September 5th is a day that Archie and I will never forget.
The day started off with us driving back home from a visit to La Grange, TX with my mom. When we got home we worked in the yard. That afternoon Archie laid down to take a nap and then he started snoring so loud that I had to shut the bedroom door and turn up the volume on the TV. I heard him get up from bed and he was muttering to himself so I went to go check on him. He kept saying he had to make himself sick and that his head was killing him. I tried to get him to take some headache medicine but he was not having it, I thought maybe he had a migraine since he never had headaches. I suggested he go back to bed to try to get rid of the migraine. He went to sleep and that horrible snoring resumed. A little while later I heard a thud in the bathroom and went to check it out. I found him lowering himself to the ground from his hands and knees. There was a small scrape on his nose so I think he hit the bathtub on the way down. At that point he was incoherent, he fell asleep on the ground face down and started snoring again. I was shaking him trying to wake him up and to get him to answer me; I even poured some water on him which did not work. I called my mom and asked her to come over because something is wrong with Archie. She told me to call 911 and she was on her way. The ambulance arrived and they took him to Centennial Hospital. Our neighbor across the street came out and asked if there was anything she could do and I will forever be grateful to her even though I declined her offer. My mom picked me up and we headed to the hospital via the navigation on my phone – it is unfortunate that the GPA was just taking us to downtown Frisco because the link I clicked on for the hospital didn’t have an address associate with it besides Frisco, TX. So we turned around and got to the hospital. After several hours and several phone calls to family members and his business partner they diagnosed the brain aneurysm and that they needed to careflight Archie to Baylor in Dallas. While we were loading onto the helicopter my phone started blowing up because the information about Archie had been posted on facebook. This made the situation more stressful because I was getting text messages and phone calls while trying to give my mom instructions about what to grab from the house so that we could charge our phones and get some clothes. We had our first helicopter ride which Archie does not remember and I was too freaked out to enjoy. We then proceeded to wait in the ER for hours while they ran tests. Brian, Chris, my mom, Archie’s mom and step dad were all crammed in a room while we waited. In the wee hours of the morning they moved him to 4 North ICU. I rode home with Archie’s mom and step dad to our house to get a couple of hours of sleep and pack a bag.
Little did we know what would happen in the next twelve months:
- The coiling procedure that didn’t work
- Craniotomy
- Severe vasospasms that lasted weeks- they even caused him to lose control over part of his body like a stroke – weakness in his face, hands, legs, etc.
- External shunt
- Internal shunt
- A trip to the hospital October where infections were found on the shunt so it was removed
- Another external shunt
- A couple more weeks in the hospital while we got the infection cleared up
- Another internal shunt
- A trip to the hospital in June with an infection of some sort but no answers
- A trip to the hospital in July because of a staph infection so they pulled the internal shunt again but this time he had to leave a catheter in his head because it had grown attached to scarred tissue and to remove it would cause bleeding
- An external shunt that was later removed because he was processing the fluid correctly and there was not a need for the shunt
- A trip to the hospital in August because the catheter has staph on it so Archie had another craniotomy to remove the catheter micro surgically
It is so strange to think that a year ago Archie was healthy with no health issues besides a twisted ankle or two. The past year has been a long, uphill road with a lot of uncertainty. Below is a picture that works well:
I did try to remind myself that God would not give me anything I could not handle. My faith helped me a lot and I cannot imagine what I would do without my faith. I think Archie and my relationship has gotten stronger throughout the past year.
I can say that I am thankful for my family – my mom, sisters, dad and brother-in-law. I don’t think I would have made it through the past year without them. They were there to take shifts sitting in the hospital room with us, hangout with Archie when I had to work, brought lots of meals, made me leave the hospital room for dinner or a walk and just so much more.
Archie’s mom and step dad have been champions throughout the past year. I think they have lived more at our house than their house in Wichita Falls. They have been here through it all – being at the hospital all day long, bringing meals, doing laundry nightly for Archie, taking shifts hanging with Archie when I went back to work and so much more.
I have to thank Allison Sloan for letting me move into her house for three months off and on for the past year. You are so kind to let your best friend’s sister move in with you!
To all of our friends that have been there for us for the past year – all of the trips to the hospital to visit Archie, the visits to the house while Archie was hanging out at the house and the phone calls. You don’t know how much Archie looked forward to the visitors. It was nice to have someone to talk to entertain us and distract us.
Below is a picture we took last week and my friend Bethany described it as a symbolic picture. A year later, we made it through the forest and are standing high on solid ground.
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