Annie, Abby, and Dean Godecke with Minden Elementary School’s nurse Tawny Spires and Principal Andrew Fromdahl during the “welcome back Dean” and birthday celebration on Wednesday.
Photo by Sarah Drinkwine.
Minden Elementary school students lined up along the bus lane Wednesday chanting, “Dean, Dean, Dean,” welcoming Dean Godecke back after he had a heart transplant in December.
Minden Elementary School Principal Andrew Fromdhal said Dean had a great start to the school year in August 2024, but by September he became ill and wasn’t getting any better.
“Nurse Tawny was doing a great job trying to figure out what was going on with him and expressing her concerns,” said Fromdhal. “She was able to pick up on a couple of signs that she believed could have meant something bigger was happening.”
School Nurse Tawny Spires has 8 years of experience in a hospital setting and a few years in telemetry, a cardiac base unit prior to becoming the nurse at Minden Elementary school, which helped her fine tune symptoms Dean was experiencing.
“Urgent care was treating him like a typical sick kid,” said Spires. “But his family signed a release for me to talk with his primary care doctor and I was able to express my concerns and together we were able to figure out that something wasn’t right.”
Dean was reffered to Renown by Dr. Brian Hall from Carson Tahoe Health.
“He said Dean was really sick and he didn’t know what the problem was,” said Tim Godecke, Dean’s dad.
Dean received care at Renown Hospital in Reno for two days where tests revealed he was experiencing heart failure with symptoms including; lack of blood flow, vomiting, hard breathing, and lack of oxygen.
From there Dean was care flighted to Intermountain Health Primary Children’s Hospital for further treatment where it was discovered that his lower left ventricle was failing. He was given an assist device to help support the left ventricular while he waited for a “gift” heart transplant, which he received in December and he came home on March 8.
Tim said the recovery for a heart transplant is typically 6 months so, Dean is unable to return to school, officially, to finish the school year, but students missed him and were eager to see him.
The event on Wednesday was a combination of birthday celebrations and to welcome Dean back home.
“We had talked about a goal with his family that how cool would it be if Dean made it back to Nevada before Spring Break and then I recognized that his birthday was the same day as mine and that we had three other students with the same birthday, so it all came together as this big celebration,” said Fromdahl. “Dean was actually back in March, but he’d only come and visited the office so, Wednesday was his first public appearance for the whole school.”
Fromdahl said students were excited all week to see Dean and the excitement that came together as Dean paraded down the bus lane with his family, waving as students cheered and chanted his name was a neat experience for everyone.
“There really was a strong connection from everyone at MES, routing for Dean,” said Fromdahl. “The fifth-grade classes really knew him the best and would video chat with him, send him care packages and letters while he was receiving care. So, it was really neat to see that excitement for him and for us to celebrate with him.”
Spires said she is grateful that Dean received the care he needed.
“Typically, heart transplants take a long time and I am really happy everything came together for him the way it was supposed to,” she said. “I’m really grateful he got to celebrate another birthday and that it was here with us.”
Tim said one of the biggest things he took away from the experience was that these things can happen to anyone.
“It taught all of us to be aware that these things can happen, and if it wasn’t for nurse Tawny and her noticing what was going on and the advice she provided us, who knows where he could have been,” said Tim. “So, it really made us aware and to take the littlest thing seriously.”