In sickness & health: Couple marries at IU hospital

The couple’s colors were bubble gum pink and navy blue. The groom sported a salmon tie he had bought the night before and an expectant smile. Many in the crowd wore scrubs.

And the bride? She entered the room in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank trailing behind. Titus Sears and Hillary Deckard Sears, both 30, had planned to marry in August, but cystic fibrosis, the lung disease that Hillary was diagnosed with at age 3, intervened. Hillary’s condition began to deteriorate in November. Then she lost her health insurance.

Her best chance at a long-term future rests in a lung transplant. But for that to happen, she needs insurance.

So hospital staff and Titus began to consider moving up the wedding so Hillary could go on Titus’s insurance. On Monday, Titus and Hillary decided to wed at the end of the week.

At first, they thought they would have a small ceremony in her hospital room at IU Health University Hospital.

When the hospital staff heard that a wedding was in the future, they leaped into action.

Chaplain Staci Striegel-Stikeleather went to Goodwill and purchased a dress so perfect for Hillary that no alterations were needed. A second-floor space in the IU Simon Cancer Center was secured. They arranged for flowers, bubble machines, even a music therapist to provide the country songs that provided the soundtrack to the couple’s relationship.

As the crowd gathered, Titus said he never expected all of this.

“It’s come together. It looks really pretty, and I know she’s going to love it. That’s all that matters,” he said.

And love it Hillary did. Although she entered the room in a wheelchair, when she reached the flower-adorned trellis, she slowly stood up, her petite frame draped in an ivory gown, yellow hospital socks on her feet. She walked down the aisle to where her groom awaited.

Afterward, she said she was amazed by everything the hospital staff had done for her.

“It was magical, just the way it happened,” she said.

Titus and Hillary met about 15 years ago at Bloomington North High School, but did not start dating until five years ago when they came across one another on a dating website.

About three months ago, the couple got engaged at the Brown County Inn and planned an outdoor wedding for August. Titus never let Hillary’s condition dissuade him.

“We decided we were just going to live our lives the way we needed to. If it progressed, it progressed. We were just going to be happy,” he said.

The past few months have been rough for the Bloomington couple. In November, Hillary suffered a collapsed lung, said Dr. Cynthia Brown, a pulmonologist with IU Health. She has been in and out of the hospital since then. Throughout Titus has been by her side, spending weekends and some evenings with her, commuting to his job as a custodian at Indiana University Bloomington.

Brown referred Hillary to the transplant clinic in early December.

Before Hillary could start to explore the option, her condition worsened.

“The disease can be unpredictable. In some people it can be one big event that can make health decline precipitously,” said Brown, director of the adult cystic fibrosis center.

At the end of December, Hillary lost her job as a licensed practical nurse in a Bloomington health care facility, and with it her health insurance. She could not afford to buy insurance on her own, so hospital staff helped her fill out forms to apply for Medicaid. But time passed with no answer from the state.

Without insurance, Hillary’s best shot at survival, the lung transplant, was off the table.

“Without insurance, it’s not a consideration,” Brown said.

If Hillary does not receive a transplant, it’s not clear what her future holds, hospital staff said. That, too, tied into the decision to go ahead with the wedding.

“We didn’t know if she’s ever going home,” said Striegel-Stikeleather, part of Hillary’s palliative care team.

After the ceremony, guests partook of a reception including a multitiered cake. Hillary danced one dance with her father to Heartland’s “I Loved Her First,” as her mother, in a wheelchair herself because of a broken foot, sobbed audibly.

Then, fatigued, Hillary sat back in her wheelchair for a moment.

As the guitarist played the first notes of Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud,” the couple’s song, Hillary turned to her new husband.

“You ready?” she asked.

Call IndyStar staff reporter Shari Rudavsky at (317) 444-6354. Follow her on Twitter: @srudavsky.