Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Attitude of gratitude
Retired missionary alive, blessed
Retired missionary Gabe Buchholtz went to the Florida Keys in mid-January to visit an old military buddy and to pedal around paradise on his bicycle.
The Little Rock man nearly died while he was there after flu-like symptoms quickly snowballed.
The urgent care center he initially visited on Jan. 13-14 forwarded him — after his second visit — to an area hospital, where doctors soon realized he needed a higher level of care than they could provide. That evening, they summoned a medical helicopter to whisk him to the mainland.
“The decision was made that I was not going to survive in Key West, that they needed to get me to Miami,” he said earlier this month.
Seven months later, Buchholtz has memories of lifting off and racing north on Jan. 14, well after sunset on a Saturday night.
“I remember seeing the coastline up the coast of Florida, and it was all lights, and I could see the black area because that’s obviously the Atlantic Ocean,” he said.
Buchholtz, 72, a former international representative for FamilyLife, can’t recall the landing. “We go to Miami and before we get there I’m gone, meaning I’m unconscious,” he said.
By that point, the Air Force veteran was dead or close to it, with a heart that had come to a complete stop.
Medics, pounding his chest repeatedly, somehow managed to restart it, he was later told.
“I have no more memories for almost eight days,” he said.
RSV THE CULPRIT
Buchholtz was diagnosed with respiratory syncytial virus infection — or RSV — plus three other viruses, he said. Most people get RSV and recover quickly, but in some cases, it can be fatal.
Members of Christ Community Church in Little Rock, where the Buchholtzes worship, immediately began to pray.
Buchholtz’s wife, Nancy, and his three adult children grabbed the first flights to southern Florida they could find, unsure if he would still be alive by the time they landed. Arriving at Jackson South Medical Center on Jan. 15, Nancy was joined by family from San Antonio, Fayetteville and Hawaii.
Soon, they were posting about Buchholtz’s medical situation on CaringBridge. org, which has a mission to “build bridges of care and communication providing love and support on a health journey.”
In addition to requesting prayer, they gave frequent medical updates. The news from the intensive care unit was sometimes encouraging but often grim.
Buchholtz’s kidneys were no longer functioning properly. His lungs were filling with fluid. His blood pressure had plummeted. Hospital workers had to intubate him to aid his breathing; medicine was keeping him alive, but just barely.
“While Gabe is still very much in critical condition, his numbers continue to make slight improvements,” his daughter, Callie Davis, posted on Jan. 16. “His great personal health is probably a huge factor that is helping him. (The medical staff have all been impressed for a man his age and how fit he is.)”
Gabe Buchholtz would spend the next two weeks in a Florida intensive care unit, as doctors battled to save him.
Though Buchholtz wasn’t aware of it at the time, the CaringBridge posts were reaching a wide audience.
“Literally within 24 hours, there were hundreds of people that were praying for me based on what my daughter posted, which just blew me away,” he said. “Then, it went from the hundreds to the thousands.”
Thus far, the page has been visited more than 27,500 times.
Days after the first posts, when he was fully conscious and aware of his surroundings, a doctor stopped by with a group of medical residents and told them Buchholtz had apparently beaten the odds. His chances of survival, at one point, had fallen to just 1%.
Throughout his hospitalization, friends from FamilyLife, a nonprofit Christian ministry that moved from Little Rock to Orlando, Fla., in 2020, stayed in touch.
Colleagues who had worked with him to stage FamilyLife’s marriage conferences in Latin America prayed at his bedside. Others brought food and did what they could to lift the family’s spirits.
On Jan. 31, Buchholtz was able to return to Little Rock to continue his recovery.
ALIVE AND BLESSED
While the doctors saved his life, they were forced to make tough choices that have changed Buchholtz’s life.
Drugs known as vasopressors, which raised Buchholtz’s blood pressure to help save his vital organs, tightened his blood vessels and restricted the flow of blood to his extremities.
“The whole idea was to shunt the flow of blood to my core,” he said. “That meant there was enough blood pressure that my heart, lungs, kidneys and brains could stay alive.”
With more of the oxygenated blood routed to the core, it meant less of the oxygenated blood could make it to his limbs.
Buchholtz lost his left hand, the little toe on his left foot, and earlier this summer, doctors partially amputated the little finger on his right hand as well. But rather than focusing on what he has lost, “I’m moving on with what I’ve got,” he said.
Nancy Buchholtz says her husband is genuinely positive.
“He just really has a grateful spirit, as opposed to [being] critical, depressing, ‘woe is me,’” she said.
The past months have shown, yet again, that “God is really big, that He is powerful, that He does answer prayer,” she said.
As he continues healing, Gabe Buchholtz has adopted what he refers to as “an attitude of gratitude.”
“God answers prayer, and God is good, and He has a purpose for us in our lives,” Buchholtz said.
On July 15, six months after his hospitalization, Buchholtz climbed back on his bicycle, successfully pedaling about 200 yards. A few days later, he completed a roughly six-mile ride around Two Rivers Park.
Buchholtz said he enjoyed the excursion.
“It was an absolute celebration of life,” he said.
“God answers prayer, and God is good, and He has a purpose for us in our lives.”
— Gabe Buchholtz