I am Still Here-Part 2

Memories can be a blessing and a curse. The only good memories I have during Pharon’s last hospital stay is of the incredible amount of support that my children and I got from literally thousands of people. Every other moment is either filled with the most intense fear I have ever felt in my entire life or I don’t remember things at all. I was just talking to my brother about how the day the nurse from Kent General called me to tell me that Pharon’s brain was bleeding, I remember collapsing in front of the dryer while I was talking to Christina on the phone and all I could get out what “I need someone to come get my kids, Pharon’s brain is bleeding.” I remember her appearing in my house to pick my kids up but I have no recollection where they slept that night, how they got back to my house or what day I saw them next. I remember feeling like I someone had literally kicked me in my stomach when Pharon didn’t remember Deshawn when I asked him for our kids names. Then its a big blur of weeks of no sleep, fear of the phone ringing, staring at my kids in the bed and wondering what their future held and a constant roller coaster. Hours spent on the internet so I could understand what the doctors were saying and what these machines meant.

The sounds of these machines are imbedded in my brain. The sound of them beeping or the sound of a ventilator is more than I can handle at this point in my life. Certain beeps mean certain things. The speed of the beep means something else. If its am emergency the sound goes crazy. This is part of another of the nightmares I have and it started from the machines alarming.

On December 11, 2018, all of the machines started going off at one time. I was sitting in the back corner of the room when Pharon rose up off the bed and a gasping noise came from him while the ventilator was making a horrible beeping sound. His eye lids were wide open but his eyes were rolled back in his head. Within seconds the room was filled with people and I got stuck in the corner of the room again. It was impossible for me to get out. I was trapped and terrified. I need to get out of here. God I am scared I need to get out of here. I can’t watch this anymore. I didn’t understand what I was seeing. To see someone go from laying quietly, to sitting straight up, eyes rolled back in their head and gasping for air will make you feel so intensely helpless. Pharon had coughed his intubation tube out. I was finally able to get out of the room and that was the day that I had a complete mental break down. I ended up in the hallway screaming and crying. The doctor had just told me that Pharon was getting better but that sure as hell didn’t look better to me. While all of this was going on the blood cultures had come back and Pharon was septic again. He wasn’t getting better. He was getting worse. Later that day I had to make an emergency appointment with my doctor to get medication for my nerves. I felt like I had no control over my mind anymore.

I dream of this day often. In my dream I am stuck in the corner again and inside my head I am screaming. God please make it stop. I know you can make him get out of that bed right now and he could walk out of this hospital with me right now but he is getting worse. I don’t understand. In my dream Pharon keeps rising off the bed. The sound of him gasping for air is so loud that I can barely hear the machines. But in my dream no one is coming in the room and I am stuck in my seat. I open my mouth to scream for help but nothing comes out of my mouth.

Once they got the tube placed back in and I had calmed down I went back into the room and had the last form of communication that I would ever had with Pharon. At this point he had suffered 14 strokes and 4 aneurysms. He was mostly blind and could only see what would be equivalent to a pixel or two at a time but never the whole picture. His eyes were open and I could see them. I took a video while I was talking to him. I had been taking a lot of pictures of everything because when he got home and needed to see how far he had come I would be able to show him. He couldn’t talk and he couldn’t see me. I asked him to wink for yes.

Pharon can you hear me? Are you in pain? Two winks.

Pharon are you tired of fighting? Wink.

Do you want to stop treatment? Wink.

Pharon do you understand me? Wink.

Are you ready to go to heaven? WINK.

My heart sank as his eyes rolled back in his again. Honey I love you…

I never saw his eyes again. There were times later in the week that his eye lids would open as he would again rise up off the bed but it was all involuntary. On December 11, 2018, I asked the doctors to cease all sedation because I needed to see if he would respond again. He never responded to any stimuli again.

So I am still here. Severely bent but not completely broken. Broken moments but not a broken life. Being around my family and the children keeps my mind occupied. I look forward to but dread my kids bedtime at the same time. I need the break but it also means that I am left alone in my head. I am left alone with my memories. The memories that impacted me more than anything else in my life thus far. There are many times that I struggle to get my words together and its because I have so many windows open in my head at the same time. I can sit and have a conversation with you about the weather and be thinking about Pharon at the same time. Nothing has ever consumed me like this before. I guess that’s part of PTSD. I know and believe that it won’t always be this way. I am terrified of how I will feel as we get closer to the one year anniversary but I know that ultimately I will be ok and I will make it. I don’t have any other choice but to make it.