How one family turned a tragic loss into a mission to support physicians and families at Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center

John and Ginny Comly met in Romare Bearden Park, back when it was a gravel parking lot.

John was leaving work late. Ginny had just gone for a swim at the gym and couldn’t start her car.

“I wasn’t exactly a knight in shining armor, but I was someone with jumper cables,” John recalled with a laugh.

In the years since that chance encounter, John and Ginny have built a life together. They got married, moved to Washington, D.C., and then back to Charlotte and started a family. Their son, Robert, will be 11 in September. Their daughter, Katherine, turns 9 that same month. And this fall, they will honor the memory and legacy of their daughter, Caroline, with the opening of Caroline’s Corner within Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center.

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“One of the important things for me, and the reason I want it to be called Caroline’s Corner, is that, in 20 years, people will still be saying her name. To me that’s an important thing,” John said. “I also hope it will take little things off people’s plate, both the caregivers and their families. I hope it will make their experience less trying than it already is.”

Unfortunately, it’s an experience the Comly family knows well.

Baby Caroline was born four weeks early, in January of 2018. Despite arriving sooner than expected, she was happy and healthy. Two days after she was born, the new baby was home with her brother and sister.  

“We have some awesome videos of them coming home — Katherine being so over the moon about being a big sister, some really special pictures of the kids holding her,” John said. 

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Then, on Super Bowl Sunday, Caroline slept through a meal. That alone seemed strange. Then, Ginny had trouble waking Caroline to feed. John hoped it was normal. Ginny felt strongly it wasn’t. She drove Caroline to the Novant Health Hemby Children’s Emergency Department.

From the emergency room, Caroline was transferred to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). Ginny and John didn’t know what was happening, why their daughter was sick. Eventually, a spinal tap confirmed it was bacterial meningitis — an extremely rare condition — that had found its way into Caroline’s central nervous system.

“We were so thrown off by the diagnosis,” Ginny said. “There were so many unknowns, and the medical team would be hopeful at one point that she would come out of it. And then she’d seize again.”

Caroline was put into a medically induced coma as the medical team tried to figure out a way to fight her illness. But a CT scan revealed the situation was far worse than they thought. Caroline had lost all neurological function. She was breathing only with the help of machines. Five days after she came to the hospital, Caroline passed away.

In the wake of tragedy, it can be hard to find meaning. But the Comlys have found it, in part in serving those who served them during the toughest time of their lives.

“You have so much time together with the caretakers who have now become friends and supporters, and we realized they didn’t really have a space to go to talk, to get any sort of peace, to recharge,” Ginny said. “I know they’ve been on call for 24 hours, but where have they slept? It was pretty obvious that these caretakers are so vital in your experience in the PICU, and yet they don’t have a place to go to recharge.”

So John and Ginny built one within the pediatric intensive care unit. There’s a couch and a TV, a coffee maker and a computer. It’s a simple, dedicated space for the people who do so much for the patients and families in the PICU.

“I think for all the positive stories they get to experience, there’s so much heartbreak,” John said. “Their job is as much of a calling as anything else. You think about people who run into harm’s way. These people aren’t running into battlefields with bullets, but they’re running into the most painful emotional environment every day with the hope of fixing a few of them, and that’s pretty special.”

But helping the caregivers wasn’t enough. The Comlys’ experience in the PICU showed them all the issues that families face when medical crises hit.

“We were blessed that we had family here so we had people bringing us clothes and food. The nurses would let us sneak in and use the shower in rooms that were being turned over. But you’re sort of cobbling all this together, and we thought, ‘There’s got to be another way,’” John said. 

To that end, the Comlys have spearheaded the construction of Caroline’s Corner, a dedicated space within Presbyterian Medical Center for families with loved ones in the PICU. When it opens this fall, it will feature soft seating, TVs, work stations, food service, a shower, laundry — everything families need when they can’t go home because their loved ones are fighting for their lives. Through a partnership with the Ronald McDonald House, there will also be volunteers on hand to help families with whatever they need.

“What we really wanted was just a peaceful place that had peaceful colors — to make it warm, comfortable, as much like home as possible,” Ginny said. “I was thinking about a way to make it not feel like a hospital but to make it feel like a place where your mind could take you somewhere peaceful.”

That mission is reflected in the tagline for the space: “Care, comfort and hope.”

“That’s what we view as the ultimate goal because having a child in the PICU is a life experience where there is little, if any, comfort and hope,” John said. “When Caroline died, it became more of a mission that we wanted to do this and to do it in her name. And this can hopefully be part of a number of legacies that she’s able to leave even though she’s not with us.”

Those legacies are taking shape at home, too.

“We always celebrate her birthday. She’s interned at our church, and we’ll go there as a family on Sundays and holidays,” John said. “Her room is no longer a nursery, but it’s a bedroom and sometimes the kids sleep there at night. There’s a garden outside the window of her room that we put together in her honor, and we hang her stocking at Christmas.”

All of that helps keep Caroline’s memory alive and well, just as Caroline’s Corner will when it opens this fall.

“It really has been part of our grief process,” Ginny said. “There is an outlet there that takes a little bit of the tragedy away and helps us create something beautiful and hopeful and comforting.”

Steven Limentani, MD, on how Novant Health is changing the face of cancer care

Imagine a visit to the doctor without a stop in the waiting room.

The concept is almost unheard of as waiting has become almost a standard at clinics and healthcare facilities across the U.S. But Steven Limentani, MD, believes there can be a better way — a healthcare experience without that uncomfortable and lengthy stop on the way to receiving care.

“The length of time you’re kept waiting is directly proportional to the size of the waiting room, so one of my pet peeves is big waiting rooms,” said Limentani, the chief scientific officer for Novant Health and the leader of all cancer services across the Novant Health system. “We were having a planning meeting a couple of years ago, and I looked at the group and said, ‘Why do we need waiting rooms? Why don’t we do away with them and figure out how to have patients arrive for a visit and immediately go to their first site of care?’”

Now, he’s watching that vision come to life in the building that will house the Novant Health John M. and Claudia W. Belk Heart & Vascular Institute, as well as the Novant Health Edward I. and Agnes B. Weisiger Cancer Institute. When it opens this fall, there be no waiting room. Instead, patients will spend their time receiving care, treatments, integrative therapies, screenings and consultations.

“The reason I continue to do what I do is because I want to be involved in changing the face of cancer care and making it better for patients,” Limentani said.

The new Novant Health Weisiger Cancer Institute is a perfect case in point: In addition to the no-wait policy, the institute has strategically placed infusion on the top floor of the building, surrounded by glass walls that offer a view of Charlotte’s skyline. Also available will be on-site integrative treatments such as acupuncture, massage and other therapies that help patients fight cancer, all offered at the SherryStrong Integrative Medicine Oncology Clinic. A developmental therapeutics unit will conduct research on novel agents to help identify new treatments and breakthrough therapies.

”We’ve created an environment that will be warm, while at the same time being technically competent. When you develop a cancer center, the high quality of care must be a given, but the other components of what we do are the secret sauce,” Limentani said.

That work isn’t just happening in Charlotte. The Novant Health Derrick L. Davis Cancer Center provides top-quality care in Winston-Salem, and the Novant Health Wallace Cancer Institute in Salisbury, North Carolina, is nearly complete and slated to open in August.

“We strive to have full-service clinics in places other than center city Charlotte. For some highly specialized services, people may need to go downtown, but generally, we will do as much of the care as possible close to the patient’s home. Most systems would not go to that length, but we are,” Limentani said. 

It’s a philosophy that embodies the kind of servant leadership Limentani has applied throughout his career, including most recently during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“COVID-19 was truly a profound challenge in the sense that we were, in very short order, faced with a situation where our patients who are often immunocompromised were at increased risk to develop a viral infection that was poorly understood,” Limentani said.

“At the same time, we had patients who were in the middle of treatment for whom we needed to continue to provide care. We also knew there was the risk that if a provider or a nurse got infected, we might have to shut down a clinic and not have the opportunity to provide care in that location,” he said. “At the beginning of the pandemic, we created an environment where the people doing the care would not be exposed to a whole team of other people — where, if one team went down, we would have a whole other team to provide care.”

In addition, Limentani took to hosting transparent and honest daily meetings with his team.  

“Very early on, you saw everyone saying, ‘We must’ and then they would fill in the blank as if they knew the answers. I took a different approach,” he said. “I said, ‘This is what we think. This is the best data we have available. I may be coming back to you tomorrow to say that what we have decided today has changed, but here’s what we think the best approach is. Let’s get feedback and see if it makes sense.’ As a result, our patients continued to be treated, and the feedback we got was that they felt safe.”

Although the COVID-19 pandemic is in many ways unprecedented, it was not unfamiliar territory for Limentani. As a young doctor in the 1980s, he worked at the largest HIV hospital in Boston.

“There are many things about COVID-19 that are similar to what, at the time, we didn’t even call HIV. We didn’t understand transmission. We thought that if you got it, you were dead. So in the early days of COVID-19, to me, it was almost like déjà vu,” he said. “When you’re in an environment like this, the good news is, if you have high-quality individuals, most of them step up.”

That’s what happened across the cancer centers in the Novant Health system, Limentani said.

“Our commitment to the patient is that, when they walk through the door, they’re going to get the best, most advanced treatment,” Limentani said. “But that’s only a portion of the equation. What we always have to remember is that we’re taking care of people. A patient is not their diagnosis. If Jane Doe has a cancer diagnosis, that doesn’t make Jane Doe the cancer. She has a cancer that we need to help her beat.”

Limentani has found that kind of patient focus comes naturally within the walls of Novant Health. 

“This is a place where we actually value all the people within the system. When we use ‘team member’ or ‘teammates,’ we really mean it. When we use the word ‘remarkable,’ we really mean it, and we’re committed to it,” he said. “What I think I’ve been most impressed by within Novant Health overall is that, from the top down, we are committed to people.”

Reflections of retired Gen. James Amos on our national day to remember

Memorial Day is more than just a long holiday weekend. In the Novant Health family, there is perhaps no one better suited to explain its resonance and significance than Gen. James Amos, USMC, Ret.

Amos joined the Novant Health board of trustees in 2018, after an impressive 42-year military career. He served as the 35th commandant of the Marines and oversaw units at every rank from lieutenant colonel to general. He reset the Corps’ combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, shepherding the beginning of a force reduction from 241,000 Marines to 221,000. And he introduced Marine leadership to industry best practices regarding diversity and talent management.

Now, as we head into this important weekend, we’ve asked him to share what it means for our military and our community.

Many Americans confuse Veterans Day and Memorial Day. Could you please explain why Memorial Day is sacred to active military men and women, to our veterans and to their loved ones? 

You bet I can. Memorial Day was established for Americans to take pause once a year and to remember the many sacrifices of men and women who have worn our nation’s cloth and have fought our nation’s battles over the past 244 years. As the word “memorial” tells us, it’s a day for remembering and honoring those who sacrificed their lives in battle and service.

It was first widely observed on May 30, 1868, to commemorate the sacrifices of Civil War soldiers. In the Civil War, an unimaginable 620,000 soldiers were killed, a death toll massive enough to force the creation of national cemeteries. The holiday used to be called Decoration Day because many people would spend the day placing decorations and flags on the graves of fallen soldiers.

On June 28, 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which moved four holidays, including Memorial Day, from their traditional dates to a specified Monday to create a convenient three-day weekend. The change moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May.

Many people visit cemeteries and memorials on Memorial Day to honor and mourn those who died in military service. Many volunteers place an American flag on each grave in national cemeteries.

Veterans Day, on the other hand, has a different history. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, was declared between the Allied nations and Germany in the First World War, then known as “the Great War.” Commemorated as Armistice Day beginning the following year, Nov. 11 became a legal federal holiday in the United States in 1938. In the aftermath of World War II and the Korean War, Armistice Day became Veterans Day, a holiday dedicated to American veterans of war.

Could you share why you feel Memorial Day should have greater importance to our nation?

I’m kind of a softie at heart. My wife of almost 50 years calls me a mush-pot because I get choked up at most of our national holidays. But Memorial Day has a special meaning for me as it causes me to remember specific names — names of men and women I have personally served with who rest now under those white marble crosses in our military cemeteries. I’ve now buried two of my three closest friends in life, all three being fellow Marines. We entered the Marine Corps at the same time and grew up flying together over decades. Their lives, as well as their family’s lives, come to mind on Memorial Day.

And of course, the countless memorial services I’ve attended over the years, particularly since 9/11 and our combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, come to mind every Memorial Day. As I’ve grown older, many of the names have begun to fade, but the circumstances of their loss have never left me.

It’s simply our sacred duty as fellow Americans to take pause on Memorial Day.

You led Marines in multiple worldwide conflicts. Who are some of the patriots you remember on Memorial Day?

I remember well the CH-46 helicopter crew we lost on the opening night of Operation Iraqi Freedom. They crashed at 2 in the morning in the middle of a huge sandstorm, along with a squad of British Royal Marine Commandos that they were inserting behind enemy lines.

I remember taking the call in my command center at midnight about the loss of one of my attack helicopters just outside of Baghdad.

Then there was the CH-46 helicopter that went down in the Euphrates River, just south of ancient Babylon with all hands lost.

I well remember the Marines I lost on a convoy who were attacked just outside Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004.

Years later, I remember the Marines I lost at the battle of Sangin, Afghanistan, one of the deadliest of our time. I remember attending the memorial services back home in Southern California for many of them, while standing by their families and loved ones.

The list is pretty long. My hope is that I don’t ever forget them as I get older. I want to remember as many of them as I can.

On 9/11, your office was destroyed by American Airlines flight 77 when it struck the Pentagon. Can you tell us how that affected you?

This was a defining time in my life. What happened on 9/11 has shaped my approach to many things since that day.

Just months before, I had moved into a newly renovated portion of the E-ring of the Pentagon. My office was on the fourth deck, overlooking the Pentagon helo pad and Arlington Cemetery. I was a young one-star [general] at the time, working as the deputy head of Marine Aviation. I was away from the building when American Airlines flight 77 was hijacked and deliberately flown into my side of the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., killing all 64 people onboard, including the five hijackers and the six air crew. In total, 184 people were killed that day at the Pentagon.

Just 35 minutes before, the airplane had taken off from Dulles and was loaded with jet fuel when it flew into the bottom three floors of the Pentagon. The impact and explosion were so severe that it drove what was left of the plane through the E and D rings, finally stopping at the C ring. My office was three windows just to the left of the point of impact. The top area and roof of the Pentagon burned for five days before the fire department was able to put out the flames.

Our entire country was in mourning. You remember it. None of us could believe that it had happened to us on our own soil.

Here is some of the irony, though:All partisan politics were set aside. Think about that. Partisans became patriots. Everybody flew American flags from the homes, their offices, on their cars. You couldn’t drive under an overpass on the interstate that wasn’t covered in American flags. We became a single body of people. We were all Americans, and we knew we’d come out of this and would see better days.

And you know what? We did, and we have. So while it was truly what I call “the worst of times,” it also became the best of times. Our nation came together. Like the Bible says, “We were in one accord.”

Marines have a proud history of leadership. What are some leadership lessons that all Americans can apply during this worldwide pandemic?

Great question. We need to remember who we are as a country and remember our history. We are overcomers. It’s time to be positive.

Never doubt that we will figure this COVID-19 matter out. While it’s a tough nut to crack, never doubt our ability to crack it.

When you think of all that our nation has been through in its 244 years, we have to believe in ourselves. We can do this.

Focus on what’s important, not the fear of the unknown. Do what’s right in taking care of your health and the health of your loved ones.

Lastly, if you have the wherewithal to help in any way, then do it. It can be financially or materially — just do it.

As our country suffers the loss of more than 90,000 Americans from COVID-19, what message would you like to share with “team aubergine” at Novant Health?

You know, Americans have always applied the term “hero” and “heroes” to our military, our police and our firefighters. I think that we’re seeing a whole new generation of heroes emerge out of the COVID-19 fight. You can’t look at national news in the evening or read the newspapers or scan the internet without reading about our healthcare workers — all of them, from doctors and nurses and physician assistants, to the team members who clean the rooms and ensure that all is sanitary.

This generation of healthcare workers has discovered its true grit. They’ve faced the impossible head on. They’ve stared down death and have overcome. While it’s been terrible, I predict that these men and women will rise from all that they’ve seen and experienced as more dedicated professionals. They have all been tried in the crucible of life and death, and they are stronger for it.

These ladies and gentlemen — selfless in all that they are now required to do — are today’s real heroes.

While the political climate in Washington now remains as partisan as I have ever seen it, we are seeing the goodness of our country begin to shine. Folks are coming forward to help in any way they can. Industry and the scientific communities are as energized as I’ve seen in decades. We’re going to get through this, and we’ll do it as an American people.

And similar to the tragedy of 9/11, while these are clearly the worst of times, I would argue that, in many ways, they will be viewed in hindsight as the best of times because the will and strength of the American people will have defeated the COVID-19 virus.

We are overcomers!