It started with an ear-cleaning, and ended with a miracle – two miracles, perhaps.

Friday, December 24, 1999

It started with an ear-cleaning, and ended with a miracle – two miracles, perhaps.

Donna and Robert Turnmire of Blooming Prairie found they had a lot to be thankful for last month, even if events led to missing Thanksgiving dinner.

Robert had come to Austin Medical Center to get his ears cleaned, and had to return because of some complications. His family practitioner was away, so he was referred to another. While he was with the doctor, he mentioned some trouble he’d been having.

"From my knees down, I had such a pain in the legs," Robert said, sitting next to his wife Donna at a table at Austin Medical Center a month later. "And my right hand would go to sleep."

"And you told him you’d been having trouble with walking and with your breathing," Donna added.

Robert was immediately referred to the medical center’s new heart specialist, Dr. Farouk Mookadam.

"He sent me to Rochester to have an angiogram Nov. 17," Robert said. The verdict there: a quintuple bypass.

Initially, the doctor in Rochester wanted to put off Robert’s surgery until Nov. 29, but Mookadam was insistent that it be sooner, the Turnmires said.

"His doctor before had told him he was a very good candidate for a bypass operation," Donna said. Their doctor in Blooming Prairie having left, they switched recently to Austin Medical Center. Robert had been on heart medication for more than two years before the surgery.

Robert had his surgery on Nov. 19, and started rehabilitation soon thereafter. Donna stayed with him and accompanied him to rehab on Nov. 22 – where she collapsed with a heart attack.

"I was admitted to St. Mary’s on Nov. 22, and had surgery on Nov. 24," Donna said.

Donna had four bypasses to her husband’s five, and notes wryly that if this were a race she’d be happy for Robert to win it.

This was the first time anyone in Rochester could remember having a couple in the hospital for heart bypasses at the same time. They started calling them the Rochester miracles, and then the miracle twins. Mookadam also calls them the miracle twins, Donna said.

While Robert says he feels about 30 years younger, with no more pain in his legs – "I never had such a good set of legs as I have now," he says, Donna isn’t feeling quite as spry. While she’d known she had heart problems, she was terribly shocked by the heart attack, and said she’s not quite over it yet. And it doesn’t help that it’s the holidays, when she’d rather be shopping, baking and decorating.

"I’m a person who is go-go-go," Donna said, smiling ruefully. "This is hard with the holidays."

She also has had to hear repeatedly that had she been home preparing Thanksgiving dinner, she’d have been buried by the weekend. That can be a sobering thought, and clearly not one she’d like to dwell on.

They had separate rooms in St. Mary’s, but spent most of their time in each other’s rooms. Now they do their therapy and rehabilitation together, biking or walking on the treadmill side by side.

Dec. 20 was one of their very first trips out of the house since getting home on Nov. 30, and it was yet to another doctor’s office.

"Today was the first day he drove," Donna said. "I’m not supposed to drive until the middle of January, so I’ve got a baby sitter." She nodded toward Robert. "Baby sitter."

Both sang high praises of Mookadam, not just for sending Robert to Rochester, but for his manner with them. Chuckling but refusing to divulge the doctor’s jokes, Donna agreed that he’s a funny man, and a good doctor.

Next to each other on the bikes again in the rehab area, Donna and Robert have smiles and laughs for each other, and for the people working there. The holidays may be a hard time to slow down, but as long as they have each other, it shouldn’t be too bad.