Family home by Albert Lea Tribune

Progress Family & Home

Albert Lea Tribune

February 24, 2018

‘It’s just not me to

GIVE UP’ Kari and John Nesje have been married 18 years, with this last year being one of the toughest the couple has ever faced. Colleen Harrison/Albert Lea Tribune

Woman overcomes illness, amputations; still stays positive By Colleen Harrison

colleen.harrison@albertleatribune.com

LDEN — During the early morning hours of Jan. 26, 2017, Kari Nesje woke up feeling sick. Feeling feverish, she called off of work and tried to go back to bed. She woke up later with her hands and feet tingling and sore. Thinking she was just cold, she took a bath to warm up. When the tingling and soreness turned painful and only got worse, she decided to call 911. After being taken to Mayo Clinic Health System in Albert Lea, Nesje passed out within 15 minutes of being at the hospital. She was airlifted to Rochester, where she would spend nine days at St. Marys. Nesje would later find out that the doctors and nurses who were with her in Albert Lea didn’t think she’d make it to Rochester. “Her whole body was shut down,” said her husband, John Nesje. See NESJE, Page 2

What’s inside?

Moving forward Wells residents rebuild after fire. Page 3

Giving back after tragedy Golf outing has raised $216K. Page 4

50 years of coaching Work came under six head coaches. Page 5

Opening up her home Woman starts new day care. Page 6

Page 2 | AlbertLeaTribune.com | Progress 2018 | family & home | Saturday, February 24, 2018

Nesje

By the numbers

Continued from Front Page

John Nesje wouldn’t see his wife until she was out of surgery in Rochester — a surgery that was meant to keep Kari Nesje alive long enough for her doctors to figure out a plan of action. Kari Nesje was placed on ECMO — a life support system — to keep her heart and other vital organs going while doctors worked to figure out how to treat her. She had 27 or 28 IVs with different antibiotics in them trying to fight off infection, and her doctors went through 48 units of blood trying to flush out any harmful bacteria in her bloodstream. It would eventually be determined that Nesje was suffering from pneumococcal pneumonia — an infection caused by a type of bacteria that can invade not only the lungs, but also the bloodstream. The infection was worsened by the fact that Nesje didn’t have a spleen — it had been removed when she

Years Kari and John Nesje have been married

9 Days Kari Nesje spent at St. Marys in Rochester before being transferred to Regions Hospital in Minneapolis

2 Benefits held for the Nesje family — one in Alden and one in Morristown

Kari Nesje has prosthetic arms and legs for her to learn how to use, which will be upgraded once she gets used to being upright and balancing again. Colleen Harrison/Albert Lea Tribune

was younger. John Nesje’s sister would bring the couple’s two daughters — Annie, 17, and Jessie, 13 — to see their mother. While the family waited for Kari Nesje to come out of her ECMO surgery, they’d be waiting to see if she’d be brain-dead or not. Annie Nesje thought her mother was dying when

she saw how purple she was, and Jessie Nesje couldn’t bring herself to go into her mother’s hospital room her first day out in Rochester. As Nesje lost circulation in her arms and legs while she was on life support, her limbs started turning black. Once doctors got the circulation going again in her limbs, Nesje’s skin

In January 2017, Kari Nesje woke up with a fever and was on life support by the end of the day. Provided started blistering as if she was being burned. It would eventually be determined that her arms, legs and breasts would need to be amputated, and Nesje would move to Regions Hospital in Minneapolis and would stay there for five months for skin grafts. In early June 2017, Nesje was sent back to St. Marys for physical therapy before she’d finally return home to Alden later that month. Nesje said from the point she passed out in Albert Lea, she remembers almost nothing until she was up in Minneapolis. She has a vague memory of her husband sneaking her ice chips while at St. Marys, and looking down at her black hands, but other than that has no recollection of her first hospital stay in Rochester. Doctors told the Nesjes that the shock to the system from the virus has a 98 percent fatality rate, with Kari Nesje being in the 2 percent of survivors. “I was just stubborn,” she said. Now, Nesje, 39, is pain free. The only medication she takes is to calm her nerves when she goes to bed at night — otherwise her legs can get restless and keep her awake. She is seeing dermatologists and plastic surgeons, as

she’ll eventually have reconstructive surgery for the portions of her lips and nose she lost. Around September or October, Nesje stood up for the first time using prosthetics. She has straight leg prosthetics and hook arms at the moment, but has more advanced jointed prosthetics being made for her in Rochester. For now, the focus is on getting her strength and balance back with her current prosthetics, using a walker until she’s more comfortable. Leg sores have sidelined her prosthetic use at the moment, so Nesje is using a motorized chair to get around. Nesje worked for Ventura Foods at the time of her hospitalization, but has had to quit since. She is on Social Security disability, but hopes to eventually be able to get another job. Since Nesje’s return home, her friends, family and the surrounding community have come to her aid in full force. In upgrading the family’s bathroom and making a ramp entrance to the home, the Nesjes only had to pay for materials; the time and expertise in completing all of the house projects were donated. Benefits were held at both the Alden American Legion and in Nesje’s hometown

of Morristown. “People were very generous,” John Nesje said. “Otherwise, I don’t know where we’d be.” “I have no words to express how much it’s meant to us,” Kari Nesje said. “You don’t realize how close communities get until something happens and everyone chips in.” Kari Nesje’s sister-in-law and mother split time sitting with Nesje at home during the day, when her husband and daughters are at work and school. A home health nurse stops once a day to help Nesje with her bandages. Her brother got Nesje an Alexa from Amazon, which she uses to control the TV and answer her phone. She was given a stylus during one of her hospital stays that helps her use her cellphone. Eventually, Nesje would like to be able to drive again, and said she plans to get back to 60 percent of what she was able to do before her hospital stays. “We’ll have her up and running by the end of the year, I hope,” John Nesje said. The Nesjes planned to have a celebration at the Alden Legion mid-January to celebrate how far Kari Nesje has come in the year since. She has stayed positive, and has kept her sense of humor, Nesje said. She refuses to feel sorry for herself. “The way I look at it, that’s all I got left,” she said. “They took everything else. “It’s just not me to give up.”

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Saturday, February 24, 2018 | family & home | Progress 2018 | AlbertLeaTribune.com | Page 3

Wellington Estates residents move forward in life after August roof fire By the numbers

By Sarah Kocher

sarah.kocher@albertleatribune.com

WELLS — When Elaine Grunzke’s neighbor spoke with a relative after the Wellington Estates apartment fire left him and several other individuals without a home in August, he said he hoped two things: that his neighbor was all right, and that the quilt Grunzke made him for Christmas was all right, too. Five months later, in January, Grunzke spread out her quilts. That month, she’d just finished one that was covered in cows on red patches, blocked together with blue fabric in between. She was partway through a Minnesota Gophers quilt, too, in the school’s signature maroon and yellow. The quilt she made for her neighbor for Christmas had globes on it, basketballs and the color blue. Her neighbor likes the color blue, she said. And just like Grunzke, his Christmas quilt was fine. On Aug. 5, 2017, Grunzke said she woke up as usual around 7 a.m. in the Wellington Estates apartments, where she had been living for seven years. Grunzke’s niece, Megan Kruger, lived down the hall with her husband, Joel, and their 2-year-old daughter, Ashtyn. Megan Kruger said Ashtyn woke her up around the same time. Grunzke smelled something she couldn’t place. She didn’t think it was fire until her neighbor pounded on her door and the two went into the hallway. “We went out, looked up at the ceiling, and there were two big brown spots,” Grunzke said. Kruger went to her window and opened the blinds to see smoke seeping out from under the roof. She told her husband she thought the building might be on fire. “I’m sure he thought I was nuts,” Kruger said.

Tubs Elaine Grunzke keeps her quilting materials in, which she had to go through and wash out after the fire

6 Months since the Wellington Estates apartment roof caught on fire

7 Time in the morning both Elaine Grunzke and her niece, Megan Kruger, woke up the morning of the apartment fire Elaine Grunzke has set the second bedroom in her new apartment aside as a sewing room for her quilting projects. Sarah Kocher/Albert Lea Tribune

said, it meant they could be helpful as her family worked

to rebuild, too. They knew the things to do — things like spending days washing the smoke out of clothes. Kruger, her husband and her daughter still live with their in-laws. Part of the reason they moved in was because it was a familiar place for their daughter. “That’s the only place she’s ever lived,” Kruger said of Wellington Estates apartments. The family has started looking for a house. According to Kruger, they are taking it one step at a time. “You kind of throw plans out the window when that happens,” she said.

‘The community was 100 percent’

Grunzke said she also did

See FIRE, Page 7

Megan and Ashtyn Kruger open up a trailer with contents from their former apartment. Kruger said most of their things have remained in storage while they live with her husband’s parents. She grabbed the cats, and her husband grabbed their daughter. “You never think it’s going to happen to you,” Kruger said.

‘Throw plans out the window’

Kruger’s family moved in with her husband’s parents immediately after the fire and started the long process of washing everything. “You don’t realize how

much stuff you have to clean until you have smoke to clean out,” Kruger said. Both Kruger and Grunzke said they were pretty lucky after the fire. Both of their apartments sustained water damage, but both families were able to keep personal items and clothes. Kruger said her in-laws had a house fire several years before, after which they had to completely rebuild their home. In many ways, Kruger

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Page 4 | AlbertLeaTribune.com | Progress 2018 | family & home | Saturday, February 24, 2018

Don and Deb Goodnature started a memorial scholarship for their son, Corey, who was killed while serving in Afghanistan in 2005. So far the scholarship has awarded more than $216,000 to its recipients. Tyler Julson/Albert Lea Tribune

Keeping their son’s memory alive, lifting the community at the same time By Tyler Julson

tyler.julson@albertleatribune.com

Nearly 13 years ago Don and Deb Goodnature experienced a tragedy that changed their lives forever. In late June 2005 the Goodnatures received word that their son, Corey, had passed away while serving in Afghanistan. While performing a rescue mission, Corey’s helicopter was shot down after encountering intense enemy fire. In 2006, the Goodnatures set up a scholarship fund as a way to keep Corey’s memory alive and help high school graduates within the county. Now, 12 years later, the scholarship is bigger than they had ever dreamed it could be, having awarded more that $216,000 to high school seniors. “We had no expectations really when we first started,” Don Goodnature said. “We were thinking if we could raise four to five thousand dollars for an event. The first year we had it we raised around $60,000 dollars, a huge amount of money and it’s just grown from there.” The Goodnature family hosts a golf outing every year as a way to raise funds for the scholarship and honor Corey’s memory. They said the turnout every year is amazing and the scholarship wouldn’t be were it is today

QUALITY SERVICE

By the numbers $216,000

Money awarded through the scholarship

11 Years the Goodnatures have had their annual golf outing fundraiser event

10 Students awarded the scholarship in 2017 without the support of the individuals and businesses within the community. “It really is a combination of our committee’s contributions and what the community has done,” Deb Goodnature said. “The community has been amazing with all of their donations. The financial support that we get is absolutely incredible.” Last year the scholarship was awarded to 10 students within the Freeborn County area: six from Albert Lea High School, two from Glenville-Emmons High School and two from AldenConger High School. The Goodnatures said education was always a high virtue in Corey’s life, making the scholarship that much

The Goodnatures keep a box with a flag, Corey’s dog tags and the medals he was awarded, on a table in their living room. Tyler Julson/Albert Lea Tribune more special. They said the scholarship is a good way for them to keep the story of Don and Deb Goodnatheir son going even among ture give back to keep the next generation that the memory of their son, might not now much about Corey, alive and to be able the story. to tell his story for as long Don said many people as they can. think that them having to retell the story bothers hearing the story, when in them and makes them sad fact, it’s just the opposite. “We want to talk about it,” Don Goodnature said. “As parents, our biggest fear was that people were going to forget. He was 35 years old and we don’t want him to be forgotten, and this has fulfilled that. We get to talk about it all the time, and we want to.” On their scholarship application, they have a question asking the students to define what patriotism means to them, and they said they are always blown away with some of the answers these high school kids are able to give. “It’s very rewarding,” Deb Goodnature said. “After having some tough years, just seeing the goodness in people is a great thing. It’s rewarding for us, it’s rewarding for the committee and I think it’s rewarding for the participants as well.” The Goodnature name is a big one in the surrounding communities thanks to the scholarship, but also because of Don GoodnaBarb ture’s brother, Larry, who has been a fixture of the Albert Lea wrestling team

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Corey Goodnature was killed when his helicopter was shot down by enemy fire in June of 2005. Provided. for over four decades. Don Goodnature was quick to give the credit back to the community when talking about why the Goodnature family has given so much back. “I guess that’s just the way we were brought up,” he said. “A lot of the people

that are involved were born and raised here, maybe that’s just part of our whole makeup. It’s a great quality about this area — every body is always so giving and caring. All of the support we get from the community, it makes you want to give back as well.”

Saturday, February 24, 2018 | family & home | Progress 2018 | AlbertLeaTribune.com | Page 5

BY THE NUMBERS: Don Kropp

1,500+ HEAD 6NUMBEROF

YEARS AS

11 YEARS ON

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE FOR RELAY FOR LIFE

JUNIOR HIGH FOOTBALL COACH

WINNERS

51 YEARS MARRIAGE

2 SECTION CHAMPIONSHIPS

IN TRACK

STATE PLACE

SCHOOL SOIL AND WATER RECORD CONSERVATION DISTRICT HOLDERS

CHILDREN, TWO OF WHICH HE COACHED

YEARS WITH 20+ 33 FREEBORN COUNTY

ATHLETES COACHED

WORKED UNDER

CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS

TOTAL

COACHES 5 INDIVIDUAL

30 YEARS AS

JUNIOR HIGH HEAD COACH

50 YEARS AS A TRACK AND FIELD COACH

Page 6 | AlbertLeaTribune.com | Progress 2018 | family & home | Saturday, February 24, 2018

Licensed day care provider Angela Carson plays with her grandchild, Jackson Carson, and Briar Boatman, left, in early January. Sam Wilmes/Albert Lea Tribune

Woman changes profession, opens day care By Sam Wilmes

sam.wilmes@albertleatribune.com

Licensed day care provider Angela Carson holds her grandson, 7-monthold Jackson Carson, in the early hours of her workday. A long-time hairdresser and Agilis employee, Carson now helps her grandson and other children learn and develop while their parents are at work. Carson became a licensed day care provider Nov. 13 after ending her employment at Agilis, where she entered data

and processed mail donations and payments. “I had thought of doing day care for a lot of years, even when my three daughters were younger, and then I had my first grandchild and I was really ready for a change of employment, and I decided what better time than to do it now,” she said. When Carson was a child, her mother was a day care provider before finding other employment. The first child Carson oversees usually arrives at about 8 a.m., and she usually has children in her

home until 5 p.m. Some of the children are there on a part-time basis. Carson is adjusting to her new schedule and learning more about the children she oversees. “It’s going good,” she said. As a day care provider, Carson is licensed to have up to 10 children — three are allowed to be 2 years old or younger, and two can be babies. Carson enjoys watching the children she sees develop and hopes to expand her operation. Carson and her husband,

Jeff, have three daughters, Cayley, a senior at Albert Lea High School; and adult children Chelsey and Courtney. Courtney Carson said her mother made a “huge change” when she decided to become a day care provider. “She went from helping people of all ages to now just working with kids,” Courtney Carson said. Courtney Carson has noticed her mother making sure her nieces and nephews have something to do when she is around them. “From what I see, she

loves kids,” she said. She notices her son, Jackson, become excited when she drops him off at day care. “When we walk in the door, he’s reaching for her,” Courtney Carson said. Jeff Carson said he suggested his wife be a day care provider because her mother had taken care of their children, and now Angela Carson can do the same for her grandchildren. He said his wife gets along with children. “I think she enjoys being around them,” he said.

By the numbers 3

Children Jeff and Angela Carson have

13 Day in November Carson became licensed

10 Children Angela Carson is licensed to have in her day care

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Fire Continued from Page 3

her fair share of washing. After the apartment fire, she temporarily stayed with her brother, David, and his wife. By Labor Day, she was in her new apartment in Wells, where she lives now. The loveseat, couch and end tables are all new to her. Her computer is not — she rescued it from a puddle of water, and it still works. That Tuesday, the residents were allowed back into Wellington Estates apartments — the Tuesday she rescued her computer — and Grunzke said she had a whole crew of people in there to help her out. “I had people in there I didn’t even know,” she said. The residents were advised not to keep anything soft, especially their mattresses, Grunzke said. But the community was there. “I didn’t buy a piece of furniture other than the mattress pad,” Grunzke said, and even that she suspected someone would have

Megan, Joel and Ashton Kruger live with Joel Kruger’s parents after the Wellington Estates apartments were damaged by a roof fire. They’re looking for a house of their own. given her if she’d asked. At first, this wasn’t an easy thing for her to accept. She said she couldn’t understand why people would do this. “When that money come in … I called my minister … and I said, ‘I can’t keep taking this money,’” she said. She also didn’t want to go to a garage sale held for the Wellington Estates residents, but her brother got her there — “‘That’s what this is for,’”

he told her. “I’d never went through anything like that where people give like that,” Grunzke said. She struggled to cash the checks that came in. One of them sat uncashed for over a month. Now, she can point to everything in her apartment that is the product of someone else’s generosity. “The community was 100 percent,” she said. “I’ve never seen nothing like it.”

Most of the 15 tubs of material Elaine Grunzke has to quilt with now live in her spare closet. She had to wash all the fabrics after the fire, but they were undamaged. Sarah Kocher/Albert Lea Tribune

‘I like it here’

Five months later, the new apartment is working out well, Grunzke said. As far as moving on is concerned, she thinks she has done it. “I think I’m all right,” she said. “I like it here.”

Grunzke has fewer stairs to climb in the new place, which is better for her legs. She likes her landlord. And on top of it all, she gets to keep her neighbor — the one who got to keep her Christmas quilt. “I was walking up the

stairs, and there was Andy,” Grunzke said. He had moved in before her, upstairs in the same apartment building. “And he said, ‘Oh my God, are you here too?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I am. I’m here to haunt you.’”

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