(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This is a production of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

- Hello, and welcome to "South Dakota Focus."

I'm Jackie Hendry.

This week marks the close of National Suicide Prevention Month.

People die by suicide for many reasons, and initial data shows they're dying at higher rates in South Dakota this year.

Later tonight, we'll hear about a few ways some groups are working to bridge the gaps in mental health care, and we'll hear from a woman who uses her own story of survival to give people hope.

Hope is a common theme throughout tonight's program.

We'll hear one man's hope to recover from the coronavirus so he can get his vaccine, and our next Good Neighbors segment explores hope for belonging, with a poet who uses his words to explore his identity, but first, we'll hear about a very common hope for the state's agriculture producers this year, the hope for rain.

The drought that affected South Dakota all summer is still with us as we enter fall.

It was especially bad in June, when some locations had their hottest and driest month since the 1930s.

Earlier this summer, SDPB's Lee Strubinger visited Dewey County to see how drought is affecting ranchers.

(upbeat music) - [Lee] Oren Lesmeister reaches down for a fistful of light brown grass.

A dry clump of dirt easily comes up with it.

- Right after 4th of July, typically we'll start haying this ground here, and it's Gor Green, it's got a lot of alfalfa in it, grass, hay mix, native grass mix, and this year, you can kind of see what it's like and it's just dead dry.

- [Lee] As we stand in his field, wind rushes in from a low pressure system of dark rain clouds that blanket the sky skirting around his property.

The radar makes it look like Dewey County could get rain, but not a drop has fallen near him, instead landing farther north.

- And you think, boy, Dewey County's finally getting some rain, parade area and stuff, and the reality is we've got nothing.

We didn't get a sprinkle.

It's been that way for months now.

- [Lee] Lesmeister spends part of his year in peers as a state lawmaker.

He knows the issues in agriculture as a legislator and a rancher.

He points to a land dam that should be full of water, but only has some stagnant moisture in it.

- Well, normally, this would be plum full of water.

You can tell that last fall, it was already starting to drop really rapid and go dry, as you can see the different weeds and grasses growing up in the bottom here already.

Yeah, typically this is completely full of water all the way back to the hills, and you can see where the water line has gotten up to in the past, at the high level marks, where the cut banks are there, and this is what we're up against.

- [Lee] And right now, his cows are drinking rural water.

That's costing him more money.

Lesmeister says this drought really started last September.

He says some snow in October helped but melted off quickly.

The area got some spring showers, but nothing substantial.

Drier conditions are leading some ranchers to thin their hurts just to make it through the year.

Baxter Anders is a co-owner of the Belle Fourche Livestock Market Sale Barn.

He says the last week of June in 2020, they sold about 300 cattle.

This year, that same week, they sold 10 times more cattle, 3400 head in a week.

- [Baxter] We just keep seeing more cattle coming and coming from a big area too.

- [Lee] Anders says for ranchers west of Belle Fourche, this is a second year of drought conditions.

- That's why it's increased in sales, and I think that's part of people's thinking, in some ways, is some people are holding on, because maybe it is a little early yet, and hopes that maybe the rain will come.

- [Lee] But the outlook for relief from drought conditions is slim.

Laura Edwards is the state climatologist.

- [Laura] Really, I don't think we can overstate how severe extreme the conditions are right now, and they're going to be holding strong through the next month.

- [Lee] Edward says this year's drought is bringing consistent evidence of how a changing climate affects weather.

In the Northern Plains, there are big swings in extremes.

- [Laura] Two years ago from 2019, we had record wet conditions, and now, we're in very dry conditions.

We've seen this not too long in history.

2011 was very wet, 2012, very dry, so I think these big swings and extremes are really a story that we're gonna be living here for a while.

- [Lee] Edwards says South Dakota does see a general long-term trend of wetter and warmer conditions, but that won't help right now.

Scott Edoff is the president of the South Dakota Stock Growers Association.

He says many ranchers know if they see two wet years in a row, a drought is on the way.

- If you are patient and you realize that this isn't a cycle, it's a lifecycle.

It's not something really bad, but it's a life cycle, and if you're prepared for it, you can expand and there's a lot of opportunities there too.

- [Lee] Back in Dewey County, rancher Oren Lesmeister drives north on some pasture, looking at the elusive rain clouds.

He says being ready for changing weather conditions sounds smart, but it can take years for ranchers to build back their herd.

- I'm fortunate enough to have rural water here.

A lot of people have it.

A lot of people have wells and different things that they'll fall back on and rely on instead of just stock dams, but there's gonna be areas though, right out far lying areas, that they don't have that option.

When their dams go dry, even if they have a little grass left, they're gonna have to do something with their cows.

- [Lee] The state is stepping in to offer a bit of drought support for farmers and ranchers.

Governor Kristi Noem is issuing an executive order that extends the timeframe hay haulers can move hay to two hours before sunrise and after sunset.

She says that will increase access to hay for farmers and ranchers.

I'm SDPB's Lee Strubinger in parade.

(upbeat music) - It's considered one of the most significant bridges in this region of the National Park system, but the 92 year old arched bridge in the Black Hills is closed until mid-October, to ensure it stands for at least another century.

SDPB's Arielle Zionts has more on the history and future of Beaver Creek Bridge.

(upbeat music) - [Arielle] Wind Cave National Park shares a northern border with Custer State Park in the Black Hills.

Visitors can see bison and pronghorn while traversing scenery ranging from flat prairies to forest and mountains and canyons.

The Beaver Creek Bridge provides an essential link between the parks across a steep canyon.

- [Tom] What's cool about this bridge, it's such a secluded spot.

- [Arielle] Tom Farrell is Chief of Interpretation at Wind Cave National Park.

He stands at a lookout on Highway 87 that offers a stunning view.

Across a valley, white arches and columns rise from the rocky forested edges of the canyon.

The bridge spans more than 200 feet across and more than 100 feet above Beaver Creek.

- You can come out and watch it, you can hear Beaver Creek in the distance below it, and just this white expanse of concrete that's aged out over the years, that just stands there as a silent sentinel between these two canyons, making sure people can cross the canyon.

- [Arielle] Farrell says visitors will miss out on the bridge if they don't stop at the vista or explore around the structure itself.

- It's easy to overlook 'cause you just drive over it, but if you stop and pause and take a look, you realize this is a special place.

The superintendent for Custer State Park back in 1937 said it was the most beautiful structure in the state of South Dakota, and you spend a little bit of time here, just listening to the river underneath and watching the bridge, you get the impression what an interesting, special, unique place this is.

- [Arielle] Highway 87 is closed from the lookout to the intersection north of Rincon Ridge, until crews finish renovating the bridge in mid-October.

Inspectors with the National Bridge Inventory have been recommending rehabilitation since 2010, when they noticed general deterioration.

The bridge is rated fair, rather than poor or good.

- [Tom] We're doing some routine maintenance on the bridge.

Just the fact that it's 92 years old, and you want to just keep up on it.

- [Arielle] Beaver Creek Bridge isn't as well known as the granite tunnels on Needles Highway or the wooden pigtail bridges along Iron Mountain Road, but all were built in the same era under the vision and aesthetic philosophy of a former governor and US Senator.

- [Tom] It is part of that.

Senator Peter Norbeck was instrumental in getting this bridge built.

He was a person behind the Custer State Park and he helped design the roadways, the scenic drives through on the Black Hills.

We actually were told that if Peter Norbeck hadn't been involved, they would have just routed the road further up the canyon, put a box culvert across the canyon and kept going from there, but because of his influence, he wanted something that would blend itself into the landscape, and this bridge definitely does.

That's what Senator Norbeck wanted.

He wanted something like this that wasn't obtrusive, that just blended in.

- [Arielle] He says it could've been built at a narrower, more convenient part of the canyon, but the planners chose to cross at this spot, which was more complex but scenic.

Crews built the bridge in 1929 with an average of 20 workers a day.

It was completed after 154 days.

- They did the concrete in one continual pour because you gift one side to the other side.

They had to have two mixing plants in either side and they had to do it into the night, and so they brought in these gas lanterns that you'd use in a circus back in the day, and just the commotion and the shadows and working at night on the bridge, that would have been a fun night, just to have sat in the corner and watch this happen.

- [Arielle] Beaver Creek Bridge is the longest and most complex concrete bridge in South Dakota, and it's the only open spandrel concrete arch bridge in the state.

That means the roadway and arch are connected with columns, rather than solid concrete.

The bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places due to its architectural uniqueness and historical connection to Senator Norbeck and recreation in the Black Hills.

The National Park Service is paying nearly half a million dollars for renovations to Beaver Creek and another nearby bridge.

A Rapid City company is doing the work.

The renovations will allow visitors to have an easy and scenic journey between Wind Cave and Custer State Park for years to come.

For now, visitors traveling between the two sites can take a detour through the town of Custer.

I'm SDPB's Arielle Zionts at Wind Cave National Park.

(upbeat music) - September is National Suicide Prevention Month, but the work to prevent suicide happens year-round.

Here in South Dakota, suicide rates continue to climb.

Provisional data from the South Dakota Department of Health shows 88 people died by suicide in the first five months of this year.

That's a 49% increase from the same time period in 2020, and if the trend continues, South Dakota could see the most suicide deaths ever in a single year.

This isn't a new problem.

Health systems, non-profits, and every-day citizens are working to combat the trend by increasing access to mental health care in a variety of ways.

On both sides of the state, there are new care facilities going up that will focus specifically on mental health care and responding to people in crisis, and for many, this work is very personal.

(upbeat music) Bridget Swier of Rapid City says her life seemed perfect on the outside when she tried to end it, husband, four kids, college education, a good job.

After growing up in the foster care system, many looked to her as a success story, but the truth was more complicated.

Her father was sent to prison when she was a child and Bridget's mother kicked her out of the house after discovering another family member was sexually abusing her.

- And so it was just trauma after trauma after trauma, and dealing with those losses, the loss of innocence, the loss of my parents, the loss of feeling like I belonged somewhere and to someone, the loss of feeling protected.

- [Jackie] By the time she got married and became a mother, Bridget was determined to break the cycle of abuse.

- I think I was grasping at anything I could.

I think the pressure that I put on myself to be completely different from my parents really almost made me a little insane.

(laughs) I never wanted my children to feel abandoned, rejected or not loved.

So what does a perfect mom look like?

Well, my kids need to be clean all the time.

My house needs to be clean all the time.

All the while that I was trying to do this stuff, there was still this horrible pain that I was carrying around and that I really was running from.

- [Jackie] Bridget sought out some of the traditional support approaches, like counseling and medication, but she says it just wasn't enough to help her turn things around, and she was ashamed of needing help in the first place.

Then, like many people who experienced lasting effects of trauma, Bridget used drinking, drugs and sex to cope.

- You can't really be thinking about that if you're intoxicated or if you're numbing your emotions through substances.

- [Jackie] Bridget now remembers a moment eight years ago as a dangerous turning point.

- I was sitting on a beach at night, all by myself, had been drinking all day, kept my reliable friend, alcohol, and the jug right beside me and continued to drink out of that, and sitting there, watching the water be still, the moon reflecting off of the water, the breeze in the air and just the quietness and the stillness, and I remember thinking I just want to feel this peaceful on the inside.

Why can't I feel that?

What's wrong with me?

And I remember thinking, in my intoxicated state, maybe if I just walk out into the water and let it engulf me, I can somehow absorb the peace that's going on around me right now, and I didn't see that as a warning sign at the time.

(emotional music) It wouldn't be too long after that that I had my attempt.

I think I was just so desperate.

- [Jackie] Bridget remembers waking up in a hospital bed.

Her now ex husband was sitting at her bedside, crying, holding pictures of her kids, begging her to live for them.

- I never wanted my kids to feel abandoned, and the pain just consumed me.

I didn't think about hurting anyone.

I thought about ending my own hurt.

I'm not sure at what point it snapped into a different direction for me.

I knew that something needed to change, because everything that I had tried was not working obviously, or I wouldn't be waking up in a hospital bed.

(gentle music) - Just walk me through what this quilt is.

- So this quilt was made quite a while ago, and each of these squares were put together by a family who had lost a loved one to suicide.

This particular square is Joseph Hickman Cook, and he died by suicide, and his son was part of how the Front Porch Coalition came to be.

- [Jackie] The front porch coalition began nearly 20 years ago as a group of people who had each lost someone to suicide.

Now, the small nonprofit provides suicide prevention resources in Pennington, Meade and parts of Lawrence Counties.

Eight years after surviving her own suicide attempt, Bridget Swier is the Director of Outreach and Communication for the Front Porch Coalition.

She's also part of the coalition's unique resource.

- And we also have a loss team that responds with law enforcement to the families when they've experienced a death of a loved one to suicide, and while that is a postvention service, it is also a prevention service, because if you lose a loved one to suicide, you are 10 times more likely to struggle with suicidal ideation yourself.

As a loss team member, whether we are in the middle of our work day, meeting with other stakeholders in our community, having dinner with our family, on a holiday, on a weekend, sleeping in the middle of the night, our number one priority is when that on-call phone rings, and we drop whatever we are doing and that takes precedence over anything else.

- [Jackie] And it's been a busy summer.

The last team responded to five suicides in the days before my interview with Bridget in late August.

That kind of work takes its toll.

Bridget takes care of herself with regular therapy and medication.

Her colleagues with the loss team do a routine debriefing to check in with each other and talk about how they're doing.

- When we've had five suicides in under two weeks, it's really hard to regain your composure from that.

When one person dies by suicide, it's said that there's the 110 to 115 people that are impacted by that one loss of life.

That's a lot of people.

It's a lot of people, and we need to advocate for better mental health services and access to those.

- [Jackie] The increasing suicide rate in South Dakota has not gone unnoticed.

Dr. Katie Sullivan is the Director of Behavioral Services at Monument Health in Rapid City.

- The trends that stand out to me with suicide prevention is that we have had an increase in interest from state government, public individuals, private individuals, public organizations, so there are a lot of groups coming together right now, trying to work on the problems that we have in South Dakota.

- [Jackie] For example, this year, Governor Kristi Noem approved $4.6 million for a crisis stabilization center in Rapid City.

The facility brings together a number of healthcare providers to offer a wide range of mental health care.

- So our role is to stabilize emergent crises for people who are acutely suicidal, at risk of harming themselves or someone else.

The Care Campus being open also provides a variety of different services that we don't provide, like detox and shorter term safe solutions for people.

- [Jackie] On the other side of the state, a similar facility opened this summer.

The Link Community Triage Center comes from a partnership between the city of Sioux Falls, Minnehaha County, Sanford Health and Avera Health.

Thomas Otten is Assistant Vice-President of Avera Behavioral Health.

- In June of this year, we were able to serve the first patient.

We opened our doors at 9:00 for the first patient and the first one came at 9:17 and we've been busy ever since.

- [Jackie] On the south side of the city, Avera Behavioral Health is adding to its existing facility.

- [Thomas] The need for adding on has been pretty significant for probably the last two or three years.

As you probably know, we've been very, very full for quite a while.

We've actually had times when we have to look at our census and say we don't have any room in the inn for somebody who really needs our services.

- [Jackie] The expanded facility will treat people with a variety of mental health care needs, as well as addiction and treatment services.

The 24 hour psychiatric urgent care will accept patients of almost any age.

The $28 million facility is scheduled to open next year.

Avera announced a public fundraising campaign last month, and Otten recently appeared before the Sioux Falls City Council.

- It will be very easy for people to access us and exactly know where to go for care, so that is something that we talked to the city council about, is potentially partnering with us.

It's going to do significant advantage for them, is that law enforcement will be able to get in and out much quicker.

Right now, law enforcement picks somebody up on a mental health hold.

They go to an ER.

ERs are not traditionally set up very well for behavioral health patients.

They're set up for medical patients, but the behavioral health patient doesn't fit really well inside of that ER, so this will be something that's set up very specifically for that behavioral health patient and will allow officers to get in and out much quicker than they do right now.

- That's the piece many of us forget.

The Unified Judicial System estimates one in every 10 calls to law enforcement is related to a mental health crisis, and in rural areas, police may be the only paid first responders in the entire county.

That reality inspired another partnership, this one between Avel eCare and the South Dakota Unified Judicial System.

Last May, law enforcement in 23 of South Dakota's 66 counties signed up for the Virtual Crisis Care pilot program.

It uses technology to offer a 24/7 remote connection to behavioral health specialists based in Sioux Falls.

In Butte County, north of the Black Hills, Sheriff Fred Lamphere jumped at the chance to be in on the program.

He says mental health calls have increased over his 30 plus years in law enforcement.

Sometimes people in crisis require specialized care, but if there's no space in a Rapid City hospital or clinic, his deputies are bound by law to transport people six hours away to the state's human services hospital in Yankton.

- Maybe the police department started dealing with them at 8:00 at night, and by the time they got the person in, got the mental evaluation done and they said, yep, they need to go to Yankton.

Let's just say that's the case.

Then they go to the hospital and get medically cleared to go to Yankton, and then it falls upon the Sheriff's office to make that transport.

So it may be 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning sometimes before we leave with this person, maybe it's 4:00 in the morning, and drive clear to Yankton, and there's been times that I've had deputies and transport officers less than two hours on their trip back and you've got the phone call that these people are cleared and ready to come home.

- [Jackie] The Sheriff's Department works closely with the Belle Fourche Police Department.

Police Chief Marlyn Pomrenke says people in crisis need a different kind of response.

- This poor person that is going through this crisis, all right, so they're having to deal with coming in and sitting in this nice straight chair at the police department, and it could be 12 hours later before the Sheriff's Office could transport 'em to Yankton.

So you're looking at the time that they would spend, to me, was hurtful.

- [Jackie] But since the Virtual Crisis Care program began in May of 2020, the Sheriff's Department has seen a difference.

- In 2019 though, the hours that we spent on the mental health calls, including transports and all that, was 330 hours.

So in 2020, even with the partial part of that year that we started doing Virtual Crisis Care, we knocked that down to 245 hours.

So out of the 60 mental health calls we've dealt with this year so far, we're 125 hours into it.

So hours alone, at the end of the year, at the end of the budget cycle and everything, that's a determining factor as to if this is a successful program, and thus far, it's showing that it is.

I look at it, yes, it saved the city money, it saved my guys time and money, but what about that person?

How much is it saving them?

- [Jackie] Chief Pomrenke says most of the people in a mental health crisis were able to stay home, thanks to the Virtual Crisis Care pilot program last year.

Instead of waiting for an opening at a hospital or clinic, they could meet with a mental health provider almost immediately.

That doesn't just help the acute crisis.

It can also create a care plan for the days ahead.

Dr. Matthew Stanley is a psychiatrist and vice-president of the Avera Behavioral Health Service Line.

- Because not everyone needs to be in a hospital and not everyone should be in the hospital, and to your point, most people prefer if they can recover at home and can be surrounded by those things that have meaning for them, and often, hospital stays are relatively brief anyway, so if we can initiate treatment in your community, plug into really the folks that are going to help you recover over the next several weeks and months and years, that's preferred to shipping you to a hospital.

(gentle music) - Of the 20 people that they've seen or talked to, 14 of them remained in the community, 14 of them.

They went home within an hour to an hour and a half.

It was over with.

They came up with a plan, a safety plan for them, and then they followed through with it.

- That's a common result.

Across the 23 counties involved in the pilot program, 75% of people got the care they needed to stay home.

A $1 million donation from the Helmsley Charitable Trust funded the pilot program for the first year.

The state legislature agreed to fund a second year.

That runs through next June, the end of the fiscal year.

Beyond that, the future of the Virtual Crisis Care program is unclear, but its initial success shows us tele-health could be used to bridge some of the gaps in mental health care.

- One of the things we became, again, acutely aware of in the pandemic was things called health disparities, the fact that where you live, what your economy is, what your neighborhood is, may really affect the quality of life you have and the quality of healthcare you get.

So one of the great things about telemedicine, it is potentially a leveler of some of those health disparities.

- It might be too soon to tell, but from what you know is virtual or telehealth for behavioral health as effective as sitting in a room face-to-face with someone?

- So I'll give you two perspectives, the provider side and what I think is the patient side.

The first few times is uncomfortable, because as you and I sit here, we both consciously or unconsciously take in each other's movements, each other's facial responses, just your posture in your chair, there's a variety of metacommunication going on.

On a video screen.

I can probably still see your face, but even that doesn't maybe have the same vitality that it does face to face.

We talked about the comfort of being in your own home.

Well, now, a lot of these folks are in their own home or they're in the clinic that they're familiar with, in their own community, because the old way it was set up, even if I was doing telemedicine, it had to be from my facility to your facility, so even if you're in an outlying community, you had to drive into the clinic to get on the camera.

That's the only way it was really paid for.

Well, during COVID and the CARES Act, we could go direct to consumer, and we still can at this point, and I hope that continues by the way, 'cause what we found is we had a really high rate of no-show in this type of community I'm talking about, but when we were able to go direct to consumer, that rate changed really quite dramatically, which told me it wasn't that these people didn't want to follow up and didn't appreciate and want the care, it's that the social determinants of their situation were barring them from getting to the appointment, so they couldn't afford the childcare or the gas or couldn't get a ride or couldn't get off work, whatever it was, and now, suddenly, it's much easier for them.

- Now, expanding telehealth comes with its own challenge, and that's ensuring widespread access to broadband, but it's a more likely solution than the ideal alternative of having behavioral health providers in every community.

- If we had more specialized assistance aftercare in West River, it would be a service to everybody.

The services that we do have are wonderful, but I believe they're just overwhelmed.

- When I say though that we don't have enough resources, we have a pretty limited number of psychiatrists in the area, although that number is increasing, but there are not a lot of programs that someone could check into on an outpatient basis, to maybe prevent that need for inpatient treatment down the line.

- One of the challenges in behavioral health is just adequate access.

First of all, the number of Americans, it's estimated that 20% of us meet the criteria for a psychiatric disorder in any given year, compare that to any other disease, that's an enormous number of people, so almost impossible that we'll ever have enough caregivers to meet that need.

So from an access standpoint, what we're trying to do is build, I think, layers of access.

- And those layers are being built.

New facilities on both sides of the state and new partnerships, and there are layers we haven't talked about here, like mental health care in schools and making services, like counseling, more affordable.

- Probably the biggest access issue right now is people actually having the courage to reach out for help.

It's hard for people to reach out for help, whatever reason.

There is a stigma around behavioral health that a lot of people don't want to take that very first step.

In fact, if you'd say, what's the number one thing that we need right now, we need people to actually reach out and ask for help.

- Access is an interesting problem because that's not common knowledge of how do you start?

We don't give that to you in high school, although maybe we should.

- [Jackie] That's a big reason Bridget Swier now works in suicide prevention with the Front Porch Coalition.

She says her family has an increased awareness of their potential for mental health challenges.

She uses her own story and her experience responding to other suicides as a way to educate and support others.

- I think that it's really important to understand that suicide and suicide prevention is something that everyone should be invested in in some way or another.

I think that it's really easy to think, "Well, that's not gonna impact me.

"Why should I care about that?"

Until you're that family.

I think the best thing is to have those open conversations at the dinner table about mental health and checking in with each other.

We all, at some point, go through something difficult that challenges us, and I think that it's important that if we are able to and feel comfortable enough to share our stories, to let other people know that, look, this happened to me, this is what I went through, you can make it to the other side.

It's not easy.

I won't tell anyone it's easy.

There's no easy fix, but it is possible, and I will walk alongside you in the darkness until we can find some light together.

I feel like it's my responsibility to do that.

(gentle music) - There are many survivors like Bridget Swier in South Dakota.

I've also survived suicidal depression at multiple points in my life.

It's okay to need help, and there are many people willing to offer that help.

Here are a few more resources that we didn't mention here.

They're all free and available 24/7 to help connect you to the resources that work best for you.

There's no shame in reaching out.

Getting better isn't easy, but it is possible, and I hope you take that first step if you need to.

Throughout this season, we'll hear from South Dakotans in their own words, in a new segment called "Tell Us a Story."

For our first installment, we hear from a man who says he's had COVID-19 three separate times.

In July, he barely survived the Delta variant.

Zachariah Routt of Rapid City tells us the story.

(upbeat music) - I was starting to black out, and I recognized what's going on, I'm not breathing, I need to get in there immediately.

I was not well enough to drive, so I stumbled into the waiting room, coughing, hacking, to the point of I don't remember much after that, other than I know I hit the floor, and the next thing I remember is I was in an ambulance on my way to Monument Health ER, and they had me on oxygen, something very similar to this cannular, and I remember more and more cognitive function coming back.

I'm told it was pretty touch and go for a couple of days there.

I don't remember a lot of it.

What I do know is that they started a medicine called remdesivir immediately, and it's an IV immunotherapy, that teaches your immune system how to fight COVID.

I truly believe that those events saved my life.

I know I wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation today and being able to share my story.

So the nurses and the doctors and everybody were very good at Monument Health, and I appreciate that.

Five days of treatment, I was breathing well enough to go home on my own.

My outcome of that is I have COVID pneumonia.

Any pneumonia is a long-term fight, and in that, I have some damage to my lungs.

We're not sure where my heart is yet, can't do any stress tests or anything.

I've had a couple of followup doctor's appointments.

I think we can do better in today's society with the amount of information that we have, with the amount of data that's being presented, I understand it changes almost daily, and it's really our due diligence as a part of society to stay on top of it and make the right decision for the overall health of our community.

I'm not gonna tell somebody to go out and get the vaccine.

That's a personal choice.

My recommendation and speaking with doctors and everybody that I trust, not listening to social media, not listening to the different news that's out there, but actually speaking to those that are in the business to keep people healthy, my recommendation is the vaccine.

As I get healthier, I will get the vaccine and that's my choice, and it's our choice as a family.

(upbeat music) - Each month, SDPB shines a spotlight on a subject through reporting and conversations.

In September, we featured our state's literary voices, in honor of the South Dakota Festival of Books.

The Festival of Books is virtual this year and runs through October 10th.

Molly Weisgram lives in Fort Pierre.

Her husband, Chris Maxwell, was healthy and vibrant, until one day he wasn't.

Strange sensations in his nerve endings signaled the onset of a serious case of Guillain-Barre Syndrome.

It's an autoimmune disease that causes rapid paralysis.

Molly Weisgram has written a book about her family's journey.

It's called "The Other Side of Us: A Memoir of Trauma, "Truth, and Transformation."

Weisgram talked with "In the Moment" host, Lori Walsh, for this month's SDPB Spotlight.

(upbeat music) - I want to go back to this moment in the ICU, when a nurse hands you a journal and says, "This isn't just happening to Chris.

"This is also happening to you."

What was that moment like for you, when somebody said, "We understand what he's going through, "but you are also going through something pretty intense?"

- I think, for me, it was this feeling of when you're having a really traumatic and intense situation in your family, you're literally in the ICU and you are literally trying to speak and think and do everything on behalf of your spouse.

You don't think of yourself.

You're just doing what you have to do in the moment, and it was just a very surreal, appreciated moment from the ICU nurse, who gave me that journal and said, "Molly, you get to recognize that you're part of this "and that your feelings are validated."

Essentially, that's what she was saying.

I think it was actually a huge gift, because those things in your life are really impactful in so many ways, and it was basically the bomb that had hit, and I hadn't quite realized that it was.

I don't know.

It was going to have reverberations in my life too.

- Have you found already that those words... because I know in this book, immediately I was writing down things that you had said that were relevant to the difficult times in my life that are still echoing, and your words were still helping me.

Have you heard from other people who have said, "Yeah, when you said don't pitch your tent in the valley "of death, when you said, hell lives up to its reputation, "that was me.

"That was me in my hospital room and my story?"

Have you heard that your words have helped other people who have gone through really difficult things?

- I have, and to me, when I know it's brought value to other people, that's such a gift to me.

I've been really touched, to be honest with you, especially when other Guillain-Barré patients, caregivers, have reached out, and that this paved a way for them, and I don't mean hope, but I mean being allowed to recognize that you're, again, as a caregiver, you're part of the scenario and your resiliency, your allowance of your feelings, all of those things are as important as anything in it.

It's been really meaningful to me to know that a project that was really for me and my family has created some value, some soul searching in others.

- Yeah, yeah, talk a little bit about losing, at least temporarily, your best friend and your rock and the father of your children, and you have to be a new person and figure out who that person is, take me back to that time and trying to find Molly in all of this without Chris.

- I think when you get married and you're in a relationship, you realize... Well, maybe you don't realize, but there is a series of compromises, that you just find a way to morph into one, and where you're strong, you take that, and where your spouse is strong, they take that, and when suddenly the spouse is no longer able to partake, I think it's really amazing, to me, that I found my voice during that time.

It's a time where you think you are just cut completely at the knees, and I couldn't believe what I found when I suddenly got stretched out of my comfort boundary, and now, coming back together, Chris and I can be stronger for it, and you have to create some new dynamics and really talk about how you grow, 'cause Chris also grew in this time, where, as he healed, he found new dimensions of himself.

He had to be incredibly strong.

So honestly, I think I found my voice.

It's a quieter voice than Chris's but it's strong and steady.

- Yeah, he walks out of the hospital eventually, but the story is far from over.

- When he came back, they had warned us it can take some time.

Normalizing is a whole 'nother process, and so he had an amazing recovery.

He could walk back home.

He could still participate in our life, although he certainly had more recovery to do, but it was about...

This book is a really important part of that, because it was about almost meeting each other again, in some ways.

It was about decompressing the trauma parts of us, the parts that were full of coping techniques, and this book was so helpful, because I needed him to understand what the kids and I had walked while he was gone, and so I wrote early, early every morning.

He'd come down.

I'd read to him what I wrote, and it was almost, I was going to say, a picture album, but it was just a way for us to start that process of healing, and really, I talk about relationships as in like tangled roots.

That's what we do.

We grow together and we weave around each other in the ways that we do things, and when you're ripped apart and then transplanted back together again, you have to relearn how to do all of these things, and it can be better.

You can look at it from the perspective of this is hard.

It actually is hard.

It's hard to come back together.

You think it's a happy ending story, but you actually are sorting through all the things that have happened, but if you look at it and frame it in this perspective of possibility, second chances, how do we want to choose, we can be really intentional, we get to choose the things in our life now, then you start to see, okay, as you start to grow, these roots start coming together and you're getting planted and settled again, that it really is an opportunity, but that's life.

Life is a series of separation and coming back together.

I kind of look at it as we're always recovering in some ways from life, but that's the opportunity, if you want to look at it like that anyway.

- Molly Weisgram, it's a beautiful book, highly recommended, and thank you for sitting down with us today and tell us just a little bit about it.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Molly Weisgram's book is called "The Other Side of Us."

It's available in bookstores now.

You can learn more about South Dakota's literary heritage and other emerging authors online at sdpb.org/spotlight, and join SDPB's "In the Moment" in October for a spotlight on 50 years of national public radio.

Now, let's take a moment for an update on a story from last season.

SDPB's Lee Strubinger reported on the search for Susan Fast Eagle of Rapid City.

She was one of more than 30 missing Indigenous women listed on the South Dakota Missing Person's Clearinghouse website.

Indigenous women go missing at a much higher rate than women of other races, and most of these cases in South Dakota remain unsolved.

Susan Shockey is Fast Eagle's mother-in-law.

She spoke to Lee Strubinger, as a search party combed Rapid Creek in May.

(upbeat music) - It's not fair that we have to live in fear, our women and our children and there are men out there also, our relative.

It isn't fair that we have to live that way.

(upbeat music) - Women go missing for a number of reasons, but many cases are linked to human trafficking and domestic abuse.

Indigenous women's cases rarely receive consistent attention, and rural law enforcement often don't have adequate resources to to search for them.

That's why raising awareness of these women is so important.

A tip can go a long way.

The Rapid City Police Department is offering $3000 for information that leads them to Susan Fast Eagle.

If you've seen her, call law enforcement.

Susan Fast Eagle is one of 34 Indigenous women listed missing on the state website as of last week.

14 of them were reported missing since our show in May.

If you know one of these women and want to share her story, or if you have a follow-up to any of the stories we've covered, send us an email, [email protected].

Sometimes, being a good neighbor can mean taking time to reflect on what brought you to the place you now call home, and it can mean taking time to listen.

Robert Swaney-Bordeaux is a poet who spent most of his life disconnected from his roots as a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, but he's making up for lost time by reconnecting with his ancestral homelands.

He uses imagery and poetry to reflect on his experiences, from growing up in a mostly-white South Dakota town to the complexity of a mixed-race identity.

He shares them with SDPB's Richard Two Bulls in this installment of "Good Neighbors."

(upbeat music) - The ways we speak.

My name is Robert Swaney- Bordeaux.

I grew up just a couple hours east of here, around de Smit, Lake Preston, South Dakota, with my mom's grandparents.

So I'm a stout South Dakota kid, tried and true.

I speak to the juniper tree with my hands, as I brushed the branches with my fingertips in silence.

My mom's a non-native.

My dad's Sichangu Lakota, but I didn't connect with my dad's family until about a year ago.

I speak to the (indistinct) above, with my gaze breathing in its wisdom and protection in silence.

- Knowing that you're a part of something and not being a part of it, but discovering that, is there anything that you could comment, in regards to that finding of yourself, I guess, if that makes sense?

- Yeah, I think, for me, I think it's even part of the continued colonization that keeps folks disconnected.

I think the biggest thing I'm discovering is not just the connection with people, but having ancestors who were present at the Fort Laramie Treaty sign.

I find space to grow in the silence.

It is in the silence I find the wisdom for when I should speak with words.

I do feel it lights that fire.

I think part of that fire is feeling like I missed out on 30 years of this knowledge and knowing, has shaped me so much over the last six months, 12 months, 18 months, and also, understanding, I think, some folks who grew up off the rez or disconnected romanticize.

I've been thankful too.

I've gone through therapy.

I've lived a life and I can come here understanding that there are complexities and there's also beautiful things that go on.

We're talking ground zero.

Dawn kisses, the roots run through, the waters quenched, the mountains rest on, the sand sits, is land that was never meant to be owned.

The storytelling that I exist doing through poetry just grew with me and grew with that, that kind of foundation.

I'm almost thankful that foundation was there.

I entered into this space and learned what I learned.

I can now tell that story and in a poetic form.

Borders only exists to oppress.

In the end, all fences, all walls will fall.

I always told people, concerning my time growing up, is that I was considered indigenous, considered native.

What does it mean to be a good neighbor?

When it suited someone else's stereotype or joke, a lot of times it was bullies and folks who just wanted to make fun of me, then I was called the slurs.

When I think about what it means to be a good neighbor, a good relative, I think about what it means to listen.

When we're sharing space and community, a lot of times there are shared experiences we all have, and also there are gonna be many experiences that are not shared, that are unique, especially when we talk about people existing on a land where there are thousands of different cultures and lived experiences existing in proximity.

When I got to the rez, when I got here, seeing my auntie, seeing all my nieces and nephews, seeing that, I didn't realize how much of my life was spent performing.

A little baby fish swims up to the rock I'm sitting on and tells me, "Keep fighting, there is still hope."

- There is still hope.

If you know a good neighbor or want to tell us a story, send us an email at [email protected].

You can also contact me on Twitter, @JackieHendrySD, and a quick note before I leave you, this show marks the start of the 27th season of "South Dakota Focus," and you'll notice some changes.

COVID changed almost everything about how we work here at SDPB, and it highlighted things we value, things like in-depth reporting, inspiring stories and connecting with people face to face.

Those are all the things we'll be able to do more of by moving this show to once-a-month, but that doesn't mean you have to wait once a month to know what we're up to.

You can find ongoing coverage at SDPB.org/news, and you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Join me again, Thursday, October 28th, to hear from recent immigrants about finding their home in South Dakota, and the SDPB Spotlight shines on 50 years of NPR.

Until then, I'm Jackie Hendry.

Thank you for watching.

(upbeat music)