praying that my phone does not die and that I don't get kicked off. 'cause I keep getting all these text messages from our phone service company saying that they're going to cut me off because they see a lot of usage in another country. And I am just praying that that doesn't happen. And I'm also trying to talk to the credit card companies to get extension on more credit so I can slide John out of the country.

The embassy gave me a list [00:18:00] of lifelike companies and I thought, I don't have time to call around and comparison price like you would when you're buying a new car. I do have faith. I prayed that I would just be shown which company to choose, and I was going through the list and one was called Fly Riva, REVA, Riva, and my grandmother's name was Reva, so that's who I called.

Yeah. Here's my sign. So I called Fly Riva. Of course at the time they could not come and get him because you have to have a bed open. And first thing I said, get him back to Cleveland Clinic. Cleveland Clinic did not have a bed open and they don't call the hospitals for you. You have to call the hospitals.

Mm-hmm. So meanwhile, I'm calling all these hospitals in Florida, in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, everywhere I can think of that. Might have a hospital that he could go to. Meanwhile, I keep getting told you're going to be kicked out at nine o'clock tonight. It was around dinner time, 5, 5 30 or so that we [00:19:00] finally got a call from Fly Reba and Cleveland Clinic.

Cleveland Clinic had a bed and they would be there that night to take us. So 9:00 PM came and went. They did not kick me out, and our fly Riva flight came in about 1130.

[00:19:14] Terry Oliver: Now, did they know that the flight was on its way?

[00:19:16] Rhonda Chartier: Yes, they did. They did have to coordinate healthcare with the Fly Riva service, so they didn't know what was coming, but we still didn't know if they were going to kick me out.

When I told them, no, I won't be leaving him, they told me they would escort me out with security. And I said, where am I supposed to go? I'm in a swimsuit. I don't even have clothes to put on. I have sandals. Flip flos. Where am I supposed to go? I said, I'll have to sit on the sidewalk in front of a hospital.

And they told me they were going to escort me out.

[00:19:45] Terry Oliver: And if they had taken you out, John would've died, wouldn't he?

[00:19:48] Rhonda Chartier: He would've died.

[00:19:50] Terry Oliver: Had you given any thought to what you were going to do if they did try and remove you from John's side?

[00:19:54] Rhonda Chartier: I had already talked to a couple different people and I just told them, you will have to remove me.

You [00:20:00] will have to physically escort me out.

I begged and cried and said, how could you do this? Would you do this to your own husband? Would you do this to your father? I had tried to appeal to their better natures. They were very hard, and I know it was all a place to get us to break down and give them more money.

Yes.

[00:20:16] Rhonda Chartier: I don't know if they would've done it just to get us to say yes.

[00:20:20] Terry Oliver: That must have been incredibly stressful.

[00:20:22] Rhonda Chartier: It was incredibly stressful. And meanwhile, John had spiked a fever. If you saw the state his body was in, he had gone through major surgery and he was still in his swimsuit. They never removed his swimsuit.

They never scrubbed the sand off of his body.

[00:20:37] Terry Oliver: Oh my goodness.

[00:20:38] Rhonda Chartier: So he had an infection, had a raging fever, and they brought in a blanket that circulated cold water. That's what they put on him, and then they turned the air conditioner up in the room just to cool the air around him, and I'm in my swimsuit.

So I was literally shaking from fear and from actual freezing [00:21:00] cold. My physical body was going through a lot, just trying to process all that was happening there too. That was a little bit traumatic for both of us and just praying that we would get him out in time. We both cried quite a bit. You know, this could be the end because if they take me away, he's going to die.

[00:21:16] Terry Oliver: And John was conscious through this entire process with the hospital administrator.

[00:21:20] Rhonda Chartier: He was totally conscious and I think he was in a bit of shock.

[00:21:24] Terry Oliver: Rhonda, how did you eventually get John out of there and where were you flown to after that?

[00:21:29] Rhonda Chartier: So we did use a life flight company and they had a small jet that came in.

Then they brought an ambulance from the airport to the hospital to pick us up, and then took us back to the plane and flew us to Cleveland Clinic. We came in very early in the morning and we came into a small airport near downtown Cleveland.

Mm-hmm.

[00:21:50] Rhonda Chartier: And there were no customs people there because it was so early in the morning.

They contacted a customs person from Akron, and Akron was about, I don't know, 45, [00:22:00] 50 minutes from Cleveland. And this person drove all the way to Cleveland for us to come into the United States basically. So that was a really wonderful thing that that person did. I still don't know who that person was, but they went out of their way to drive that far to bring us into the country.

And then took us to Cleveland Clinic and at Cleveland Clinic they determined that the surgery he did have was good, but it was not enough. Mm-hmm. So they did an additional surgery and yes, he had a raging fever. They put him on massive antibiotics right away, and probably because he still had sand on his body and was never really properly cleaned before surgery.

The graciousness of Cleveland Clinic, they immediately, a staff member took me by the hand and took me where there was a shower and they gave me scrubs and gave me soap and shampoo, and just kind of took care of me too. That part was lovely 'cause it would've been almost three days that I was still in my swimsuit with the same contacts on.

I was taking my contacts out periodically and just rinsing them under tap water and [00:23:00] putting them back in my eyes.

[00:23:01] Terry Oliver: Oh, were you keeping it together through all of this?

[00:23:03] Rhonda Chartier: There was a lot of prayer. There was a lot of me talking to God.

[00:23:06] Terry Oliver: Yes.

[00:23:07] Rhonda Chartier: I didn't want John to see my panic. He was already in a state of shock what was happening to him.

[00:23:13] Terry Oliver: Even though we know logically that we're not going to get through this life without some challenges and suffering, we never think that things like this will happen to us. How did this affect you mentally, Rhonda?

[00:23:24] Rhonda Chartier: Our world became very, very small. Basically, John lived in the hospital and a nursing facility, a rehab facility for almost a.

Every waking moment of our thought was John and his care and his progress, and helping John gain as much functional ability as possible. So our life became very, very small and revolved around the hospital and work. So I would go to work and I would go straight to wherever he was at the time, and then I would spend the [00:24:00] evening with him, and then I would come home and go to bed and repeat.

And I got very angry at the situation of life that we were now put in and how unfair life was. Mm-hmm. And this was certainly not where we expected to be.

[00:24:14] Terry Oliver: Rhonda, is it safe to say that your faith got you through all this?

[00:24:18] Rhonda Chartier: I would definitely say my faith was what kept me strong during all of this and the coping skills that I had learned along the way.

[00:24:25] Terry Oliver: Now, how did this affect your family? How did this affect your children?

[00:24:29] Rhonda Chartier: Our daughter, the senior in college, when his accident happened, his accident happened in March and she graduated in May when her graduation happened. It was really difficult for John to not be able to attend her graduation. That was hard for her to not have her dad there.

Then she graduated and she came, moved back home. So then I had her here as support, but I really wasn't here with her. I was always with John or working, thank goodness she was here to help take care of our dog and run the household. And she also [00:25:00] spent a lot of time in the facilities that he was in. She also got a new job at the time, but it was not her dream job.

It was her Get outta college, get a job until you get your real job. Job. During this time period, she got an opportunity go interview for a job that she really wanted, but it was in Washington DC and she really questioned doing that at this time and we told her, no, you have to go and do this. So it was a really hard decision for her and our son had a really rough time just seeing his big strong dad who could always do everything.

And help with everything, not be that person anymore.

Mm-hmm.

[00:25:35] Rhonda Chartier: That was really hard for him to see and just to cope with. It was hard on both of our kids.

[00:25:41] Terry Oliver: Well, thanks for telling us that. Before we go into how you get through this on a day-to-day basis, I wanna talk a little bit about fear. Your fear and John's fear, if that's okay with you.

[00:25:51] Rhonda Chartier: Okay,

[00:25:52] Terry Oliver: let's talk about John's biggest fear. First,

[00:25:54] Rhonda Chartier: it's hard to describe, but his paralysis was so complete. He literally could only blink his eyes and [00:26:00] open and close his mouth. I mean, imagine having your nose itch and you can't reach up and scratch your nose. You actually have to ask someone, could you please scratch my nose?

My ear itches. The dependency was so overwhelming for him. All of his care was overwhelming for all of us, but I think he thought that I would not be able to do it, and that I would leave him.

[00:26:20] Terry Oliver: And that's a perfectly understandable fear that John had and anybody who was in John's situation would have. But you're in this for the long run, aren't you?

[00:26:28] Rhonda Chartier: I am now. 'cause I just got him trained. So I tell him that all the time. I don't wanna have to train someone else.

[00:26:36] Terry Oliver: Good for you. Too

[00:26:36] Rhonda Chartier: much work. His fear about me leaving him was very early on and I think, I relieve those fears. Some people just mentally and physically cannot do it. It's really not easy.

It's a hard row.

[00:26:49] Terry Oliver: But you two made a commitment to each other, didn't you?

[00:26:51] Rhonda Chartier: We did, and every day we make that commitment. Yeah. Every day is a new adventure. Sometimes good adventure, sometimes bad [00:27:00] adventure, but it's still an adventure.

[00:27:01] Terry Oliver: Now let's talk about you. What was or what is your biggest fear?

[00:27:05] Rhonda Chartier: My biggest fear is John falling in me, finding him dead on the floor.

He has fallen many times and he has had so many black eyes and so many bruises on his head. John doesn't have any ability to sense that he's falling and put his arms out like you and I would do.

Just recently this winter, John fell and broke some ribs.

[00:27:27] Terry Oliver: Yeah, he told me about that. We had a conversation about that.

[00:27:29] Rhonda Chartier: That is my biggest fear and we've progressed to the point that we don't have AIDS in the house and you know, we've done some things. We've got him at Apple Watch that has a fall detection so that it automatically alerts the EMS and myself that he has fallen if he doesn't respond within so much time.

[00:27:45] Terry Oliver: How do you get through this? How do you get through this on a day-to-day basis? What coping skills do you use on a day-to-day basis?

[00:27:51] Rhonda Chartier: On a day-to-day basis, I try not to let my fear get out of control, but when something does happen, I do go from zero to a hundred very quickly [00:28:00] and go down the deep path of oh my goodness, what ifs.

And so sometimes I just have to talk myself off the ledge. On a day-to-day basis, I try to do things to keep myself in a rather calm place. One of the things I do is I do walk almost every day, and I walk a lot, so that helps bring some of the physical nervousness out of my system. And then I also like to do yoga.

I had never done yoga before John's accident, and my daughter who was home with me, and at the time we had a community rec program that offered a free yoga class and neither one of us had done yoga. So my daughter and I found that we just live in a very small, it's not even a town, but there happens to be a little recreation program, and they were offering a free yoga class.

My daughter and I had never taken yoga before, so we decided to go and the teacher, she happened to dim the lights. Well, being a brand new student, I stood in [00:29:00] the back, of course, 'cause I didn't want people to see me. And at the end you do a resting pose. Well, she had dimmed the lights in that resting pose.

I just started crying and bawling and it was just like a damper in me. I just could not stop crying and I realized. This was the first time in months and months that my mind for one hour was not thinking about John and his injury. And it would've been the first hour and months that I actually thought of something else.

And so since then I have made yoga part of my practice.

[00:29:32] Terry Oliver: Good. And you started back doing something else for yourself, didn't you?

[00:29:36] Rhonda Chartier: I did. I always have liked to walk and my daughter is kind of challenging me to take a huge hike. This summer, we are going to walk the Greater Allegheny passage, which is a trail that runs from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Washington, DC now, it's a long trail.

It's a hike and bike trail. A lot of people do bike the whole thing, and depending on how much their mileage is, they might [00:30:00] do. They might do the trail in seven to 11 days. Well, we obviously can't walk the trail and even if the whole thing in seven to 11 days, so we're gonna do a section, we're gonna do 75 miles in five days.

[00:30:12] Terry Oliver: That's a considerable section.

[00:30:14] Rhonda Chartier: It certainly is. Our longest day is 18 mile hike, which I have not done an 18 mile hike yet. My farthest has been 13 miles. The longest day will be 18, so we'll see. It's going to be an exciting adventure. I've been training since February 10th. I have walked almost every day.

[00:30:29] Terry Oliver: And you've been training with a weighted backpack too, right?

[00:30:32] Rhonda Chartier: Most days, I wear my backpack right now, anywhere between 10 to 13 pounds, and I figure my final weight's gonna be 15 to 20, but I am not there yet. I'll get there soon. It's only a few weeks away. We're going to go in early June.

[00:30:46] Terry Oliver: Are you guys camping on the trail or are you staying someplace else Every night.

[00:30:50] Rhonda Chartier: I told my daughter, I am too old to camp. I need to have a real bed and a real shower every night. So we are staying in places, [00:31:00] nothing fancy 'cause these are not big cities. Anything with a bed and a shower. As long as we have that, I think we'll be good to go. If I can get a good night's dress,

[00:31:08] Terry Oliver: good for both of you.

That's great. I'd love to be able to do a hike like that sometime. Have you ever done anything like this before?

[00:31:14] Rhonda Chartier: No, never in the last eight years. I never would've even considered leaving John for that long. I've only left him one other time for 24 hours. For many years it was not even a thought that would cross my mind, but he is in a place right now that we're both comfortable.

His sister's going to come and stay with him here. Nice. I am going to go with my daughter and I are very much looking forward together and spending this time together, making these memories. To keep our momentum up. We live near the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. They're actually doing a hiking challenge in October, and it's a 20 miles and one day hiking challenge.

We are signing up to do that, so we stay motivated. We have to keep practicing because we have this big hike coming up in October.

[00:31:55] Terry Oliver: Good for both of you. That's fantastic. Now, I think on our last [00:32:00] conversation, I asked you if you'd ever seen the movie A Walk in the Woods with Robert Redford and Nick Nolte.

Did you ever see it

[00:32:07] Rhonda Chartier: When you asked me that? I had not watched the movie. But since then, I have watched the movie and I have read the Bill Bryson book, A Walk in the Woods that the movie is based upon. I laugh all the time thinking about those things.

[00:32:20] Terry Oliver: Oh, that's a great movie, isn't it? And it's a great book.

[00:32:22] Rhonda Chartier: It's very funny and a very good book too.

[00:32:24] Terry Oliver: Now, are you going to be posting about this hike on social media so that the rest of us mere mortals can live vicariously through you?

[00:32:31] Rhonda Chartier: I will be posting this on social media. Both of my adult children do not use social media.

[00:32:37] Terry Oliver: Oh really?

[00:32:38] Rhonda Chartier: Yeah. Some of the rare people that do not.

But I will be posting about our trip.

[00:32:43] Terry Oliver: What are you looking forward to the most about this 75 mile hike?

[00:32:46] Rhonda Chartier: Just being with my daughter. I really think that's the most, making memories with her, mostly just being with my daughter.

[00:32:52] Terry Oliver: Now, Rhonda, we all go through something, don't we? There's no way that we're gonna get through this life without going through some bad [00:33:00] times.

What advice could you offer people who haven't yet prepared for times that aren't so good, shall we say?

[00:33:06] Rhonda Chartier: One of the biggest things that was so good for us was the support we had from family and friends. But accepting that support is another thing. We want to pick ourselves up from our own bootstraps and we can do it ourselves.

And there are sometimes in life that you really just can't, and you really need to just humble yourself and accept that support. Those people are being blessed by helping you, and now I realize that you're taking away their blessings if you don't let them help you. So let them help you. They want to help you.

I will tell you just a quick story that I was reminded of recently. So I'm a school teacher. I had a coworker when this happened with John. She just texted me and said, I have your lunch. I will pack lunch for you every day. And she literally packed my lunch and had it in the refrigerator at work every day for months.

It was just one thing I did not have to [00:34:00] worry about. She made my lunch every day.

[00:34:02] Terry Oliver: That's a great story.

[00:34:03] Rhonda Chartier: We had a lot of family support. They did a fundraiser for John to help pay for the life flight, which is $19,000. They did a fundraiser for us, and so many of our friends and coworkers put that together and it was overwhelming.

It was very overwhelming to accept that and letting them do that. Letting your family and friends help you when they can is a wonderful thing.

[00:34:26] Terry Oliver: What was that lady's name? Who made you the lunch? All those months.

[00:34:29] Rhonda Chartier: Her name was Angela. Angie.

[00:34:32] Terry Oliver: Angela. So a big shout out to Angela or Angie. That's great. Rhonda, what advice or words of hope can you offer to someone who's going through some tough times right now?

[00:34:42] Rhonda Chartier: You just need to really remember darkest moments. Light seems so changed and so difficult. It changed so quickly. It can also change for the better, just as quickly. And sometimes looking at John, we knew that his life was not going to change quickly and it may not ever change. [00:35:00] He may have been totally quadriplegic forever.

We didn't know how much he would get back function-wise, but we also had to look for joy. And one of my close friends, Kim. Also told me to journal, try to find three good things every single day. And sometimes those were really hard to find and they would be something very small, like, I got a donut today.

You know, there would be something very small. But when you would start to change your brain to focus on the positive and just to think every day to find three things you could be grateful for. Yes. And look for those gratitude moments rather than focusing on the negative, you can find three good things.

And I teach my students that too. I do a thing with them every day. We start our day with one good thing and they can share one good thing that's happened in the last 24 hours. And sometimes some of them say, I don't have a one good thing. I only have a one bad thing. In the process of them sharing that one bad thing, they usually come across one good thing.

[00:36:00] It's a very positive mindset where you can shape the way you think about things by focusing on the things you can be grateful for.

[00:36:07] Terry Oliver: Rhonda, is there anything else you'd like to share or to say to anyone listening to this podcast before we start to say our goodbyes?

[00:36:14] Rhonda Chartier: I hope that John's story and my story together can give you some hope, maybe some inspiration that if they can do it well, certainly I can do it.

Life is not easy, but we can do hard things. We really can. Small baby steps, just like training for walking for a 75 mile walk. I can't do 75 mile walk, but I can do one mile baby steps. And friends, we can do hard things.

[00:36:37] Terry Oliver: Yes we can. And you know what, Rhonda, I'm so glad that I asked John if you might be interested in being on the podcast.

I think you're an amazing person and I'm glad that we took the time to explore how this accident affected you.

[00:36:48] Rhonda Chartier: I really appreciate you asking me, Terry, and it's an amazing journey. We're all on this life together, and when we can share things that help one another and just give each other some positive moments and some things to look [00:37:00] forward to some joy in life, then we have done what we needed to do.

[00:37:04] Terry Oliver: Yes, we have. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me and our listeners.

[00:37:08] Rhonda Chartier: Well, thank you. I really appreciate the invitation. Thanks so much.

[00:37:11] Terry Oliver: Oh, you're welcome. Oh, and I almost forgot John's written a book about this journey, which I'm sure that you've been a major part of. What's the book called For our listeners?

It just came out, didn't it?

[00:37:21] Rhonda Chartier: It did. It came out last week. It's called Embracing the Waves by John t Chartier.

Great.

[00:37:27] Rhonda Chartier: And it's really John's story, partially his accident. But there's also stories about his life and the things that he's had to face. And it's an analogy, his accident happened because of a wave.

We all have waves of life, things that happen to us that we have no control over, that just wash over us. He just brings to light some of the waves he's dealt with his life. I'm so proud of him. If you could think of a quadriplegic, piping one, one finger at a time writing a book, and yes, it's taken him almost seven years.

It's really very well done and I think you'll really enjoy reading the stories, [00:38:00] embracing the waves. It's on Amazon or you can go to John's website, john t-shirt here com.

[00:38:05] Terry Oliver: That's absolutely fantastic. Well listen, Rhonda, thank you very much and would you say hello to John for me please?

[00:38:11] Rhonda Chartier: I certainly will.

Thank you and you have a wonderful night. Thank you. Appreciate you having me on the show.

[00:38:17] Terry Oliver: Thank you. And that, my friends, is it for this week, another episode of the Courage Wolf podcast. We're bringing you the Courage Wolf Podcast so that you can see that others are finding ways to their struggles and that you can too.

I truly hope that you're inspired by something that you hear from one of our guests or by something you hear in the shorter podcast I do by myself on Thursdays called Coffee with the Courage Wolf. This is what it's all about, brothers and sisters, people sharing their stories so that we know that we're not in this alone and that we can get through what we're going through.

If you have any questions about the podcast or about anything you've heard on the podcast today, please reach out to me atTerry@thecouragewolf.com and if you have any questions for [00:39:00] Rhonda Chartier. Send her an email at

[00:39:02] Rhonda Chartier: JMAZ as in zebra, EN as in Nancy, BLUE. So it looks like J Maize in blue because John's favorite colors are Michigan.

University of Michigan colors are maize in blue. That's j Maize in blue@gmail.com.

[00:39:21] Terry Oliver: Perfect. Thank you. My thanks to all of you who've taken the time to listen and to those who've taken the time to promote the podcast on your social media. I truly appreciate it. Be sure to listen to the Thursday episode called Coffee with the Courage Wolf, where I discuss some of the things that we talked about today.

One of the things that we're accomplishing with the Courage Wolf Podcast is building a community to help people through their challenges, and we're doing that through the Courage Wolf Facebook group. Search for it on Facebook, obviously, and join us in the group. There are people in there who can help.

We're building a community that will help a lot of people in the long run. We're all here for each other together is better. So join the pack. Brothers and [00:40:00] sisters, this is Terry Oliver signing off until Thursday.

Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Courage Wolf Podcast. For more stories of courage and inspiration, subscribe and listen to us every week. Be sure to head on over to the courage wolf.com to join our Facebook group. Sign up for our email list and find more information and resources to help you feed your own courage wolf.