{"id":24700,"date":"2018-05-07T13:52:22","date_gmt":"2018-05-07T17:52:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=24700"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:55:08","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:55:08","slug":"walk-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=24700","title":{"rendered":"Commencement Profile: They Will Walk Together"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"David
David \u201918 and Tim Calhoun \u201918. (Anagram photo\/by Anna Routh Barzin \u201907)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The father should be dead. The son struggled with college. They took different paths, at different schools, to an academic convergence that\u2019s just the beginning for both. They’ll graduate together in May.
\n<\/em><\/h4>\n

Tim Calhoun\u2019s wife, Linda, awoke in the middle of the night, startled. She tried to wake him. Nothing. Tim\u2019s heart had stopped. Sudden cardiac death. Linda called 911, started CPR and phoned a neighbor \u2014 a nurse who ran over to work on Tim. His heart would not restart. EMTs arrived and continued CPR until they reached the hospital. There, at Wilmington\u2019s New Hanover Medical Center, doctors finally got his heart pumping on its own.<\/p>\n

Tim, 42, drifted into a coma. Linda, a cardiologist, knew that few people survive sudden cardiac death; when they do, they often have severe brain damage. For days, Tim remained unconscious. Linda called in a colleague, a neurologist, and \u2014 surrounded by the best medical equipment money could buy \u2014 the neurologist took a Q-tip, stuck it inside Tim\u2019s nose and wiggled it around.<\/p>\n

A minute later, Tim woke up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI should be dead,\u201d said Tim, now 56, a confident, gregarious man, whose heart \u2014 according to all that is known about medical science \u2014 must have stopped beating just before his wife woke. Tim\u2019s brain suffered very limited damage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I type, I interchange words. I can\u2019t quite do calculations as fast as I used to. But otherwise, I\u2019m the same as I was. Except that when you have an experience like that, you think, \u2018Why did my wife just wake up in the middle of the night? Why do I not have brain damage?\u2019 You start to think, \u2018OK, what am I supposed to do with the rest of my life?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

His son was 8 at the time. \u201cIf I had known how serious it was, I would\u2019ve been devastated,\u201d said David Calhoun. \u201cBut all I knew was my dad was in the hospital for a little while.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quiet and unassuming, David grew up wanting to please his parents, and his dad, at least, knew how David could do that. Since the day David was born, Tim had his son\u2019s life mapped out: He would go to Carolina. He would go to medical school. He would be a dermatologist. The pay would be good, and so would the hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went along for a while,\u201d David said. And as Tim returned to work at a pharmaceutical company, David continued to get great grades, though he wasn\u2019t a good student.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would stay up all night trying to figure out how to recode video games more to my liking. I\u2019d be so exhausted I could barely stay awake in class the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was at David\u2019s orientation at Carolina in 2013 that Tim discovered what he wanted to do with the rest of his life: be part of a team that creates devices that help people, devices like the implantable cardio defibrillator in his chest. He quit his job and enrolled at a community college with an eye toward transferring to a four-year university.<\/i><\/b><\/h4>\n
\n

David succeeded in AP high school courses because he\u2019d memorize everything the night before an exam. His grandfather had had a photographic memory, and some of those genes apparently made their way to David. But in college, David\u2019s nocturnal habits caught up with him. Learning required more than memorizing.<\/p>\n

It was at David\u2019s orientation at Carolina in 2013 that Tim discovered what he wanted to do with the rest of his life: be part of a team that creates devices that help people, devices like the implantable cardio defibrillator in his chest. He quit his job and enrolled at Cape Fear Community College with an eye toward transferring to a four-year university.<\/p>\n

Rocky start at Carolina<\/b><\/h3>\n

Meanwhile, David went to Carolina. And almost immediately, he knew he wasn\u2019t ready.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish, back in high school, I had the courage to tell my parents I needed a gap year or two before I went to college,\u201d said David, 23. \u201cMy maturity just couldn\u2019t catch up with my academics. I just wasn\u2019t emotionally prepared for college.\u201d<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t know it at the time, but he has Asperger\u2019s syndrome, which puts him on the autism spectrum. He\u2019s highly intelligent. He articulates his words precisely. He maintains eye contact. But some social interactions don\u2019t come easy \u2014 people with Asperger\u2019s repeat behaviors. As David sits, his knee bounces up and down. He answers every question authentically, without a beat of hesitation.<\/p>\n

He missed the 2014 fall semester with an intestinal infection. He returned in the spring, and he struggled in anatomy and physiology. This is when he knew he would not become a doctor. As part of his biomedical engineering major, he took a class called biological measurements, the technicalities of which he greatly appreciated, as he did his professors. But his experience at Carolina still wasn\u2019t easy. Typical dorm life bugged him. He couldn\u2019t get his sleep on track. He seemed out of fuel, out of sync.<\/p>\n

As David struggled, his dad had excelled at Cape Fear, and N.C. State\u2019s biomedical engineering program had accepted him.<\/p>\n

Since 2003, the UNC\/N.C. State Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering has blended the liberal arts and biomedical science strengths at Chapel Hill with top-tier engineering faculty and programs at State. Both are strong in computer science. BME students are given access to state-of-the-art equipment and facilities at both. It\u2019s a unique relationship that offers students a lot of opportunities for research, collaboration, coursework and consultation with some of the country\u2019s top experts in various fields.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese students are all so much smarter than me,\u201d Tim said. \u201cI\u2019ve had to work twice as hard just to keep up. But I know that\u2019s my strength. No one will out-work me. In fact, David will tell you, he\u2019s smarter than me, but I\u2019m a better student.\u201d David concurs with that, unsolicited.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want people to know how incredible this BME department is. It\u2019s tough. \u2026 The professors are demanding and amazing. These students here are brilliant; national companies should be recruiting them. As for me, hopefully this degree will get me into a circle of professionals that improves the human condition.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/h4>\n
\u2014 Tim Calhoun\u00a0 <\/span><\/i><\/b>\u201918<\/i><\/b><\/h6>\n
\n

Tasked with making a rudimentary rotating chamber, Tim was the only member of his class to get the chamber to rotate. \u201cThat wasn\u2019t part of the assignment,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I just had<\/i> <\/i>to see it rotate. That\u2019s just how I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tim earned the department\u2019s Citizen and Service Award for establishing department partnerships with Medtronics and Duke University Hospital, among other projects. While his wife stayed in Wilmington for her work, Tim became entrenched at N.C. State, living in a dorm and connecting with students a generation younger. And David\u2019s junior year fell apart. Since high school, David never readjusted his sleep patterns or nighttime routine, which he augmented with coffee. One night, a panic attack landed him in the ER. A few weeks later, sleep deprived, he was back there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know it at the time, but I can\u2019t metabolize caffeine. I\u2019ve since been tested. I should never have been drinking coffee, let alone at night.\u201d<\/p>\n

The path turns parallel<\/b><\/h3>\n

Demoralized, he took another semester off and convinced himself he could not get through school. He needed solitude. He called Belmont Abbey near Charlotte to inquire about becoming a monk. His mom, trying to talk him out of it, asked a colleague to evaluate her son.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe doctor told me my brain was like a Ferrari with crappy tires,\u201d David said. \u201cMy memory was shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

During that semester off, David quit caffeine and normalized his sleep patterns. His outlook brightened. He reconsidered his monastery idea and instead returned to Carolina, where nothing was quite as difficult anymore. His brain\u2019s tires had some tread.<\/p>\n

Something else synced: His dad was no longer a semester behind him. They were on track to graduate together.<\/p>\n

Through it all, David maintained a GPA approaching 4.0. As Tim pushed assignments beyond the required, David was project manager of his senior design team \u2014 essentially the quality engineer who makes sure proper protocols are followed according to standard operating procedures. David loved it. He\u2019s eyeing internships at companies specializing in quality control and regulatory compliance for medical devices.<\/p>\n

Tim, meanwhile, chugged tirelessly through the biomedical engineering curriculum, working long hours in the lab while volunteering 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. every Monday at the hospital at Duke. His high grades earned him admittance into Tau Sigma, a national honor society for university transfer students, and his work ethic earned him the respect of students and faculty.<\/p>\n

In a large lab, Tim created a dedicated space surrounding a state-of-the-art 3-D printer, which he and other students use to create all kinds of things, including prosthetic hands for the Helping Hand Project \u2014 a nonprofit student organization that creates individualized plastic hands for kids who need them but whose families can\u2019t afford them.<\/p>\n

David, who is part of UNC\u2019s Helping Hand Project team, has noticed his dad has mellowed out over the past few years, despite Tim\u2019s boundless enthusiasm for all things BME. Although David grew to appreciate the college experience, he\u2019s ready to move on. No graduate school for him. Not yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to be an adult. I want to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Tim\u2019s story starts at the moment he died, his new life began with the BME program.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want people to know how incredible this BME department is,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s tough. I could never just take a weekend off and go back to Wilmington. The professors are demanding and amazing. These students here are brilliant; national companies should be recruiting them. As for me, hopefully this degree will get me into a circle of professionals that improves the human condition. I don\u2019t have to work with patients. If I\u2019m part of a company that makes a device that helps patients \u2014 and that device has to be excellent \u2014 that will be good enough. I got maybe 20 more years left, tops. I want to make them worthwhile and not just for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graduates of the program receive diplomas with the seals and signatures of both universities.<\/p>\n

Though BME has been around for 15 years \u2014 teaching graduate students and faculty doing research \u2014 there was no joint undergraduate graduating class until last year. David Calhoun \u201918, who took a serpentine path, and Tim Calhoun \u201918, who had to die first, are members of the second.<\/p>\n

By Mark Derewicz, UNC Health Care and freelance writer, Carolina Alumni Review <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The father should be dead. The son struggled with college. They took different paths, at different schools, to an academic convergence that\u2019s just the beginning for both. They’ll graduate together in 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