Johan was discouraged and scared. He knew too much not to be. His infection, known as methicillin-resistant \o7staphylococcus aureus\f7, occurs primarily in hospitals and nursing homes and kills more than 60,000 people a year. Fortunately, tests revealed that it hadn't spread to his neck or skull, where he was most vulnerable.
Still, as Barttelbort watched Johan -- with his halo, a patch on his eye, three suction machines purring away at his open wounds, with his multiple lacerations, a reconstructed scalp and a raw right thigh -- he knew everything could fall apart in an instant.
But Johan battled back. A powerful antibiotic, vancomycin, delivered by way of a long catheter running from his arm to his heart, knocked back the infection, and on a Saturday, Sept. 24, four weeks and two days after the bear attack, he was discharged from Scripps. Marilyn had ordered a hospital bed for the living room, and as he lay there watching television, sleeping, slowly walking around, he came to realize what the grizzly had cost him.
There were trails he had hoped to hike in Glacier. There was his ambition to run in the Boston Marathon. There was his strawberry-blond hair, the muscle on his back, his daughter who was already away at UC Irvine. There was any illusion that life was predictable.
As he looked around, he saw other moments that he could not control, moments that can ruin expectations and tear apart all plans.
When his halo came off in November, he found himself crying alone in the car one day. He was scared to be normal and afraid that with the halo gone, he was more vulnerable than ever.
In January, he went back to work and found steady reminders of life's fragility. During the first week, a colleague died. At the funeral, Johan saw himself in the casket.
Slowly, though, he found his confidence. He started to run again and to think more about the future. One weekend, Jenna came home from school. They went shopping and, for the first time, they didn't mention the bear. They grew proud of their scars.
In the spring, he was invited to Kalispell to a banquet for the helicopter service that rescued him from the mountain. Before dinner, he took the stage and gave the opening prayer.
"Thank you, God, for giving me the opportunity to give this blessing for these individuals you brought to our rescue," he spoke into the microphone. "Many of these people here are my true friends. Please guide their hand to reach and touch many more lives."
