166 miles round trip. 3+ hours in the car for 1 day. I find out very quickly that if I am not in the city before 7 am then traffic can add 30-45 minutes to the morning commute. At first I park in the $5 parking garage that has the free shuttle but I find that it adds almost an hour to my day because you have to wait for the shuttle and then it sometimes get stuck in traffic. For $10 I can park in the parking garage attached to the hospital. When you are spending 14-16 hours a day away from your 6 month old and 4 year old that extra hour is precious. My babies need me too. Dividing my time between my dying husband and my children is heart wrenching.
The time I spend in the car is when I am alone with my feelings. I don’t have to worry about anyone seeing me cry or being at a loss for what to say to me. Oh if Stella the Sonata could talk. I play YouTube videos of praise and worship songs across the Bluetooth to help calm my nerves. Other days I am blasting DMX, Biggie and Tupac cause sometimes I just need the rawness and bass of their music to help me find my “screw it, I got this” attitude. Just being honest here.
Before I started writing this entry I had to go back and read the updates I had posted on Facebook to help me remember what happened and when. The first two weeks……geez. Everyone comments on how strong I was and all I can tell you is that I must have been on auto pilot those first two weeks. I know I was in shock. I remember coming home from Philadelphia the first time and just sitting in my living room silent for what seemed like hours. My husband had a stroke! WHY is this happening??!! What does the future hold?? Our plans to grow old together may not work out how we planned. Then out of no where I got scared to be in my house by myself. I have never been scared to be anywhere by myself. Now all of a sudden I get scared?!! I don’t have my protector. I lost my covering. Man I wish my brother lived closer. Well I know if I need help quickly Adam, David or Enzo will come until Johnny can get here. Then a whole new fear lurks into my head. What if when he wakes up he doesn’t remember me still and doesn’t want me or isn’t attracted to me or has no emotional connection to me or the kids?! These are the kinds of thoughts that started to bombard my mind.
In the midst of a million thoughts and fears going thru my head my precious girl is missing her daddy. She doesn’t understand why she can’t go into the hospital to see him. She doesn’t understand why we can’t put daddy on the phone and see him. Every morning I would take my children to my aunt and cousins house. To get there you can see Kent General about 2 blocks away. Every day she would ask if we could go see daddy when she saw the building. My four year old knows the building. One of my biggest fears has come true. My child is too familiar with the hospital.
My one comfort in having to leave my children so much is that they are with my aunt and cousins. I know that they are getting just as much love as if I was there. I don’t have to worry for one minute about their safety or well being. The trust I have in my family with my children extends to the point that during this time I put in writing to Brianna’s school that my brother, aunt, any of my cousins or spouses could make any decision including medical if I was not available. I love my family more than I can ever put into words. They are another reason I was able to make it from day to day.
Within the first 2 weeks we find out that Pharon actually had 10 strokes and 3 aneurysms. One was in the area of his brain that controls his vision. He won’t be able to see our babies. Lord I can’t wrap my brain around this. It was at this point that I started to grieve the loss of my husband. I lost my husband. His body is here but the man I fell in love with and married is gone. My children’s father is gone. Oh my God Deshawn isn’t old enough to have any memories of his daddy. The daddy he may know isn’t who he was. By week 3 he has had 3 more strokes and another aneurysm. There was a week that I would get home and have to turn back around and go right back up because something else happened. This happened 4 days in a row. Two trips to philly a day for 4 days. He recognized me one last time. Now I know it was my voice he recognized but he couldn’t see my whole face. He couldn’t get my name out but when asked if I was his wife he said yes. It was the first time I had ever video taped him and I got him saying he knew me.
Then the bottom fell out again. This is when I had to decide how I was going to look at this going forward. There wasn’t a time that I lost faith in God’s ability to heal Pharon. I knew that if God wanted to and it was His will that Pharon could be healed and he could sit right up out of that bed and walk out of the hospital. But I had to accept the fact that Gods healing may not come in the form that I would prefer and I have to try and accept that. Pharons healing may not happen on this earth. That is a huge, jagged pill to swallow.
I have zero control in my life at this point. I can’t get my husband better. I can’t make my little girl feel better. I struggle daily on where I should be as a wife and a mother. Everything I hear is bad news. I can’t get thru the night without a call from a nurse or doctor telling me something else has happened. Something clicked in my head as I was driving up one day. Ok I have all this bad stuff happening but what good is happening. I have a car that is in tip top working order and wonderful on gas. I have an amazing family that is my backbone right now. My church families have rallied around me and covered me in prayer and blessed me with other gifts. Pharons bosses made sure I had the means to get gas, food etc the same day we decided to send him to Penn. My bosses blessed me with means to get up and down the road. Strangers and other friends have given to help offset the loss of income. Within a week of me starting to post updates over 10.9 THOUSAND different people had read updates on Pharon. Over 15.5 THOUSAND had either liked, commented or shared the posts. How can so many people care about us? I literally can not wrap my brain around it. By now anxiety has set in. During the bad stuff and when good things happen. I mentally can’t handle either…..
She is Fearless 