Center Grove teacher, announcer taking long road back

<p>When Jason Mueller was in the Center Grove football press box on Oct. 26, handling the public address announcing duties during the Trojans’ 42-0 sectional win over Columbus North, he treated it like any other fall Friday.</p><p>Mueller, a physical education teacher at Sugar Grove Elementary School who has been behind the microphone at Center Grove sporting events for about 15 years, had no reason to think he wasn’t going to be right back in the same place for the regional game against Avon the following Friday. With his 43rd birthday a week away, he was feeling just fine.</p><p>Until he wasn’t.</p><p>Mueller had always been fairly healthy, so the inexplicable string of liver and pancreas ailments that befell him late last year came as a complete shock.</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]<p>&quot;Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t do recreational drugs at all, and this crap happens to me,&quot; he said. &quot;There’s people out there abusing their bodies, and they’re fine.&quot;</p><p>Late October usually ushers in what has always been Mueller’s favorite part of the calendar year — Halloween, birthday, Thanksgiving and all of the merriment that comes with the holiday season. But in 2018, Mueller was too busy fighting for survival to even think about enjoying any of it.</p><p><span>Out of nowhere</span></p><p>Last summer, Mueller started itching uncontrollably all over his body and couldn’t figure out why — there was no visible rash, no poison ivy, nothing. He was prescribed prednisone, but it proved just a temporary salve; when it ran out, the itching resumed.</p><p>An MRI then revealed that Mueller had primary sclerosing cholangitis, a disease that affects the bile ducts and can cause serious liver damage. Mueller needed to have a stint placed in his liver in conjunction with an endoscopic retrograde cholangio-pancreatography, a procedure that allows a doctor to examine the pancreatic and bile ducts.</p><p>Everything was supposed to be fine after that; Mueller went home on the morning of Oct. 30 and took a nap, then woke up around lunchtime and made himself a sandwich. After one bite, he started experiencing what he called &quot;the worst pain in my upper abdominal and chest area I’ve ever had.&quot;</p><p>He had his wife, Hannah, call 911 because the pain was intolerable.</p><p>&quot;I just kind of remember the whole time in the back of that ambulance, looking straight up, even though I couldn’t see (up to the heavens), and saying, ‘Is this it? Am I coming to see you?’&quot; Mueller recalled.</p><p>During the liver procedure, Mueller had been told that there was a 5 percent chance he was going to have pancreatitis as well. Somehow, he wound up in that 5 percent. He spent 12 days in the hospital and was then sent home in early November with a feeding tube but no other medication.</p><p>Less than two weeks later, Mueller woke up in the hospital again, completely unaware of how he had gotten there. Hannah had found him breathing abnormally in his sleep and made some calls — one to a close friend who works as a nurse, and another to summon an ambulance.</p><p>&quot;I just remember waking up in the hospital, tubes all over the place,&quot; Mueller said, noting that his wife had had to fill him in on many of the details after the fact. &quot;Down my throat, up my nose, IVs in both arms and in my neck. I remember waking up and looking at Hannah saying, ‘How the heck did I get here?’ …</p><p>&quot;She told me I probably should have died.&quot;</p><p>Mueller had been brought in with sepsis, a life-threatening illness brought on by the body’s response to an infection. He spent nearly two more weeks in the hospital fighting that off — and then, the day before he was supposed to go back home, he felt another excruciating pain, this time around his stomach.</p><p>Doctors found pancreatic necrosis, an infection that can sometimes accompany pancreatitis. Tissue within the pancreas can die and then become infected — and that infection spread throughout his abdomen.</p><p>&quot;It was a life-saving operation,&quot; Hannah Mueller recalled. &quot;His blood pressure was greatly low, and they ended up having to flush his whole abdomen out from this sticky film, because his organs were starting to not behave.&quot;</p><p><span>At square one</span></p><p>In the first week of December, Mueller finally became stable enough that he was able to transfer from Indiana University Health Methodist to the intensive care unit at IU Health University Hospital so he could be close to the pancreas specialist that had been working with him.</p><p>Even as one situation improved, though, another worsened. Because he had been bed-ridden for so long, Mueller developed blood clots in his legs and found that it was a struggle just to stand up. Even using a walker, he was exhausted after about 10 steps.</p><p>On Christmas Eve, he was moved from University to a rehabilitation center, where he spent 18 days trying to get his basic mobility back — standing, walking and the like.</p><p>Mueller has been back at home for most of the eight weeks since, with the exception of a brief trip back to the hospital in February to relieve an abscess around the hole in his abdominal area. But while the worst appears to be over, there are still plenty of hurdles left for Mueller to clear.</p><p><span>Striving for normalcy</span></p><p>For the past four months, almost all of the calories that Mueller has taken in have come in the form of liquids being pumped directly into his lower digestive system, bypassing a pancreas that isn’t yet ready to contribute to the process again. He’s looking at another six to nine months being connected to a feeding tube.</p><p>There was a brief two-day window of hospital food at some point during his stay at Methodist, and he was on a liquid diet — sports drinks, chicken broth — for a short time as well. Otherwise, the only thing going in his mouth has been water.</p><p>&quot;It’s tough when you’re sitting here trying to recover,&quot; Mueller said, &quot;you’re watching TV and every other commercial is a food commercial, a restaurant — ‘I could go for a pizza; I could go for a burger.’&quot;</p><p>Since the start of this process, Mueller has lost about 55 pounds, dropping from 265 to 210. He hasn’t hit a number that low on the scale since he was in high school.</p><p>Still, he’s at least feeling strong enough that he plans to return to teaching after spring break. He’s supposed to be switching to a new liquid formula that will enable him to be disconnected from the feeding apparatus for an eight-hour window each day instead of the four hours he gets now.</p><p>In late February, Mueller made his first appearance at a Center Grove sporting event since football season, showing up for the boys basketball team’s senior night win over Columbus North.</p><p>Longtime friend and colleague Brian Quinlan has been handling the PA announcing duties this season, which greatly relieved Mueller, who got his start taking over for Quinlan at Trojan baseball games about a decade and a half ago.</p><p>&quot;I consider that my baby, my position,&quot; Mueller said. &quot;So when someone’s filling in for you, it’s very comforting to know that it’s somebody who can do the job right.&quot;</p><p>Mueller will also have to trust someone else to handle his baby in the spring — softball. Center Grove athletic director Jon Zwitt has someone set to fill in for all but two games this season, and Mueller says that he wouldn’t mind taking his old seat back for those, provided he’s feeling well enough.</p><p>It’s been an uneven road back for Mueller; he feels stronger on some days than on others. Even though he can’t eat solid food himself, he has cooked a couple of dinners recently just to feel normal again — and whether he ends up working some softball games this spring or not, he’s planning to get out to the field to watch at least a few. He brings a cane with him as a precaution when he’s walking, though he says he can get by without it.</p><p>But even once he gets back to eating solid food and shakes clear of everything related to his pancreas and liver issues, Mueller won’t totally be in the clear. Once he’s healthy and stable enough, he’ll have to undergo another surgery to remove his entire colon — a product of the ulcerative colitis (which likely led to the bile duct disease in the first place) that he’s had for some time.</p><p>&quot;It’s going to be a couple of years until I’m back to my old self fully,&quot; Mueller said. &quot;It’s difficult to think in terms that long … but like Hannah said, I have no other choice but to take this day by day, or I won’t make it.&quot;</p><p>Perhaps not surprisingly, the Center Grove community that the Muellers have been a part of their whole lives has been incredibly supportive, providing donations, gift cards and emotional support.</p><p>&quot;I’ve always joked, ‘faith, family, Center Grove, in that order,’ but it’s quite honestly true for us,&quot; Jason Mueller said. &quot;Hannah and I live to serve this community; we do.&quot;</p><p>&quot;There’s never any way I’ll be able to repay all of them.&quot;</p><p>Most of the Trojan faithful would probably consider hearing his voice during football, basketball and softball games again to be payment enough.</p>[sc:pullout-title pullout-title="How to help" ][sc:pullout-text-begin]<p>A crowdfunding page has been set up to help raise funds for Jason Mueller’s medical care. To make a donation, visit <a href="https://www.plumfund.com/medical-fund/jasons-warriors">https://www.plumfund.com/medical-fund/jasons-warriors</a>.</p>[sc:pullout-text-end]