We did not expect when we woke up on May 17, 2019 that the day would end with an ICU waiting room and Facebook feed filled with prayer warriors pleading for my husband to live.
Well God answered. Though I'd love to say it has been all glitter and happy ever after, we have endured a few terrifying setbacks over the last five years.
They don't tell you that when you survive a traumatic brain injury, a lot can happen as you recover.
There was the vertigo, the supposed focal seizures, the recrudescence with covid and convulsions and aphasia.
No one knew the trauma it would cause my children or the exhaustion that I would endure feeling mostly all alone with very few people reaching out to see how I or the children were handling it all. Understandably, the focus would be on John.
We are and will be forever grateful for the financial support, the fund raiser and GoFundMe and meals our friends provided. That's a gratitude words cannot express and I wish on no other.
Now, here we are five years later....
....the first year it falls on a Friday again.
I remember the night driving home from the hospital knowing not to look at Google MD. But I did and what I found was alarming.
Apparently according to statistics, many don't survive this kind of hemorrhagic stroke. Something like 80 percent die in the first 24-48 hours. For those who survive, many have debilitating results. And when you look out to five years the stats were even more grim. That night I knew his chances of living another 5 years were slim let alone with thoughts and abilities intact.
No doubt he's a walking singing miracle. But prayers are still coveted.
I remember the words of the surgeon telling me he may not survive and if he does he won't be the man or the musician you knew. I remember rejoicing for 3 years at how God proved those words wrong.
And then the week of my daughters wedding in 2022, John suddenly began speaking jibberish and didn't know his name. We didn't know if he would be able to walk my daughter down the aisle or be able to say her mother and I give this woman in marriage. But he did.
Since then he has been struggling to relearn some lyrics to songs once again. The tool we found so helpful in his recovery, music, no longer seemed to work in jogging memories.
When the original ICU visit occurred, we had just lost my mom. As I write this we have now lost all 4 parents, gone through covid shutdowns at retirement facilities where he performs, married off a daughter, welcomed a grand daughter, a son trying to figure out his lot in life while enduring unanswered health issues, and now sit with another daughter ready to leave for college in 3 months.
A lot has changed in the world. As he attempts to grasp the words he lost, he has also had to learn new adjustments along with the rest of the world.
I'm continually amazed at how he uses technology and little tricks he comes up with to cope in day to day life and to keep performing.
Yes, he's still performing through it all and with a new appreciation and desire to bless those he entertains and to share God's wonder working power.
So here we are. He has outlived the doomed statistics and the family is still intact, though shaken.
If you think of us, please pray for my children to continue to move forward in victory and not labored with fear and trauma. Please pray for strength and compassion for me. Please pray for John to be able to read words again and to remember songs he has forgotten. And please pray for health for our entire family.
And I wouldn't turn down a prayer for another five years of health and victory in Jesus!
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