Hodgeman welcomed home after recovering from mysterious illness

Quite a special surprise was in store for Mike Hodgeman II, a fourth grader at Clayton Elementary School, after school dismissed on Wednesday, Sept. 30.

As he stepped outside the school building, he was greeted by his father, who had just returned home earlier that day after four harrowing months in the hospital.

“I was really excited,” the younger Hodgeman said after giving his dad a hug near the school parking lot.

Clayton resident Michael Hodgeman is back home and on the road to recovery, but, as he put it himself, “It was a rough road.”

This summer, Hodgeman was stricken by a mysterious illness that nearly took his life.

He was treated at hospitals throughout the region for four months, including two months of induced coma.

Five times, doctors had to revive him with a defibrillator.

He lost 80 pounds during the ordeal.

The illness struck unexpectedly in early June, when Hodgeman was asleep at home. He woke up at 3 a.m. with a “panicky feeling.”

“I was sweating really bad and I couldn’t breathe,” he said.

Hodgeman called 9-1-1, and that’s about the last thing he remembers until two months later, as he slept in an induced coma.

When he finally awakened, he was shocked to learn how much time had passed.

“I remember my mom and wife telling me it was August, and I couldn’t believe it,” he said.

For the first month, Hodgeman was at Kent General Hospital.

From there, he was transported to the University of Maryland and for 28 days was hooked up to an artificial lung known as an ECMO machine, which oxygenated his blood.

Hodgeman explained that while he was on the ECMO machine, a tube came out of his right side and carried his blood through the machine. The blood came out bright red and went back into his body through a tube on his left side.

“It saved my life,” he said.

After the ECMO machine, Hodgeman went through therapy for a month and a week at Maryland General, where he had to relearn how to walk.

This was followed finally by a week at Milford Memorial Hospital to finish his rehabilitation.

“They said I had a 30 percent change to live to my mother and sister and wife, but now I’m home, amazingly,” Hodgeman said. “The doctors said it was a miracle.”

Hodgeman’s illness baffled the doctors.

They tested him for swine flu, tested the waters at Duck Creek to check for viruses from fish, and also tested him for poisoning, but could not pinpoint the source of the illness.

Hodgeman said he was never given a specific diagnosis. The only thing they said was that it was upper respiratory, and that he got pneumonia on top of it.

Now Hodgeman is living at home, but he is still going to see the doctors. He said his lungs are scarred, which causes him to lose his breath quickly, and the doctors said it will take a year to see how much his lungs recover.

Through it all, the experience changed Hodgeman’s outlook on life.

“It makes me not take it for granted,” he said. “Out of nowhere, I was dead five times. It changed my whole family. It scared everybody.”

Hodgeman was also amazed by the support from people in the community.

“The people around here in Smyrna have been unbelievable,” he said. “They’ve really been there for me.”

People were able to keep track of Hodgeman’s path to recovery on Facebook, where his wife, April, and Ginger Barkley updated his status.

Hodgeman, a class of 1989 Smyrna High graduate, is well known in the community as a volunteer coach for Smyrna Little Wrestlers, Smyrna-Clayton Little League and Smyrna-Clayton Little Lass.

Now he’s glad to be home, and he appreciates the support he’s received along the way.

“I’d like to thank everyone in Smyrna and Clayton who cared about me,” he said.