'Forever Grateful'

Employee and patient Ronnie Adams' success story at Kindred Hospital 

In October of 2024, Ronnie Adams traveled to Louisville for the ScionHealth Caregiver Summit, an annual event celebrating the best-of-the-best caregivers from the company’s 80-plus hospital campuses across the country.

One year later, the Security Supervisor at Kindred Hospital Paramount (California) returned to the Caregiver Summit, virtually, to describe the most difficult year of his life.

Adams spent several of the past 12 months hospitalized, at times critically ill, on a ventilator, and fighting for his life. It was his own team, treating him at his own hospital, who ultimately helped Adams heal, recover, and return home to his wife and son.

“This last year has been an eye-opener for me,” said Adams. “It makes me look at life a lot differently. I never thought in a million years that they would have to take care of me and make sure that I lived, but they did – [I’m] forever grateful.”

What started in October 2024 as a visit to the emergency room in Louisville for an intestinal issue turned into a burst appendix, likely on the flight back to Los Angeles.

“It felt like the walls were closing in on me,” recalled Adams. “Got home the next morning, went to the hospital, and ended up waking up two weeks later with my wife by my side, telling me that it was touch and go. I had to have a major surgery because my appendix exploded.”

“When we got to the ICU there, the person in the bed wasn't Ronnie,” said Nikki Cunningham, COO/Chief Clinical Officer, Kindred Hospital Paramount. “He was intubated, wasn't responding to anything, starting dialysis and [in] septic shock. Me, being a nurse, I was prepared to see that. I wasn't prepared to see my friend Ronnie there.”

As is often the case with critically ill, intubated patients at short-term acute care hospitals, Adams needed specialized care, specifically the ventilator weaning and rehabilitation expertise of a long-term acute care hospital (LTACH).

“I just knew like once he made it to Kindred, he's going to make it,” said Markeiba Parks, Ronnie’s wife, and a certified nursing assistant at the hospital. “They're going to get him off this vent. We're going to move forward.”

Things didn’t go exactly to plan.

“Ronnie's road to recovery was pretty bumpy,” said Mark Apodaca, Market CEO of Kindred Hospitals South Bay. “Ups and downs and back and forth. And it took its toll on Ronnie. He really, really got into some dark places.”

“He could barely speak,” said Oliver Fay, Program Director, Rehabilitation Services at Kindred Hospital Paramount. “He couldn't even lift his arm. He couldn't brush his teeth.”

“His life was teetering, and to see him do well and then go back to the ICU… life-threatening, yeah, that's putting it mildly,” said Pamela Martin-Polk, Occupational Therapist at the hospital.

His team never lost hope, never wavered in their care, and never stopped encouraging Ronnie.

“I believe all of our departments had a hand in Ronnie's care,” noted Heide Datoon, Director, Nursing and Clinical Services at Kindred Hospital Paramount.

“We knew what we had to do,” said Cunningham. “We had to rally for our brother because he was in the darkest times.”

LTACHs treat the sickest of the sick, with patient stays typically measured in weeks, not days. The ultimate success is watching that patient – once in a bed, immobile, and dependent upon machines to breathe and receive nourishment – walk out of the hospital on their own.

After more than 100 days of intensive, compassionate, and expert care at Kindred Hospital Paramount, that’s exactly what Ronnie did.

And for that, the whole team at Kindred Hospital Paramount is forever grateful.

One year after missing his moment to shine due to illnesses that almost took his life, Ronnie was invited back to ScionHealth’s Caregiver Summit to virtually share his experience with the 2025 attendees. His courage and inspiration were recognized with an Honorary Monarch Caring and Community Award and a check presented by ScionHealth CEO Rob Jay to support Ronnie’s local non-profit that serves the underprivileged.