Lives of adversity and hope

A little more than two years ago, Todd Sickler, then 29, became extremely ill, practically overnight. A former boatyard laborerturned cabdriver, he suffered sudden and violent intestinal problems that during the course of an evening resulted in his hemorrhaging, as well. Barbara Bartels, the woman with whom Sickler was sharing a Ronkonkoma apartment, took him to a doctor who recommended that he be immediately admitted to the emergency ward of St. John's Hospital in Smithtown.

There, doctors put Sickler on intravenous feeding, tested him for various possible illnesses, prescribed different medications and eventually diagnosed him as having severe ulcerated colitis. After two months in the hospital and no discernible improvement, doctors recommended that Sickler be transferred to Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, for major surgery.

It looked to Barbara Bartels as if Sickler might die. "In fact, the doctors pretty much told me that he was just about dead," she said.

Bartels had known Sickler since 1973, when she was 14 years old and he was 16. She and her friends from Ronkonkoma met him and other Centereach teens in the Smith Haven Mall. They dated on and off for 10 years, then moved in together. In 1984, a fire gutted their apartment and destroyed everything they owned; and between then and the day Sickler took ill, Sickler worked doubly hard to earn the money for replacement furniture and clothing for both of them.

Fearing that Sickler might not survive the surgery at Mount Sinai, the couple were married in a special ceremony in his room at St. John's Hospital just before he was to be transferred. In May, surgeons at Mount Sinai performed a total ileostomy on Sickler, removing his rectum, his colon and his large intestine. He spent another two months in Mount Sinai before being discharged. His wife stayed in the room with him 24 hours a day for the entire period.

"After that, he was bedridden for a couple of months," said Barbara Sickler, "but that operation in Mount Sinai saved his life. I had to teach him how to talk again, and how to eat and how to cope with his appliance. He was still only ninety-nine pounds, and he's six feet tall. I built him back up slowly. When he first got out of bed, he took two steps a day for a while, and then four, and then he began to build himself back up. In October, 1985, we had a wedding ceremony in a church in Central Islip, St. John of God. Things looked like they might be getting better."

Nearly a year later, in September, 1986, Sickler had to return to Mount Sinai for what his wife described as "cleanup" surgery. "His rectal cavity had never completely healed and had in fact become infected," she said. "The morning of the operation, which was scheduled for noon, he was in Mount Sinai being readied for the operation, and my parents were driving me into the city, when a van jumped the median on Veterans Highway and crossed in front of us. We hit right into it. My mother, Marie Bartels, was hurt pretty bad, and so was my mother-in-law, Roberta Sickler. I was admitted a few days later and spent about ten days in traction. I still wear a back brace and a neck brace.

"Meanwhile, there was a problem with my husband's surgery. The doctors said they severed his urethra and part of his prostate. It was an accident, or a mistake, whatever. They couldn't see well because the whole area was infected tissues. Everything is an emergency with him. He was just back in the emergency ward of St. John's last week, hemorrhaging again. I used to take care of him, but now, there's a lot I can't do. And now, we're at the point where his body is failing, and his urethra is not healing," said Barbara Sickler. "We called the Mayo clinic, and they said they never heard of a case like this. The doctors at Mount Sinai said they've only seen three cases, but those cases didn't have the added complications."

Sickler's urologist, Dr. Herbert Weber, of Manhattan, who came into the case after the last operation at Mount Sinai, told the Sicklers that if anyone could help him at all, it would be Dr. Charles J. Devine Jr., chairman of the Department of Urology at the Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Va., a renowned specialist in urethroplasty, or reconstruction of the urethra through plastic surgery. Devine's secretary yesterday confirmed that he had corre- sponded at length with Dr. Weber regarding Sickler's case, and that Sickler has an appointment to see Devine on Aug. 28.

The Sicklers plan to fly to Norfolk on Aug. 27, having used credit cards to buy tickets they don't know that they will ever be able to afford. Barbara Sickler, a former dental assistant, receives $120 a month in disability payments as a result of the automobile accident, and her medical bills are covered. Sickler gets $390 a month in Social Security Disability, and much of his medical costs are not covered.

"We have a lot of medical bills outstanding," she said, "and we just can't pay them. We're starting to get collection agency notices now. We don't know where we're going to stay in Norfolk, or how we're going to pay for any of it, but it's our only hope for him to ever get fixed. It's our only hope."