Mar. 29--NAPOLEON -- Heidi Bialorucki and Amy Boyer have a bond they find hard to explain.
Their "sisterhood," as Ms. Boyer calls it, was sealed yesterday when the two women finally met.
Both 36, both the mother of two young children, both saw their lives change -- and nearly end -- this winter when they became desperately ill with the H1N1 virus.
As they fought the illness in the intensive care unit at Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center, their families -- strangers at first -- leaned on each other.
"At first you say hello in the waiting room, but you're in your own little tunnel of what happened," Ms. Boyer's mother, Sherry Boyer of Green Springs, Ohio, about seven miles southeast of Fremont, said. "The next day, you start talking a little more. Pretty soon you're sitting down together, and then you're hugging. You just connect."
Yesterday, the Boyers, the Bia-
loruckis, and other families they met at St. Vincent gathered at the American Legion hall in Napoleon for a chicken barbecue organized in support of Mrs. Bia-
lorucki, a Napoleon native who was at St. Vincent and then Regency Hospital in Sylvania from Nov. 6 to Jan. 7.
It was a touching reunion for Mrs. Bialorucki's husband, Joe, who became so close to the Boyers that Sherry Boyer did his laundry while he stayed at the hospital's Home Away From Home family hotel.
"We got to know each other real well," Mr. Bialorucki, a circulation representative at The Blade, said.
"We ate dinner and breakfast and lunch together. That's the one great thing that came out of this," he said.
Both women were healthy when they developed flu symptoms the first week of November, symptoms that became so severe they went to their local emergency rooms -- Mrs. Bialorucki to the Henry County Hospital, Ms. Boyer to Bellevue Hospital.
It didn't take long for their symptoms to intensify, and their doctors transferred them to Toledo. Both were put into induced comas, breathing with the help of ventilators. Both also qualified -- with their families' permission -- for an experimental drug they feel helped save their lives.
"It was hard for me to comprehend how it could happen so fast," Sherry Boyer said. "She got there Friday night. On Saturday, they said nothing's working, and they offered us this experimental drug."
Although Mrs. Bialorucki and Ms. Boyer arrived at St. Vincent the same day, Ms. Boyer recovered more rapidly and was released to Elmwood at the Springs Healthcare Center in Green Springs for rehabilitation just before Thanksgiving. She visited Mrs. Bialorucki at St. Vincent after her release from rehab, but Mrs. Bialorucki has no memory of it.
"It's almost like Heidi and I have a sisterhood," Ms. Boyer said. "It was a hard fight. She really knows honestly what we went through. Unfortunately, her hell lasted longer than my hell. It's absolutely insane the severity of H1N1."
Sarah Velliquette, a spokesman for St. Vincent, said the hospital continues to see patients with influenzalike illness, although "it's not near the volume we were seeing through the November-December time frame."
Neither woman said she ever dreamed she would contract the swine flu. Neither had gotten a vaccination.
Ms. Boyer, who at the time worked in human resources for a manufacturer, said she had been in charge of posting and distributing pamphlets about H1N1 and installing hand-sanitizer dispensers at work.
"I was a borderline germophobe," she said, adding that flu shots were made available at work. "My boss brought his family in for flu shots and we didn't have enough so I let them have my flu shot. I was always trying to keep everyone else healthy, and I was the one who got sick."
Mrs. Bialorucki, office manager for the Meyer-Badenhop Insurance Agency in Napoleon, said she'd gotten a seasonal flu shot but not an H1N1 shot. After she became ill, her husband and children got the vaccine, though.
Both women said they've been overwhelmed by the prayers and support they've received.
"There were people who raked my leaves for me, people were calling my parents to make sure the kids had somewhere to go," Ms. Boyer said. "There was a benefit so the kids could have a Christmas. It was just so moving."
Mrs. Bialorucki, who has been active with the Henry County Relay for Life since her own bout with lymphoma 12 years ago, said that although yesterday's fund-raiser was for her, she said it also recognized the community that supported her with prayers, meals, and other help during her most recent health crisis.
"The support we've gotten from our church and the community and family and friends has just been crazy," she said. "This is a way to get everyone together and say thank-you for all that they've done."
Contact Jennifer Feehan at:
jfeehan@theblade.com
or 419-724-6129.
-----
To see more of The Blade, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.toledoblade.com.
Copyright (c) 2010, The Blade, Toledo, Ohio
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.