My husband’s story starts with an ambulance ride in the middle of a horrible ice and snow storm late Wednesday night, March 12, 2014. A CAT scan showed pancreatitis. He was admitted for IV fluids and was told that he would be going home within the next couple days. However, by Friday, March 14, things were much worse and he was transferred to ICU.

As it turned out, he had a life-threatening case of necrotizing pancreatitis. At that point, his body went into multiple organ failures and it was necessary to put him on life support, including a breathing tube. The doctors had the unfortunate job of telling me that the next 12 hours were very critical and if he made it through them, he might have a fighting chance.

Fight he did.

Dec. 5, 2015, marked my husband’s one-year anniversary of returning home after nine months of being a patient at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. It has been a long time coming for me to write this letter. It is, by far, certainly overdue.

When he was admitted in March, 2014, his survival rate was zero percent. He is a miracle walking. By the grace of God, I am able to tell his story and to tell the story of the care he received at what I believe to be the finest hospital in Maine.

During the months after his admittance, the doctors and nurses in the ICU became as close to me and my husband as humanly possible. To balance work and personal life is, I’m sure, very difficult in the medical profession, but the staff at CMMC made us feel as if we mattered — as if we were their own family.

The caring attitude and compassion that we experienced extended beyond the immediate people giving my husband treatment and medical care. There were countless men and women with whom I came in contact throughout the long days and nights of his sickness — housekeepers, coffee shop baristas, security staff, patient transport staff, volunteers and paid professionals alike. That special treatment continued through the next six months of his hospital stay on the T1 floor.

It took three major surgeries, countless endoscopic procedures, palliative care support, interventional radiation measures, blood transfusions, IV nutrition, infectious disease involvement, physical and occupational therapy, and (most importantly) endless prayer to get him where he is today — alive and back at home.

Although his journey continues, it is a journey that we have been blessed with. I truly believe that God blessed us with all the people at CMMC, who I now consider as our friends.

I tell my story to give praise where praise is due. First and foremost, to God. But I would like everyone to know just how lucky people are to have CMMC in the vicinity — a first-class hospital with first-class doctors, nurses, technicians and staff.

During the course of the nine months my husband was a patient, I was approached many times by family and friends and asked if I thought it might be best to transfer him to Boston. Because of the connections I had experienced and the comfort I was feeling with the staff, I refused to move my husband anywhere. I knew with all my heart that he was in the right place. I have never once regretted that decision.

There are many professionals I would like to name specifically that, to this day, we still consider our friends, but the list is so very long. That alone is proof of the great group we were touched by. There are so many people that I will never forget and to whom I will be eternally grateful.

God places people in our paths in order to change our lives. We could look at all the trials my husband has been through and say “poor us,” or we could choose to see the good that came of it (and continues to come).

We choose the later and for that we give thanks for God and for CMMC.

Jeanne Mace-Davis and her husband Rob Davis live in Greene.

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