A change in venue for the vows

Saturday was a good day for Bob Vesperman. ¶ His lungs were clear, his kidneys were clean and he was finally breathing without the help of the clunky ventilator he'd been attached to for the past five months. ¶ Best of all, the feisty 70-year-old retired high school principal got to slip on his penny loafers and red-and-white Wisconsin Badger golf shirt and get out of his hospital bed long enough to see his only son, Chris, get hitched.

"Wonderful," the beaming father whispered moments after seeing his boy kiss the bride, the former Melissa Feist. "It's just nice to be here."

Three weeks ago, Vesperman's heart and kidneys were so weak and his overall health so poor that his family wasn't sure he would live long enough to make it to his son's planned September 2010 wedding.

To make sure his father got to see the special day, Chris Vesperman and his future bride scrapped plans for a church ceremony and pushed up the wedding date. On Saturday, the couple was married by the Rev. Bonnie Nash in 20-minute ceremony inside a tiny chapel at Bethesda Hospital in St. Paul, where Bob has been hospitalized since October.

Only 25 relatives and close friends were invited, and there was no band or wedding dance. But Dad made it, wearing a white-rose boutonniere on his golf shirt and grinning from his front-row wheelchair seat.

"I wanted Chris to marry this girl when he first started dating her," the proud father said afterward. "But he went off to college, and they broke up. I kept telling him, 'That's a nice girl, Chris.'"

A long stay

Lynn Sadoff, a spokeswoman for the HealthEast Care System, said the average stay at Bethesda, a long-term, acute-care hospital, is 25 to 30 days.

Vesperman, who was principal at Osceola (Wis.) High School for 27 years before a stroke in 1993 forced him to retire, has been there since fall, trying to recuperate from congestive heart failure that led to more complicated ailments.

A heart attack suffered on Father's Day 2008 started it, leading to heart-valve replacement and double-bypass surgery in September. Three more surgeries to address internal bleeding and infections followed.

In the months since, Vesperman has been largely bed-ridden in a private room on the hospital's fifth floor, hooked up to a ventilator.

In recent months, Kathy Vesperman found herself thinking as much about a funeral as a wedding.

"I'd lay awake at night and think about funeral plans and all that needed to be done [for the wedding]," she said. "And I'd think "Goll darn it, Bob won't even be here for Chris and Melissa's wedding.'"

A few weeks back, she hit on the idea of moving up the date and holding the ceremony at the hospital.

She ran it by Chris and Melissa, who immediately approved. After checking with hospital administrators, the couple set a new date.

About the same time, Bob's health began to improve. Doctors were able to drain about 30 pounds of excess fluid from his body, taking pressure off his heart, lung and kidneys. He has since been weened from the ventilator during the day. Tired of sipping ice chips, he even tried to con his wife into giving him a glass of water.

"I tell you, it's a miracle the change we've seen in three weeks' time," Kathy Vesperman said. "A good doctor and a good Lord is helping us from up above."

'Tough get going'

In the minutes before Saturday's ceremony, the old principal sat in his wheelchair to the side of the altar. A trach tube in his throat kept him from moving or speaking much, but the smile on his face said it all -- his boy was getting married, and he was there to see it.

Nearby were Chris and Melissa's children -- Samuel, 2, and Lily, 7 months.

After the couple exchanged vows and rings and kissed, Bob got a kiss from his son, then another from Melissa. Minutes later, the family retreated to a seventh-floor reception area for coffee and cake.

As Chris and Melissa posed for photographs, Bob sat off to the side, wide-eyed and beaming.

His breath was short and his voice a bit weak, but he was as chatty as he'd been in months, telling short stories about his wedding to Kathy 40 years earlier and his days as a principal.

Later, Chris walked by and gave his father a hug. Their eyes moist, they shared small talk.

"Many a day I said to myself 'Aw to heck with it, let 'er go,' " Bob Vesperman said. "But what's that old football [cliche]? When the going gets tough, that's when the tough get going.' "

Richard Meryhew • 612-673-4425