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LEHI — A Utah County man is more than 7,000 miles away from the four children he so dearly loves, but he carries with him the memory of them, and his wife, who died in March after a long and debilitating illness.
He’s making this extreme sacrifice so he can pay off their medical bills.
Rick Shumway used to work as a deputy for the Utah County Sheriff’s Office. Now he is in Baghdad working for a defense contractor, trying to pay off the thousands of dollars he owes for his wife’s medical care.
His said his wife, Amy, was the life of the party. “She’s the one that made everybody laugh,” he said. “She came in and cracked jokes."
Her health problems were something she had been living with for years. When she was 19, she was told she had premature ventricular contractions, a common condition that, according to the Mayo Clinic, occurs in most people at some time. The contractions are extra, abnormal heartbeats that begin in one of the heart’s two lower pumping chambers. The extra beats disrupt the regular heart rhythm, causing the person to feel a skipped beat in the chest. In most people, it’s not a problem. The couple was told not to worry.
In 2009, she collapsed and nearly died. After a three-day stay in the hospital, doctors diagnosed her with pulmonary arterial hypertension, a type of high blood pressure that affects only the arteries in the lungs and the right side of the heart. The condition weakens the heart, and it can no longer pump blood through the lungs.
For six years now, Rick Shumway has been working in Iraq as his wife went through long and expensive medical treatments. He went to Iraq to help pay off the medical bills — one treatment cost $60,000 alone. Sometimes medication ran as high as $45,000 a month.
“Every time we kind of got a leg up, we lost another,” he said.
The final blow to the family, the medication Amy was taking for her lungs ruined her liver. Earlier this year, Amy was scheduled for a liver transplant.
“They almost pulled it off,” he said. “They had a liver there at the hospital and her body just couldn’t hold on.”
Amy died waiting for a liver transplant on March 20.
"I couldn't get there quick enough,” he said. “I was stuck at an Air Force base in Kuwait when she passed away."
After Amy died, the medical bills were still there. Rick Shumway had to make a choice — stay with his four children or go back to Iraq to pay off the mounting medical debt.
A few weeks after the funeral he gathered the family. He said, “I told the kids that if we wanted to sell the house and sell most of what we had, we could find an apartment and I wouldn’t have to go back.”
He thought it might be too painful for the children to live in the house where they had so many memories of their mother.
His children — Elijah, 9, Ainsley, 13, Nathan, 16, and Sariah, 19 — decided he should go back. Since then, family and friends have all pitched in to help. His kids are staying with grandparents in Mt. Pleasant, Sanpete County.
Aunts, uncles and friends are helping to raise money so he can come home sooner.
“Everybody has worked really hard,” he said. “I’ve been really blessed with incredible people in my life.”
As for the message he'd like to send to his children?
“Hang on and we’ll get through this, and that mom hasn’t left us alone and just hold on and we just go to make it through this year,” he said.
He estimated it will take at least another 12 to 18 months working in Iraq to pay off the rest of his debt. In the meantime, he does get to come home every fourth month for four weeks at a time.
As for his friends at the Utah County Sheriff's Office, he said he's grateful they still drive by the house to check up on his family while he is away.
Those wishing to contribute assistance to enable Rick to return to his family sooner can do so at Mountain America Credit Union under the name of Amy Waite Shumway Memorial Fund.
Contributing: Viviane Vo-Duc
Email:lprichard@ksl.com
