Fear of the unknown can be crippling if you let it.  While I have full faith in what God says I am not going to sit here and pretend that I haven’t had moments of unclarity and doubt in the midst of crisis.  I remember the first time Pharon was hospitalized after we had brought Deshawn home I sat and looked at my precious baby and thought what have I done.  I brought another little human into the world and he is going to be subjected to seeing Daddy going into and out of the hospital as he grows up.  For those who have not lived it you may not understand.  I have heard it all.  “At least your parents are living”,  “it could be worse”.  Now don’t get me wrong, yes I was very blessed to not lose my parents at such a young age and yes things can ALWAYS be worse.  But as a child growing up in this chaos you just don’t understand what is going on around you.  All you know if that mommy or daddy is always sick.  They can’t play with me. They can’t take me here or there. My friends parents can do this or that.  I can remember clear as I sit here, standing at my front door, watching my mom being taken away in the ambulance for the 100th time because she couldn’t breath, I never want my kids to go through this.  I couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9 years old.   I warned you that I was going to lay all my feelings out……..

July 2018 rolls around and its time for Pharon’s side family reunion.  This time its going to be in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  We wanted to drive further south afterwards so he could meet his brother for the first time.  Since Pharon had missed so much work from being sick we really could not afford it but Pharon needed to meet his brother.  Pharon was 44 years old and never met his brothers.  I wiped out our savings and made it happen.  At the time I was thinking I am so going to regret this. I don’t regret it for one minute now.  Pharon needed to meet his brother.  It was a piece of his puzzle of life that had been found.  Getting down there was a struggle.  Pharon couldn’t walk more than 20 feet without taking a break.  I had just had a csection 6 weeks earlier.  He had to be taken by wheel chair through the airport while I had a 6 week old strapped to my body, a 3 year old, carry ons, diaper bag, purse and a stroller.  By the time we got to Alabama I thought I was going to drop.  We stayed in Alabama for 12 days and had the best time with family.  Less than a week after getting back, Pharon was back in the hospital.

This went on for months.  Fast forward to Halloween weekend.  This weekend was the last memories we would make as a family together.  Halloween night we took the kids to my cousins house so all the kids could trick or treat together.  Deshawn was the cutest little lobster you have even seen and Brianna was our princess Bat girl.  There was no way Pharon was going to be able to walk the neighborhood so he stayed behind and waited for us. We went on our last date night that Saturday.  Sunday, November 4, 2018 we took our last family picture.  Pharon had to stop twice on his way into our photographers home.  He just couldn’t catch his breath.  By the time we got home he was feeling really bad and was in bed.  Monday I find him sick and asleep in his car.  By Wednesday he was so sick I made him go to the walk in.  He had a 103.7 fever and was diagnosed with the flu.  By Thursday night he is so sick he can barely move.  I told him I thought he needed to go into the hospital and try to get on top of this before it gets worse.  He wanted to wait until Friday morning and I was like no let me drop you off tonight because I have a lot going on tomorrow.  It took him 2 hours to get himself together.  10pm and I load the kids up and take him to the ER.  That was November 8, 2018.  That is the last coherent conversation I ever had with my husband.  That is the last time he kissed me.

By Saturday, November  10, 2018 he hadn’t answered a text or phone call in 24 hours.  I dropped our kids off at our friends house and went into the hospital.  After about 5 minutes of me talking to him he still hadn’t said a word to me. He was struggling to get the spoon to his mouth.  I asked him if he was mad at me about something. I will never forget the look on his face.  He slowly raised his head, looked at me and said Who are you? Wait, what?! What do you mean who am I?  It took him about a minute to remember who I was.  I went and got the nurse and she assured me that the fever and flu could cause confusion. Ok. That makes sense.

The next morning I had a funny feeling and decided to stay home from church because I wanted to be available to talk to the doctor when they came in.  I called into the nurse to see how Pharon made out through the night and she informed me that they had a really rough morning.  She had mispronounced his name and he screamed at her over it.  When she said this my heart dropped and I told her she needed to call the doctor right now because something is really wrong.  Pharon NEVER corrected anyone for saying his name wrong and he NEVER yells at people.  EVER.  About 15 minutes after my mother in law arrived from Pennsylvania I get the phone call that changed everything.  The nurse called and said I needed to come to the hospital because Pharon was getting moved to the Neuro ICU.  His brain was bleeding.   I barely got “OK” out of my mouth and I started sobbing.  I knew what that meant.  My husband was having a stroke.  I called my cousin and all I remember saying was I needed someone to come get my kids.  I then called Pharon’s best friend to tell him and I just sobbed on the phone.  I couldn’t think clearly.  My whole body started shaking.  Lord what is happening?! I can’t believe this! I took him to the hospital for the flu not to have a stroke.  Once I got to the hospital there were probably 20 staff members surrounding his room. One was the wife of one of the soldiers Pharon served with in the Delaware National Guard.  A familiar face–it will be ok.  We go up to the unit and the Neurologist starts to ask me some questions.  Pharon starts seizing.  A new group of medical staff flood the room.  I stood there numb and in disbelief.  I brought him to the hospital for the flu….what is happening.  Soon its time for the first neuro test.   What year is it, what is your name, who is the president, where are you at. Although his speech was slurred he answered all the questions right.  Now its time for personal questions.  Its my turn to ask the questions.  Who am I, where do we live, what is our kids names…..He says everything right until its time to say our kids names.  He says Brianna.  That’s it. I asked him what our sons name was…….he says he only has a Brianna.  He doesn’t remember us having a baby.  My husband forgot we had two children.  Lord I can’t handle this.  Why is this happening?!  I wonder if my dad was this scared when my mom had her strokes.  

By Monday Pharon was in septic shock, his kidneys and liver were failing and he was on  life support.  This is too much for Kent to handle.  I knew it and they knew it.  I asked for him to be transferred to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and within 30 minutes I had a room number for him.  Plans were made to air vac him there but the winds were too high and they had to take him by ambulance.   I remember thinking that night—-what the hell…….NEVER in a million years did I think I would be sitting here at 37 years old with a 6 month old and 4 year old while my husband is in the hospital with a STROKE.  Like can I catch a break PLEASE.  Just once.  Never think that it can’t get worse……….it can ALWAYS get worse.

 

Nine years ago when Pharon and I met I learned that he had heart issues and had a pacemaker/defibrillator in his chest. He suffered from cardiomyopathy (a type of heart failure) and he told me eventually he would need a heart transplant. I clearly remember having a conversation with my best friend and saying “Do I want to get into this?” I had grown up with two very ill parents and spent a chunk of my life in the hospital with them. I was at the point in my life that I desperately wanted normalcy for once. I quickly fell in love with Pharon and then his heart issues didn’t matter. We would figure it out. Besides he had that ICD in his chest so I had nothing to worry about right?

Soon after we got married we got pregnant with our first child. We were both so excited. He was almost 40 and I was about to turn 33 and it was our first child. This would be the first grand baby for both sides. The family overflowed with excitement and joy. My pregnancy was very rough. I was in the hospital constantly for blood pressure issues. At 32 weeks my blood pressure got so high that the machines could not read it and I had an emergency c-section. Brianna Avery Hameed made her grand entrance screaming and kicking on October 11, 2014. She had to go to the NICU for 19 days. Doctors told us she wasn’t coming home until December. God knew better. That is the first experience I can remember when Pharon verbally spoke out loud that it was because of God. I believed in God but never really was confident in how great He could be until I saw my precious girl defy all medical odds and come home early.

Fast forward to 2017. Pharon and I had been wanting another baby. By September we find out that we are finally pregnant.  In October Pharon was starting to feel sluggish and getting more and more out of breath. One day he had to stop twice on his way up the steps. Come to find out he was holding fluid. His legs were MASSIVE. His cardiologist sends him to the ER for IV lasix. A few xrays and blood tests later we find out he not only has Congestive Heart Failure but his kidneys are starting to shut down from the high doses of lasix and lack of fluids. When the ER doctor came in and said a kidney specialist had to come in I almost ran out of the room. I got to my truck as fast as I could and called my brother. It was happening again. The most important man in my life was going thru kidney failure. I had lost my father in 2008 from complications from kidney failure. To this day the sight of a dialysis port will throw me into a panic attack. I don’t even know if I was able to speak clearly but I remember sobbing on the phone to my brother. He understood my fear of dialysis. This is when the vicious cycle and almost impossible balancing act of too much fluid vs not enough fluid and too much lasix vs not enough lasix started.

From October 2017 until May of 2018 Pharon went into the hospital for IV lasix about every 8 weeks. In April 2018 we were going thru our birthing class. Pharon got so out of breath that he had to stop walking 4 times on our way back from the elevator. He had a consistent cough that would not stop. I had to get security to wheel him down to the ER. This time the fluid had built up so bad it was literally strangling his heart and started to fill up his lungs. He was literally drowning in fluid.  The doctor told me that if Pharon hadn’t come in when he did he probably would have died that night. What is going on?! I am having our second baby in a few weeks and my husband is in a constant battle for his life! God what am I supposed to be learning from this? When Pharon is in the hospital I am playing single mom at home. I am not strong enough to do this. This isn’t what I signed up for…..

May 22, 2018……our baby boy is vacating my uterus today!! Praise the Lord!!! I made it to 39 weeks and 1 day. 9:15am can’t get here fast enough. While this pregnancy has been 100 times better than my first I feel like I have been pregnant for 15 years and I am HUGE!! Minutes before my scheduled c-section Pharons ICD alarms. Something is wrong. Pharon being Pharon was like ok well let’s have this baby first and then I will go get checked out. I am having a fit, the nurses are having a fit. He won’t go to the ER. Finally my OB/GYN agrees to let him in the OR because they have extra nurses that can come in and deal with him if he gets worse. Deshawn Reggie Hameed is born and comes out with a full grown man cry. Deep voice just like daddy. I even asked if that was my baby crying! Even though Deshawn was full term he had to spend a week in NICU because his oxygen level was so low at birth. Hours later once Deshawn was settled in the NICU and I was settled in my room Pharon finally went to the ER. He was not going to miss the birth of his son.

After a week of tests and ICD readings we find out that Pharons heart had been in atrial flutter for almost 2 weeks. This is why the ICD kept going off. Less than a week after getting discharged from the hospital I was taking Pharon back in for a cardiac version. This is basically where they shock the heart back into rhythm. This was the “beginning of the end”.

Now it’s every 4-6 weeks Pharon ends up hospitalized. God I can’t do this. When Pharon is gone I have to take care of the kids alone and Brianna misses her daddy. I can’t do this. God my kids are going thru what I did as a child and spending way too much time in the hospital. Lord I can’t do this. I can’t handle the stress. The entire weight of the household fell on my shoulders.  There were times Pharon was too tired or weak to even carry our baby up the steps for fear of dropping him.  I became so stressed that I started lashing out at everyone around me. Things that normally I would not think twice about would completely set me off. I felt like I had zero control of anything in my life. No matter how hard I tried to keep sodium out of our diet or monitor Pharon’s fluid intake he kept getting sick. Lord what am I supposed to do? I am trying to make him better and its not working.  I am trying make a stable home for our children and its not working.  

“I am chosen, not forsaken, I am who you say I am. You are for me, not against me, I am who you say I am”. See the thing is I have always believed everything the Bible says. I just didn’t always believe everything was true for me. The good stuff didn’t seem to happen for me. I felt like God didn’t allow some of the same great things for me like other people got. I didn’t feel the emotional security that I should have felt. The lyrics to “Who you say I am” by Hillsong Worship hit me like a freight train the first time I heard it in church. If I believe what the Bible says then I believe it. If God says I am not forsaken and not forgotten then I am not. If God says I am strong then I am. This is where faith comes in. The word Faith, by definition, means COMPLETE trust or confidence in something or someone. Not half trust, or trust sometimes, or only for some things. Complete trust. I decided that even in the midst of the monthly hospital visits that if God said I can handle it then I must be able to. I may not understand how or why but if He says I can do it then I guess I can. It doesn’t mean I can’t be scared. It’s normal to be scared. It’s a whole other monster to let fear control your life.

 

“She is clothed in STRENGTH and dignity, and she laughs WITHOUT FEAR of the future” Proverbs  31:25

On November 8, 2018 it was the last time I would take my husband to the hospital. I took him in for the flu. I never imagined that 14 strokes, 4 anyuersms, a destroyed heart and 40 days later I would watch him take his last breath and leave me to raise our 7 month and 4 year old children by myself. During those 40 days it felt like we were on a roller coaster. Nothing was guaranteed. The only guarantee I had was the promises God made me. The promises that I believed with every fiber of my being.

So many people commented and still tell me how strong I am. The simple answer is because God carried me through it. The real answer is so much more complex.

The purpose of this blog is to walk you through the real answer. I have felt for weeks that God wanted me to share the story He carried me through. This is hard for me to do. I am opening myself completely and being more vulnerable than I have ever been in my entire life. While I know literally thousands have seen part of this story…….there is still someone else who needs to hear it.