Outpouring of support makes Yakima family thankful

This time last year, Alison Seaton was saying a prayer.

She was in the hospital, waiting. Her mother was undergoing emergency surgery for a bleeding brain aneurysm. And the doctor, a brain surgeon with a blunt bedside manner, didn't want to give her or her younger sister any false hope.

"Every other word was dead, dead, dead," recalls Marissa Seaton, the younger Seaton sister. "It was nerve-shattering. It made us realize how scary the situation was."

With their mother clinging to life, the Seaton sisters -- one of whom had just graduated from high school, the other a sophomore -- waited and worried, cried and prayed.

It was two days before Thanksgiving 2008. And the family was beginning what would become their most difficult of times.

The uncertainty and stress would last well past the holidays, halfway through the new year. There would be a second surgery, numerous doctor visits, the reversal of roles -- daughters caring for their mother in her time of need instead of the other way around -- and an outpouring of community support, most of it from strangers.

Jackie's still recovering, but she's well enough now to work part time. In fact, she'll be waitressing at Yakima's Black Angus Steakhouse today. And her girls are starting to look ahead, with Alison preparing to ship out with the Navy.

On this Thanksgiving, they're giving thanks that their mother is still here. A year ago, it didn't look like she would be.

"From the bottom of my heart, I really want to thank the Yakima community for the help they gave us last year," Jackie says. "If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't be here."

It all started with a horrible headache.

Jackie Seaton rested on the couch in her north Yakima home all morning before finally giving in to the pain and driving herself to Yakima Regional Medical and Cardiac Center.

She doesn't remember the rest.

Doctors discovered the 50-year-old had a bleeding brain aneurysm and a tumor on her pituitary gland, located at the base of the brain. They performed emergency surgery to stop the bleeding while her girls waited.

Every step of the way, they were told she could die.

"They didn't expect her to survive," says their grandmother, 74-year-old Peggy Iverson of Apple Valley, Minn., a suburb of Minneapolis. "They told us she could die on the table."

According to statistics from the Brain Aneurysm Foundation, the rate of brain aneurysm ruptures is about eight per 100,000 people, or about 25,000 people each year. About 40 percent of them die, and more than half of the survivors have disabilities.

Brain aneurysms are most common between the ages of 35 and 60, according to the foundation. And women are more likely than men to suffer from them at a ratio of 3 to 2.

Neurosurgeon Sören Singel of Central Washington Neurosciences Clinic in Yakima prepared the Seatons for the worst.

"He said, 'I'm not going to tell you she's not going to die,'" says Iverson, who flew in from Minnesota last Nov. 25 -- the same day Jackie was hospitalized -- and has returned four or five times since.

If her daughter made it through surgery, Iverson says, "(Singel) told us, 'She will not be the same. She will not be the same daughter you had.'"

Alison wasn't looking that far into the future, however. That day, in the hospital, while she waited for her mom to come out of surgery, she prayed: "Please let me have my mom for Christmas. I have a lot more to learn from her."

Jackie survived the surgery but has no recollection of the first part of her hospital stay. When she came to about three weeks later, she thought it was still Nov. 25.

She told Alison, "We got shopping to do for Thanksgiving. We have people coming over for dinner."

And Alison said, "Mom, it's Dec. 15."

The surgery stopped the bleeding, but a benign tumor was still growing at the base of Jackie's brain, putting pressure on her optic nerve and pituitary gland.

After a month in the hospital, she was released a few days before Christmas. She had lost strength, particularly in her legs. Walking was difficult. And her short-term memory was shot.

"She didn't retain anything," says Alison, whose parents had separated about five years earlier.

"I had to keep asking them, my girls, what was going on," her mom says.

Meantime, bills had begun piling up. And Jackie, who had recently started a second job as a cashier at Shopko, was unable to work one job, let alone two.

It didn't take long before the Seatons were in danger of losing their home. And that worry landed on Alison's shoulders.

She had graduated from Eisenhower High School six months before her mother went into the hospital. She also had recently been laid off from her job at an engine parts warehouse. And she was attending Yakima Valley Community College full time.

Soon, she was running the household. She had guardianship of her sister Marissa, then 15, and power of attorney for her mother.

She had to drop two classes -- she switched a third to an online class -- in order to deal with everything.

"Alison took full, complete charge of her mother, the bills, the house, her sister, everything," her grandmother says. "She was only 18. She's unbelievable."

Talking about the ordeal still makes her tear up, and Alison, now 19 and working as a card dealer at Nob Hill Casino, reaches for a Kleenex on the coffee table next to the couch.

Last year, with her mother unable to work, Alison sought medical, food and utility assistance from the state. She also took care of her mom when she came home from the hospital, making sure she was eating and taking her medications.

"It was scary," Alison says. "We knew she had to sleep. But we'd always go in and see if she was breathing."

The role reversal was difficult for Jackie as she continued her recovery. She didn't like feeling dependent, and that sense of incapacitation caused stress, as well as some arguments.

"You were like a teenager," Alison tells her mom, now 51.

"It was hard because I had to depend on my kids," Jackie says. "I've always been the caregiver, the mom. I wanted to take care of my girls."

But, "I couldn't do anything a mom is supposed to do."

Jackie posted pink and yellow sticky notes with handwritten reminders all over the house to help her remember things.

And, says Marissa, "Slowly, you saw the sticky notes go away."

Alison, though, wasn't sure how she was going to pay the mortgage. She also wasn't sure how she was going to cover tuition for her next quarter at YVCC.

Plus, the second surgery, the one to remove the tumor, was looming. The Seaton sisters worried they might be uprooted.

Their mother had moved here 20 years ago from Minnesota, where she has a large extended family. Alison and Marissa, who were born and raised here, were contemplating moving to the Midwest to be closer to their relatives.

Last December, one of those relatives, Jackie's sister, wrote to the Yakima Herald-Republic detailing the family's struggles. A story published the day after Christmas evoked an outpouring of community support and prompted a second, even a third, follow-up. In all, the newspaper received about 70 inquiries about how to help the Seatons.

Soon, strangers began showing up at their doorstep with firewood, groceries, coats, toiletries, cash, cookies. One offered to pay Alison's YVCC tuition and books. Another offered her a job. Still another offered to pay the mortgage for six months.

The American Legion, where Jackie once worked, held a fundraiser. Employees at Black Angus, where Jackie has worked about 15 years now, donated gift cards. Pizza Hut gave the family a free pie a month for a year. (They still have one coupon left.)

"Most of it was anonymous, and it was just a godsend," Jackie says. "If I could thank everybody individually I would, but I don't know who they were."

"They saved our lives," Alison says.

"They did. They saved us," Jackie agrees.

An account was established for the family at Washington Mutual, now Chase. In all, the community gave more than $5,000.

But it wasn't enough to cover medical costs. Insurance paid just a small portion, and medical assistance from the state didn't start until December. Jackie still owed about $15,000, much of it from the first surgery. In early February, she filed for bankruptcy.

Later that month, Jackie underwent a second surgery. This time, doctors operated on the tumor. Vision in her left eye is almost gone because of the growth, and she no longer drives at night.

Still, in August, she was able to attend a family reunion in Minnesota: "To me, that was a big step. I had to show everyone I made it."

There's much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

Sixteen-year-old Marissa, who missed some school last year, is getting back on track. She's been working at Pizza Hut for a few months now, and she's enrolled at Yakima Online!

"It was a pretty tough year," she says. But, "we've gotten a lot of help."

Today, while her mom is working, Alison is cooking the turkey and making a yam casserole. She's invited sailors from the Navy base in Bremerton who don't have a place to go to spend the holiday with her family.

Soon, she'll be joining them. She plans to study nuclear engineering.

"I've never grown up with a lot of money, so I take whatever great opportunities that I have," Alison says. In the Navy, "It seems like I could really set up a great future for myself and my mom."

She's slated to ship out Dec. 15, a year to the day that her mom awoke in the hospital.

"I'm just thankful to be here," Jackie says. "I'm excited for it this year, Thanksgiving and Christmas."

Money's still tight, but she's managed to hold on to the house: "Sometimes we're a little short, but we manage."

Because of the kindness of others, many of them strangers, Alison says, "I have a future. My mom has a future. And my sister is working on her future."

Looking back on her prayer from this time last year, she says, "I got more than I asked for."

* Adriana Janovich can be reached at 509-577-7653 or ajanovich@yakimaherald.com.