Main Street Business Will Continue With Balloons, Giftware, Embroidery and Screen Printing
After thoughtful consideration and enduring a life-changing health scare, Laura Baker, along with her husband Jamie, father-in-law Kim and mother-in-law Cyndi announced today that Baker’s Design in Wessington Springs will close its florist side of the business effective immediately.
What Baker thought was a “regular cold” evolved into a two week nightmare that included double pneumonia, a hospital stay in Mitchell and on January 13, an ambulance trip to Avera Heart Hospital in Sioux Falls for emergency surgery to remove blood clots from her lungs.
“It was scary as hell,” she recalled in a phone interview with the True Dakotan Monday from her home. “We had a head cold go through the Baker’s Design/Baker’s Repair shop in December which was no big deal. I was feeling better around Christmas then on New Year’s Eve I started coughing and couldn’t stop coughing.”
Baker explains she had to prepare flower arrangements for a funeral so on New Year’s Day, she drug herself to the flower shop to meet the floral deadline.
“After I was done, I went home, died on the couch for an hour, then went back to the shop and delivered flowers,” she recalled. “My goal with the floral side has always been to make people smile on their worst days — I want it to be perfect for them.”
Baker’s cough persisted and the day after the holiday she went to the local clinic, where she received an IV for dehydration, prescriptions for a Z-Pak, steroids and pain medicine to alleviate the soreness throughout her body from the coughing fits. She took the next few days off from work but wasn’t getting better. Baker’s husband Jamie urged her to make another appointment but the provider at the local clinic was home with sick children.
“That’s when I went to Mitchell Clinic. My doctor there pushed for x-raysandwhentheyreadtheresults, I had double lung pneumonia,” Baker explained. “She loaded me up with antibiotics and made a follow up visit two days later. When I went in again, my oxygen was at 83 and she said, ‘you’re done’ and admitted me to the hospital in Mitchell. They admitted me on Wednesday and although my oxygen was still low, they discharged me Friday morning with two oxygen machines and three liters of oxygen.”
The weekend at home brought no relief and when Baker went to her follow up appointment on Monday, her doctor ordered a CT scan.
“They did ultrasound and found a clot in my leg then did a CT scan and found two large clots in my lungs. From there the ER doctor sent me via ambulance to Sioux Falls because the clots were so large,” she explained. “By the time I got to Sioux Falls it was 9 p.m. and I was in surgery by 11.”
She underwent a 3-hour procedure that removed the clots from her lungs. The verdict is not definitive when it comes to the cause of the clots but she needs to remain on blood thinners for at least a year.
Another strict doctor’s order: no stress.
“I’m just not going to be able to do a stressful Valentine’s Day and on top of it deal with three funerals a week. There is a lot of stress involved in sourcing the flowers in a hurry, getting them here in a blizzard. With the stress, blood thinners and being so weak, we know I won’t be able to stand in the back working for 12 hours.
Baker’s Design will continue to have balloons, giftware, embroidery and screen printing, which offer a less stressful pace that Baker said is more doable with her new health reality.
“Another part of the decision comes with the blood thinners. You don’t consciously think about things like using a knife, cutting boxes of flowers open and nicking fingers while working with thorny roses,” she shared. “I can’t do that because I am going to bleed. I have to get an electric razor, I can’t use a regular toothbrush. We have to keep the house as moist as possible because now I am prone to nose bleeds.”
While in the hospital recuperating from surgery last week, the doctors ordered an echocardiogram. When asked if Baker wanted them to take care of the scheduling, she said to go ahead.
“When the doctor came in and said it was scheduled for February 14, Valentine’s Day, I just started to laugh. Of all the days she could have picked – that was my sign,” Baker said. “It’s the Lord saying I am going to point you in a direction. Sometimes I don’t listen very well but I am going to listen a lot closer. That means stepping back, putting my health first.”
While Baker hopes the community understands and isn’t upset at the decision to close the flower side of the business after 16 years, she knows this is the right decision.
“I have to listen to that guide, that voice saying this is what we need to do. We are going to be fine, and everything will fall into place as we step back from the flower side,” she reflected, while expressing her gratitude to the community. “Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers, we appreciate everything.”
A letter from the Bakers can be found in this week's print and e-edition on PAGE TWO