Husband, wife recover from surgeries
by Lynn Bond, R.N.Clinical Services
The Post Anesthesia Care Unit is where people wake up after surgery. It's where happiness and sadness co-mingle and where little miracles can happen.
We witnessed one Aug. 23.
Ruby
and James Cudd wait together in recovery following separate surgeries.
A couple, married 62 years, both had surgery at MUSC and both came into the recovery room within an hour of each other.
Ruby and James Cudd met at a baseball game when she was 18 and he was 24. They lived in rural South Carolina (Union County) and both were raised in large farming families. She was one of 12 children and he was one of five. Their farms were large, and they lived off the land and made their living that way.
When they began dating, he would walk the 10 miles to her home to see her. They married after one year with his sister as their only witness. Her parents didn’t approve of the marriage because she was so young. They celebrated their wedding by eating hot dogs together and for their anniversary every year thereafter they celebrated the same way—with a hot dog.
They lived with his family initially and farmed, but eventually they moved out. When World War II came along they were separated. He served in the 10th Mountain Division of the Army in Italy. While he was there, she worked in a textile mill and saved money for a house. They had three children during their lifetime, one died in infancy, one as an adult of cancer, and the third child, a daughter (Donna Brown), shares her home with them in Mount Pleasant.
They have six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
When they came to the PACU, they were taken care of by registered nurses Darrell Jones and Bill Huck, who decided to put the Cudds’ stretchers side by side. There they stayed until rooms were available.
If a staff member walked by they could not help but notice the uniqueness of the situation, and they would stop and ask them their story.
Their daughter came to see them and said, “I wish I had a camera.” We all had the same thought so I called The Catalyst and the photographer came right up. As they held hands, she snapped some pictures and the moment was captured.
They saw the pictures on the digital camera and smiled.
He planned to visit her that night in her room, he said. Hopefully their
path to recovery will lead them to continue to celebrate the special relationship
they have and maybe they will think of the nurses in PACU when they celebrate
their next anniversary with the usual hot dog.
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