Charlotte Foster
Caring

Dying husband and wife spend their final days holding hands

A married couple have spent their final days holding hands in hospital, after their beds were pushed next to each other so they could be side-by-side as they both passed away. 

The couple from Tennessee, Tommy and Virginia Stevens, both 91, were both admitted to the Vanderbilt hospital for unrelated medical issues. 

Tommy, who was suffering with Alzheimer’s disease, had been struck down with aspiration pneumonia and sepsis, and was transferred to the hospital's palliative care unit. 

The same morning, Virginia suffered a fall as she sustained six broken ribs, a spinal fracture, and a hip injury, and was admitted to the hospital's trauma unit. 

As Tommy and Virginia's family were struggling to split time between the two wards, hospital staff were able to pull strings for the longtime lovebirds to be roomed side-by-side.

Virginia was moved into a room near Tommy’s in the Palliative Care Unit, and her hospital bed was scooted against his so she could comfort him as his health continued to get worse, the hospital said.

“He was awake when she came in,” their daughter Karen Kreager said. 

“His eyes were open. He wasn’t communicating a lot — just in small whispers. But he knew that she was there and that she was going to be right beside him. They haven’t stopped holding hands the whole time. She won’t let go of him.” 

“It reminds me of why we do this work,” Mohana Karlekar, MD, medical director of VUMC’s adult Palliative Care Program told local news station WSMV

“We take care of people — husbands, wives, mothers, fathers — not patients. We brought this family together during one of their most difficult times with little effort on our part. It involved a call, seeing an extra patient that day and some conversations.”

“From the time we brought Mrs. Stevens over, she held her husband’s hand and fussed in a very loving way with him,” Karlekar said. 

“She was able to tell me Monday that she was at peace with what was going on, and she wanted to be there until the end.”

Tommy died on September 8th, just a day before the couple’s 69th anniversary, and Virginia died a few days later on September 17th.

Image credits: Vanderbilt University Medical Center and The Stevens Family

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caring, death, married, couple, hospital