Misfortune turns into 'blessing'

For a Kalispell family, what started out as an unfortunate incident has turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

Chad Baker, 24, was celebrating his wedding night in late October at Scotty's in Kalispell. His groomsmen got into a fight with several men outside the bar. Baker tried to break it up and got caught in the scuffle.

The injuries sent him to the hospital where tests revealed a fractured eye socket and a cyst.

A later MRI to follow up on the cyst showed something much more serious - a tumor at the top of his spinal cord.

Had he not been injured, he wouldn't have known about the tumor that was growing at a rate that alarmed his doctor, he said.

"That was a blessing, kind of," says his wife, Kirstin Baker.

Chad Baker had no symptoms that would have tipped him off to the tumor.

"I was normal," he says, "I could do everything everybody else could."

Baker went to Seattle and had the tumor removed in March. It wasn't cancerous, but it could have ruptured his spinal cord and paralyzed him from the neck down, he says.

He's lucky he found out about the tumor when he did, but he's far from back to normal.

"I can't do much, just my personal stuff," he says. "Just to shave is a challenge for me."

The surgery has left Baker with a compromised sense of balance, loss of feeling in his extremities, tremors, pain and other ailments. He can't walk without assistance and can't lift more than 10 pounds - and that makes caring for his children difficult.

The couple have three children: Dahkota, 5; Caitlin, 4; and Chad, nine months.

Baker was a student at Flathead Valley Community College before the accident and his wife worked at Lowe's. They had no health insurance, so even before the surgery the family had accumulated significant medical bills.

Kirstin Baker took a leave of absence from her job in mid-February to care for her husband and to decrease their income so the family could qualify for Medicaid.

Since then Medicaid has picked up most of Baker's medical costs. But the Bakers estimate they still owe about $15,000 for costs incurred before government assistance kicked in. And with both Baker and his wife not working, the regular bills are piling up.

Kirstin Baker plans to go back to work as soon as her husband is able to be by himself for a long period of time and can care for the children.

"We're debating because we don't know how he'll do," she says.

His doctors estimate recovery could take six months, a year or even longer, Chad Baker says.

He also has to continue with physical therapy and further tests in Seattle. And there's a possibility the tumor could grow back, necessitating another surgery.

Baker's father, Larry, has set up an account at Glacier Bank for the couple for anyone interested in donating. Larry Baker also plans to hold an auction to raise money to help the family pay their bills.

For more information on contributing to the bank account or donating items for the auction, contact Chad Baker's sister, Tacia Gladeau, at 257-0063.

Reporter Camden Easterling can be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at ceasterling@dailyinterlake.com