by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Cal Williams knows what it’s like to experience a miracle.
One morning in 1989, as he got out of bed, he knew something was not quite right.
“I had been to a party the night before, but I only had three beers,” he said. “I remember sitting on the side of the bed and thinking, ‘If I can only drink three beers and feel like this in the morning, I just don’t think I want to drink beer anymore.’
“I made coffee and sat down to read the paper. When I got up to get in the shower, my right leg wouldn’t support me. I fell. I couldn’t stand up. I was floundering on the floor like a tuna.”
That was the start of a long journey for Williams, who you know as the chairman of the Northeast Florida Builders Association’s Sales and Marketing Council. You also know him as a longtime Beazer Homes site agent who recently joined Lennar.
You also know him for his slow gait and his halting speech. Now, you’re going to find out why he walks and talks that way.
When Williams fell, his wife Anna immediately called his best friend of 30 years, Harris Willman.
“I lived a few blocks away, so I came over immediately,” said Willman. “Cal was sitting on his bed trying to figure out what had just happened. We determined pretty quickly that he needed to go to the hospital.”
Williams also called Stan Longenecker, an orthopedic surgeon.
“I thought it was a pinched nerve,” said Williams. “Stan told me to take two aspirin and call him in 30 minutes. It turns out that he probably saved my life.
“I called him back and told him how I was feeling and he said to meet him at St. Vincent’s emergency room.”
Willman helped Williams to the car and they headed out.
At the hospital, the whole situation took a dramatic turn as tests were done and it was determined the situation was a lot worse than originally thought.
Longenecker said that he didn’t need an orthopedic doctor.
“The words weren’t out of his mouth before out of the corner of my eye I saw Scotty Boggs go by, who was a neurosurgeon,” said Williams. “He stuck his head in the door and said, ‘What are you doing here?’ I said ‘Ask Stan.’”
The doctors knew each other more than from the hospital. And Williams and Willman are part of that link as, at the time, all attended St. Mark’s Episcopal Church.
The doctors went down the hall to talk. All Williams knew was that he had a problem that might not be an easy fix.
“During this whole process, the only pain I had was when they stuck me with needles to get blood or start I.V.’s,” Williams said. “I was a little bit concerned because I didn’t know what was going on yet.”
The physicians took him upstairs to a room and gave him the bad news: he had an Arterial Venus Malformation in his brain. More simply stated, an AVM is an abnormal collection of blood vessels.
“As I understand it, when you are born all of your blood vessels are external to your brain and as you get closer and closer to being delivered, those dissolve and switch to the internal blood vessels,” he said. “Well, mine never dissolved so I had an extra set of blood vessels. They were not designed to last 43 years, so that’s what ruptured. The good news is that mine only leaked. If mine had ruptured, I would have had a stroke and been dead before I hit the floor.”
And death was still a factor: “I was told that that it was less than 50-50 that I would survive an operation.
Boggs explains: “He had a huge AVM that he hemorrhaged from. Generally, in aneurisms and AVMs, about 50 percent of the people that bleed never get to the hospital. It was an extremely difficult problem. The location of the AVM on his brian and the size of it made the risk of surgery very high.”
That prognosis was pretty scary for friends and family.
“I was thinking pretty dire at the time,” said Willman. “I was thinking about his wife and his two fairly young children. I was just very concerned for them as a family. He was the primary provider and all that.”
His wife concurs.
“It felt like the world stopped,” said Anna. “I felt very afraid. I was scared to death because Cal had never been sick a day in his life. I just couldn’t imagine living without him. It was so amazing. Cal’s strong faith in the Lord and his peace he felt helped so much. He held me up.”
Brain surgery was scheduled and Cal had 28 people praying for him in St. Vincent’s chapel.
He faced a major ordeal: the surgery was to last 21 1/2 hours.
“As I headed into surgery, I had total and complete peace,” said Williams. “I had no doubt in my mind that we just had to get the surgery done and I’d be better. There was no question in my mind that that was the case.
“Right before I went into the operating room, I had a little twinge of doubt. I just said, ‘In the name of Jesus Christ, Satan get away from me.’ It was amazing to me, that immediately after that, I got my peace back. I went into the surgery in total and complete peace.”
He also prayed with Boggs, the anesthesiologist, head nurse and his wife before the surgery.
Willman stayed in the waiting room, surrounded by friends from their church who had been part of a Bible study group.
“We were all very familiar with each other and had studied and prayed together a lot,” said Willman. “While we were all concerned, I think we all had this basic trust and faith in the Lord to have the ability to heal Cal and that was his will. We just prayed for God’s will to be done.”
He hemorrhaged during the first surgery and it had to be stopped.
“There were complications with bleeding that caused us to arbitrarily stop the operation and come back later,” said Boggs.
A second surgery in January of 1990 fixed the problem.
The second surgery proved to be a little easier as Boggs has determined exactly what was wrong and everyone was confident the second surgery would go well.
“The second time we were pretty confident that the results would be good,” said Willman.
He had the second operation and they were able to remove the mass.
After the second surgery, Williams was paralyzed on his right side and could not speak.
Over the next two years, he had to learn to write, speak and walk again.
“It took me about six months before I could speak again,” he said. “I can’t express how hard it is when you have thoughts running through your mind and you can’t express them.”
Since he had brain surgery, his brain had to learn new pathways to communicate with his body since a large part of his brain had been removed.
“If you go through something like this, when you get done, you have to believe in God,” said Williams. “The human body is an amazing thing. There’s no way this could be built by anyone but God.”
His family had to adapt to this new Cal, but with the help of friends and his church, they managed quite well.
“All of us dealt with it differently,” he said. “My older son Shane was very much affected by it. He was very caring and helpful. He wanted to wrap his arms around me and make it all better.
“Brant, my younger son, dealt with it differently, but his friends helped a lot.
“Anna was a different story. She is a very nurturing person and I just scared her. She was a basket case. To this day, she doesn’t like me to walk without my cane. She fusses at me. I’ve fell a couple of times, but I’ve learned how to fall, so I don’t hurt myself.”
Willman took over the household and handled the family finances while Cal was recovering.
“He (Williams) has always been the one who handled all the family finances and Anna didn’t have the skills to jump in and get on top of it,” he said. “Secondly, her primary focus needed to be on him, so it gave me the opportunity to come in and do something for them.”
Anna said how amazing it was for all the help they received.
“I have never in my life felt prayer so strong as we did then,” she said. “It was unbelievable. Our boys pitched in and supported and helped so much. Shane helped his dad with physical therapy and Brant was right there helping. It’s amazing what happens when a tragedy like that happens. Everyone just jumped right in. Our neighbors David and Annstewart Hemphill and Joy and Vernon Jones helped a lot, too. My family helped a lot too and came and stayed with us. The list is so long of people who helped us.”
Another miracle helped the family immensely.
“My priest at St. Mark’s asked me if I disability insurance,” said Williams. “I did not. He asked how I was going to provide for my family during recovery. I told him I didn’t have any idea. He asked me how much does it take to run your household each month? I told him the amount. He said a bunch of my friends took up a collection and there would be a check in my mailbox the first of each month for that amount for as long as it takes. I still get goose bumps when I think about it.”
He was then able to focus on getting better. Recovery was tough, but the only problem Cal was left with is a little bit of a challenge with critical thinking and he has to wear a brace on his right foot causing him to limp.
“The reason that he is paralyzed in his leg stems from the original hemorrhage that he had,” said Boggs. “He has made a fantastic recovery. He has done extremely well. He and his wife are fantastic people. Cal has always been extremely positive and I think that helped him quite a bit too.”
He used a walker and then a cane. He still uses the cane sometimes when the path he’s taking might be tricky or when stairs are involved.
Despite his slowness of walk and speech, Cal is as sharp as ever and his wit is evident as he entertains the SMC attendees each month. He said he worries sometimes what others think of him, but his success in real estate and his chairing SMC allow people to see past the physical aspects.
“I’ve had the best 15 years in the business that I’ve ever had,” he said. “I’m not as hyper as I used to be and I’m a lot more focused. I don’t think my personality changed a lot, but I do think I am more conservative than I used to be.”
Willman said Williams is a great example of someone overcoming a handicap.
“He hasn’t let it stop him or slow him down at all,” said Willman. “His whole life is a great example of belief in his faith and trust in the Lord to be with him and guide him through all of this.”
There is an appreciation for life that comes with such a life experience and Cal knows this every day.
“There is not a day that I woke up for the past 19 years where I haven’t said ‘Thank you for me being here’,” he said.
Through tears, his wife told of how proud she is of him and lucky she was to marry him.
“Cal is incredible,” said Anna. “What you see is what you get.”