PRYR RQST - Spiritual Warfare Needed - Marine Corporal David Emery Jr.

A Marine's fight, a family's hope
By Barbara Barrett - CDT Washington correspondent

Leslie Shivery Emery, left, and husband, U.S. Marine Cpl. David Emery attend a military ball in Las Vegas in July 2006. David Emery was rushed into emergency surgery on Friday.
How to help:
The Marine Corps League Nittany Leathernecks Detachment has established a fund to help the Marine and his family with future expenses. Send checks or money orders made out to Nittany Leathernecks Detachment, attention Cpl. Emery Fund, P.O. Box 956, Lemont Pa., 16851-0956.

Donations also are being accepted at any Omega Bank branch with checks made payable to “Benefit of David Emery, Leslie Shivery and Carlee Emery.” This fund, set up by “An American Angel,” gives all donations to Emery and his wife.

Donations canisters through “An American Angel” have been placed in numerous businesses across Centre County. “An American Angel, Cpl. David Emery” bracelets are being sold for $5 at Northland Bowl Arena and Fisher’s Market in Milesburg. All proceeds go to the family.
BETHESDA, Md. -- Friday, they took Cpl. David Emery's left leg.

Two days later, they took his right.

The doctors came Sunday morning and told his mother and his young wife what they had to do. They said the injured Marine's white blood cell count was still too high. If the surgeons didn't amputate his right leg, they said, he would surely die.

And even if they did, they couldn't promise he would live.

Leslie Shivery, 21, who married David a year ago but won't take his last name until the couple have a proper, go-down-the-aisle wedding, walked the length of the intensive care unit at Bethesda's National Naval Medical Center bawling.

She tried to choke back the tears to tell her unconscious husband that everything was all right. She stroked the blond hair that's grown so long since the bomb blast in Iraq on Feb. 7. She clasped the right hand that he flutters when in pain. She caressed his cheek and told him again and again: "I'm not going home without you."

By Monday afternoon, the blood infection that has stalked Emery's body for weeks had invaded three of his four critical organs.

His heart was in trouble, along with his lungs and his kidney. He was on an eight-hour dialysis to flush the fluids that were swelling his body. He was on drugs to fend off the bacteria.

"They said the next 24 to 48 hours would be critical," said Connie Emery, his mother, as she leaned against a wall Monday in the hospital hallway. One of David's doctors walked by.

"He looks good today," the doctor said, trying to reassure.

His white blood cell count had crept up after Sunday's surgery.

"But that's the trauma of losing his legs," Connie Emery said later.

Now the doctors must get the white blood cell count down again.

"We're playing a waiting game here," Connie said.

For weeks, she and David's wife knew that he might lose his legs. The blast of the suicide bomber's weapon ripped his left femur, chewed away the meat of his left buttocks and sent shrapnel into his right leg and his torso.

Cpl. Emery had once told his wife that he didn't want to lose a limb. He'd rather die on the battlefield.

"I told him, 'I don't care if you don't have no legs or no arms, I want you here,' " Shivery recalled Monday. "When it comes to it, you realize life is so much more than that. When you're in the situation, it's different."

The doctors said it will be a couple of weeks before David Emery realizes his legs are gone. His wife and mother think it will be much sooner.

He lay propped in bed Monday, as still as water, a small quilt adorned with flags covering the space where his legs used to rest. An old sign taped to a monitor advised nurses to prop up his heels.

Shivery sat by him, wearing a yellow paper gown and purple gloves and a blue mask, her brown eyes watching his closed ones. He winced suddenly, fluttered that hand.

"It's okay, sweetheart," Connie Emery said, standing nearby.

"It's okay," Leslie echoed. Where does it itch? she asked, running hands across the tattoos of his bare torso. She found a spot on his right shoulder to scratch. He relaxed.

The doctors don't believe David Emery will recall his time in the ICU on the third floor. His family hopes not. A week ago, they thought he would be moving soon to the fifth floor at Bethesda, where the troops go when they're off the critical list. Then the blood infection grew worse.

Over time, they have seen other people move into the intensive care unit, get better and move upstairs. Relatives come to visit Emery on the weekends. Friends stop by. Another Marine from Emery's company who lost fingers in the same blast has visited often.

From Centre County, residents have sent quilts and cards. Leslie and Connie each wear bracelets made by folks back home. Someone paid to have a 3-D ultrasound of the little girl growing in Leslie's womb so she could show it to her husband. She has a 90-minute DVD of the whole experience.

The pictures were amazing, Leslie said. The ultrasound showed that the girl, Carlee Ann, has chubby cheeks.

"Her nose is kind of like mine," Leslie said, touching her own petite nose.

"She has big feet, takes after her dad," she said, smiling.

And the baby's mouth seems like David's too.

Leslie ran a finger across her own lower lip.

"The way his lips are shaped ... I don't know, I love his lips."

The baby is due May 7, and Leslie and Connie had been trying to figure out how David could somehow attend the delivery. But that was a week ago. Now, they aren't so sure.

Emery's stomach remains open, covered only by a delicate sheath of protection. Doctors found a bad spot on his liver when they were operating Sunday; they removed the spot and hope nothing returns.

His left arm remains in bad condition. It hangs suspended above his torso as he lies in bed. The left elbow is broken, exposed to the bone. Doctors hope to rotate muscle today to repair his arm, Connie Emery said. They just hope infection doesn't set in there.

"He's getting tired, poor kid," she said. "His body's been through a lot.

"The trauma doctor said there's only so much his body can handle."

She stood by his bed later, in gown and gloves and mask, while Leslie took a break. A nurse sat nearby, watching David's numbers on a computer monitor.

Cpl. Emery's right hand, the only limb unmarred by severe injuries, fluttered, and his mother leaned down to her son.

"It's okay, sweetheart," she told him. "It's okay."

Centre Daily Times Washington correspondent Barbara Barrett can be reached at 202-383-0012 or bbarrett@ mcclatchydc.com.

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