New JBER Fisher House hosts first guests

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Cynthia Spalding
  • JBER Public Affairs
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  Senior Airman Joshua Crawford and his wife, Rachael, were the first guests to stay at the Alaska Fisher House on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson until they were finally able to take their newborn girl, Devi, back home to Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks, Feb. 2.

While in Fairbanks, the Crawford family was informed they needed to be transferred to Anchorage for further medical needs. Providence Hospital, located in Anchorage, is the only level-3 neonatal intensive care unit in Alaska and is the regional referral center for the state.

After one day in the hospital, Rachael was discharged and they needed a place to go until her scheduled Caesarian section the following day.

Joshua, who works with cyber transport systems for the 354th Communications Squadron based at Eielson, was in contact with his first sergeant who informed him about a recently-opened Fisher House on JBER.

"We found out about this new thing (the Fisher House) and that it was open," Joshua said. "We were introduced and have been staying there ever since. It was a great peace of mind before having her go in for a c-section."

Without the Fisher House, finding a hotel, paying for it and needing a kitchen to cook food are just a few things that would be added to the list of stressors for a family dealing with a short-notice medical emergency.

Rachael said having the baby has been more stressful than they ever expected.
The Fisher House provided the perfect solution to some of those stresses.

"Because the Crawford family has come to Anchorage for medical care, and they live outside a 50-mile radius of JBER, they can stay at the Fisher House," Jeff Temple, Fisher House manager said.

"Staying at the Fisher House has helped a lot. It's a calmer, nicer environment and we don't have to worry about all the other guests that stay at hotels," Rachael said. "It would have been so much more stressful. It's more like sitting in a home."

The Fisher House offers a variety of options that aren't always found in hotels - such as fully-furnished kitchen with pots and pans, a living room area, a large family dining room and several donated items, such as canned goods, are available for guests to use.
There are often volunteers and guests cooking together in a common kitchen and socializing with each other.

"The concept for the house is that everyone kind of cares for each other," said Temple. "It is a compassionate care facility."

"It has everything we need," Rachael said. "We picked up some groceries for cooking and it has a lot of space for babies."

"It can be traumatic and expensive for a young enlisted man and his wife to have their first baby with complications," Temple said. "This was last-minute news for them that there might be something wrong. When you're stationed up here, families are not always able to come up for support, especially at the last minute."

"We knew about another family staying in Anchorage for similar medical reasons, but they were staying at another place downtown," Joshua said. "We told them about the Fisher House and they've since found that it's so much nicer, with fewer people, and it's a smaller, cleaner environment."

Service members and veterans from all over the state come from many remote
locations where there are only a handful of people.

Even if only for an appointment, being able to stay at the house can take that piece of worry away so that they can focus on other things.

The Crawfords were able to stay at the Fisher House for the four weeks their newborn was in the hospital.

On their third wedding anniversary, Feb. 1, they were able to take baby Devi back with them to the Fisher House and let her adjust to a home-like setting before they departed for Fairbanks the next day.

"Even the baby seems to be feeling like she's at home too," Joshua said. "She started acting like a normal baby, keeping us up all night, the normal baby stuff.

The Fisher House has offered the opportunity for us to have a more normal first month with our baby."

For now the Crawfords, originally from Michigan, are now back in Fairbanks.
"It's been kind of a blur with every emotion you can think of," Rachel said. "She was a month early. It's just not what I expected to go through.

"I tried to picture the idea of being pregnant, of it being the first and doing all this for the first time, and now it's just a big relief to finally be going home and the baby agrees."
The couple explained it will hardly be a transition for them and the baby to move from the Fisher House to their own.

"We were able to purchase a child's playpen during our stay and put it up as we cooked dinner and watched TV in the living room," Joshua said. "You could never do that in a hotel, or in billeting. It was like a normal scenario."

With more surgeries still to come, the Crawfords plan to come back to the Fisher House in the future.

"It's inevitable that we will have to come back down," Rachael said. "We have to come back to the Fisher House, we loved it. There's nowhere else like it."

Since the first guests have stayed in the Fisher House, only a few minor changes have been made.

Things such as information books in rooms, an addition of a small child's play area and signage around the house to help explain house rules will be some of the new additions to the house.

The Fisher House is now open. For more information or a place to stay while family is being cared for, visit the website at www.akfisherhouse.org, email jeffery.temple@elmendorf.af.mil, or call the house directly at 222-1673.