Cathy White - Back From Code Blue

What People Are Saying About This Book

Since day one, I walked the Summer Adventure of 2009 with Harry, Cathy, Harrison, and the whole family. Reading Back from Code Blue was like reliving it in detail. I literally shed tears and had goose bumps! While the book details the harrowing journey this amazing family endured, it also depicts the immense faith, will-to-live, perseverance, support, compassion, hope, and love that surrounded them while God miraculously spared Harrys life. Cathy, your heart and soul are poured into this book, and I know it will give hope to people who need it.

Sandy Barker

Founder

Gold Rush Cure Foundation

Hope, faith, gratitude, renewed belief in Gods miracles ... these are the emotions that author Cathy White infuses in us through the awe-inspiring journey of Harrys hospitalization, surgeries, and ultimate victory over death. Back From Code Blue strips us raw with grief, wondering how one woman could have withstood the emotional toll of those forty-four days. Then we rise, cheering each of Harrys successes over the fated zero percent chance of surviving. Cathy and Harry lovingly bring the knowledge of heaven as home, of Gods hand in our lives, from our heads to our hearts.

Chris Griffith

There are a handful of excruciatingly painful circumstances that humans sometimes endure, including the death of a child, a relative, or anyone you love deeply. Yet there is another level of this agony, experienced by a select few. It is the emotional and physical roller coaster of seeing a loved one almost die, make a recovery and appear to be out of the woods, then relapse to Code Blue, almost certain death, and finally by some implausible miracle, return to life.

Back From Code Blue is an odyssey of the highest highs and the lowest lows, and of trying to maintain sanity moment by moment in desperate situations. It chronicles a passage down a road that indelibly changes those who travel it. Here is a wonderful feel good story of that specific journey traveled by my very dear friend Dr. Harry White and his family.

I lived this story with the White family because, ironically, I had just gone through the exact same peregrination.

Jeff Reuter

I marvel at the maturity and inner strength that young Harrison exhibited throughout the entire ordeal while at the ripe old age of 14! Writing that long letter to Harry, expressing his inner most thoughts, love, devotion, and worry for his dad is something I doubt very many young people would even think to do, let alone have the wherewithal to do it.

The impact of the summer events on the White family and their many friends and acquaintances were inspirationally widespread. There isnt much greater life satisfaction than being made aware that something you said or did had a positive impact on someones life or dream. It doesnt happen often, but it is humbling when it does!

I firmly believe the flood of prayers got Gods full attention and He graciously released Harry back to those who love him. What a tremendous miracle you were all part of. This is a wonderfully moving story of a near tragedy turned into a solid victory for God, faith, love and devotion!

~ Blaine

L. Blaine Hammond

Colonel, USAF (Retired)

Astronaut

Back from Code Blue is a high-speed roller coaster ride of raw human emotion and profoundly conflicting feelings: exhilaration and agony, joy and anguish, courage and fear, strength and frailty, resolve and self-doubt. Code Blue is a treasure chest of life lessons and hard- earned wisdom stitched together by Cathy from her heart-felt emails and CaringBridge posts. It is a journal that chronicles a loving wifes indomitable, relentless and irrepressible determination and courage. In the face of a 0% chance of survival, Cathy, with stubborn intransigence, refused to accept any outcome other than full recovery which based on all medical evidence, was objectively implausible if not utterly impossible.

The final take away from Back from Code Blue is: Believe! Nothing is impossible!

Tom Lallas

Back
From
Code Blue

By
Cathy White

Copyright 2021 Cathy White

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photo-copying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible,NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations noted NKJV are taken from the NEW KING JAMES VERSION, copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

Published by: HigherLife Publishing & Marketing

PO Box 623307

Oviedo, FL 32762

Photos courtesy of Cathy White.

Back from Code Blue/Cathy White -- 1st ed.

ISBN 978-1-954533-50-9 Paperback

ISBN 978-1-954533-51-6 eBook

Library of Congress Number: 2021919849

Printed in the United States of America.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is written in honor of

My husband, Harry,

My father-in-law, Harry, Sr.

(who passed away in 2019 at the age of 102),

And my son, Harrison.

It is also in honor of those of you who live life the way these men do, setting examples for others of compassion, kindness, friendliness, leaving smiles in their wakes, and making the world a better place than it was before they arrived.

In the pre-dawn hours of July 23, 2009, life as we knew it came to an abrupt halt. It turned in a direction that would bring to mind, for most of us, the phrase, Life is indeed stranger than fiction. Harrys Summer Adventure of 2009, as we have come to call it, is the story of the days, weeks and months that followed that fateful day. It is a story of challenges, fortitude and forging on, of faith, support and survival; and mostly of the importance of friendship, family, positivity, and faith in God. If this story helps just one person to become more peaceful, more hopeful, more certain of his or her faith, more appreciative of the blessings of life and how precious and fleeting it is, or to become a better person, a more attentive spouse or parent, I will consider my purpose in sharing this story to be fulfilled. I have taken some creative liberties with names and details, and done a bit of paraphrasing, in order to preserve everyones privacy. I have, at times, drastically simplified the medical jargon to make things more understandable. The few details I have changed are minor and they dont change the story itself.

Table of Contents

My husband, Harry, and I met in 1976 while we were attending the University of Southern California School of Dentistry. I was earning my Bachelor of Science Degree in Dental Hygiene and Harry was completing his Post-Doctoral Residency in Orthodontics. We married in 1978 and began our life together in Laguna Niguel, California. Laguna Niguel is a lovely family community near the beach with rolling hills, often called Sea Country. Although it was small back then, it was also growing rapidly, so it was a perfect place to start an orthodontic practice. As Harrys practice grew, I was eventually able to retire from my work as a hygienist, and I fulfilled a lifelong dream of designing and supervising the construction of the house in which we now live. After that, I designed and built Harrys orthodontic office, also in Laguna Niguel.