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Melissa Payne - Bringing a Husband Home
 Melissa Payne was visiting family in Joliet this week, while her
husband – Staff Sergeant Lange Payne – was serving active duty for the Air Force
in Iraq. To complicate the situation, Melissa, due with their child in August,
needed to be hospitalized at Provena Saint Joseph Medical Center for high blood
pressure.
Once at Provena Saint Joe’s, Melissa learned she’d need to spend the rest of
her pregnancy at the hospital. Knowing how difficult having to stay in the
hospital can be, and understanding how much harder it would be with her husband
away, Jill Weitendorf (Patient Care Manager), Kathleen Gunier (RN), and new
nursing school graduate Megan Humann (RN) of Provena Saint Joseph Medical
Center’s Family Birthing Suites began the process of bringing her husband back
home.
After being given two hours to pack and getting a flight arranged for home,
Lange was in Joliet within 24 hours. Lange, part of the United States Air Force
819th Redhorse Squadron, had been deployed in mid-November, and was stationed in
Quarter, Iraq. Although his squadron will be returning to the United States in
less than a month, Lange said he would not have made it worrying about his wife
back at home.
“I am so glad that he is home,” says Melissa.
Adds Lange, “I just want to say thank you to everyone at Provena Saint Joe’s
who has been so incredibly great. I can’t thank them enough for getting me home.
My wife means the world to me, and what they did to help us means so much to
both of us.”
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