Strongest Woman I Know

  I believe in angels.  Sometimes it might be a supernatural presence that you feel with you.  These are hard to explain.  It’s difficult for an analytical thinker to reconcile something that is felt but not seen.  I just know I have felt it enough to accept the reality of it.  The other version is those that walk among us that are filled with a spirit we find remarkable.  We don’t know why but we are drawn to those people.  These kind of angels are few and far between.  But both tend to come along at just the right time.

My close friends know what Alicia went through two years ago.  We don’t talk about it much anymore because it brings some painful memories to the surface.  I’m going to just rip off that bandaid and put it out there.  We had been trying to get pregnant with our second child for a while.  Bailey had finally settled into a place we thought was perfect.  When we found out she was pregnant, we were both excited and scared at the same time.  As a parent, or pending parent, all you want is for your children to be healthy.  You may want a boy or girl but you really don’t care as long as everything goes smooth.  

Alicia has had a condition with her hip and leg since she was a baby.  She has seen multiple doctors and even had an exploratory surgery to try and repair it.  It’s never been resolved and she has always had to manage it with anti-inflammatory medication.  That’s a big no no when you are pregnant.  It didn’t take long for that issue to resurface.  She had the problem when she was pregnant with Bailey but this time around would be much worse.  I remember some happy times with the first pregnancy.  She had a constant glow about her even though she would sometimes be in pain with the leg.  She had baby showers and even planned my awesome 30th birthday while pregnant with Bailey.  During the second pregnancy, she spent the better part of seven months in pain, going to massages, getting injections, just trying to make it day to day.  Forget morning sickness, body image issues and everything else that comes with pregnancy.  This was not a problem.  The problem now was just making it day to day.  I recall a trip to the beach in June that started poorly and ended worse.  Alicia tried her best to make the most of that trip but wound up spending the majority of it in bed searching for relief.  That is a painful memory.  We tried to make the most of it and focused on the kids but Alicia couldn’t get through it.  There is a photo of me and Tara and Bailey as we were getting ready to go to the beach the first day and that is the only fun part I remember. 
 We would soon become regular visitors at Phoebe.  We made a total of 6 visits with at least 3 overnight stays.  Everything was a temporary fix and things just continued to deteriorate over time.  If you’ve never been through something like that as a spouse, let me tell you that it is a helpless and depressing feeling to see someone you love more than life itself suffer and not be able to do anything about it.  It was gut wrenching.  Anybody who has been through it knows what I’m saying.  Georgia was not due until September 9 but we found ourselves in the hospital again the last week of July.  Alicia was in misery.  She wasn’t even aware of what day it was or how long we had been in the hospital.  If I had to guess, I would say that she averaged an hour of sleep per night over the month of July.  One hospital trip, the doctors gave her ambien to help her sleep.  Instead of sleeping, she spent the night hallucinating about photo shoots.  I had to move the recliner I was sleeping in to the other side of the bed to keep her from getting up.  6+ months pregnant, no sleep in days, hooked to machinery and IV’s and trying to organize imaginary photo shoots don’t mix.  She would not recall any of it.  I wish it had been as funny as it sounds now.

The doctors thought they had figured out a combination of medications that would give her some form of relief for the remaining weeks we had left to get to a safe delivery date.  We were set to go home on August 2 as long as the meds continued to work taken by mouth instead of IV.  We never made it home that day as the pain returned as intense as ever.  What we didn’t realize at the time was that she was actually beginning to have contractions.  We were 5 weeks early and Baby G had decided that mommy had had enough.  Alicia spent that night in a state of shallow breathing and borderline psychosis.  This is according to her mom because as fate would have it, this was the one night in all the stays that I wasn’t there.  Because it was a Saturday and her mom sensed the last straws I was hanging onto, they sent me home about 11 to get a night of sleep.  I didn’t go to sleep until about 2 am.  I tossed and turned in bed with the TV on in the background.  Alicia even called me once to say that she was scared and we talked a minute.  Again, she never remembers calling.   Sometime in the early morning hours, the nurses started figuring out what  was really happening.  They immediately began prepping Alicia for delivery and called the dr.  Charlotte called me around 6am and told me I should get back up there.  I walked into a chaotic scene of nurses coming and going and my heart immediately began racing.  I remember Alicia staring at me at the foot of the bed as she was about to go back to the OR.  I was beyond frightened.  

Sometime during the delivery, Alicia stopped breathing on her own and had to be put on machines.  After what seemed like an eternity, the doc came out and told me that G was fine and was headed to NICU for observation due to the premature nature of the delivery.  Things did not go as well for Alicia.  She had suffered pulmonary adema and essentially began drowning from the inside out during the procedure.  She lost conciousness and was placed on a vent and moved to SICU.  It would be a few hours before I would get to see her.  She was in a medically induced coma and I was given a hard warning that things would not look good when I saw her.  Nothing could have prepared me for it.  At the moment I saw her, I didn’t know if I would ever see her awake again.  I broke right there.  I sat and cried as hard as I’ve ever cried.  20 years of memories all seemed to start flashing at once.  Things became hazy then.  I was a wreck when family was there by my side.  Couldn’t eat, couldn’t stop pacing.  I had to force myself to go to see G so she knew that we were there but I didn’t want to leave Alicia.  I remember our first SICU nurse was an old friend, Stacey Barnes.  I think she saw the pain in my eyes.  She came to me when her shift was over to let me know all of the positive signs they were seeing in Alicia.  To provide me some comfort.  I’ll never forget that.

When family left and I was alone with Alicia, I really began to question reality and what was going on around me.  I do know that out of all of the long nights at the hospital, that night was the longest.  I stared at monitors and listened to beeps and pings all night.  My mind was in shambles.  Early that next morning though I felt that supernatural feeling I was talking about in the opening paragraph.  I felt something reside in me that gave me a little strength once again.  I don’t know what triggered it or where it came from.  It told me that I needed to be strong and that Alicia was going to be ok.  I would soon realize that I would need that push as Alicia began to come back around.  She had no idea what was going on or what had happened.  She was slowly coming back to me and would begin communicating with hand holding and pointing to letters on a pad to put sentences together.  She wasn’t able to speak thanks to all of the tubes in place on her face and down her throat.  The doctors slowly backed the strength of the machine help she was getting as she got stronger.  The worst fear was easing.  I was communicating with her and was able to see her look at me again.

Over the next few days, I had to be her eyes and ears with the docs and with G.  She didn’t remember her meds, when they were needed, anything.  She didn’t even have all of the pieces of what happened yet.  To make matters worse, Bailey hadn’t seen her mother for 2 days and it was 3 days before Alicia laid eyes on G.  Bailey was able to see her little sister the day she was born.  I had a picture from that first visit and I kept it in the room with Alicia.  As she slowly came out of unconsciousness, she would ask to see the photo more and more.  Finally, with the help of a nurse and wheelchair, Alicia was able to go see Georgia.  It was only then that I would allow happy thoughts back into my mind.  That was supposed to have happened days before.  But it was still an emotional sight.   

 After several more days of testing and observing, they were finally ready to let her go home.  We spent about 2 weeks in the hospital during that event and even going home proved to be scary.  We had a new baby, a seven year old starting 2nd grade and now a wife and mother with a heart condition on 11 different meds.  She was scared to death to even go to sleep.  I knew Alicia had it the worst.  She was, after all, the one carrying the baby and the one in pain.  I was mentally and emotionally tired but it was hard to have any pity on myself.  What I did not consider was the toll it had taken on Bailey.  She missed her mom and dad.  She had spent a lot of nights at the grandparents.  While that can be fun, not being home, with mom and dad can get old.  And not seeing or talking to mom is even harder.  She fought hard too though.  Her first day of school was when we were in the hospital but she was there and got her day in.  It was the first time we didn’t walk her into school and wish her well.  She was also a big help to Alicia over the next couple of months.  Just because we were home, that didn’t mean that Alicia was released.  She was on a lot of medication, was unable to drive and was asked to live stress free for a while.  Bailey helped make that easier by doing what was necessary to help mommy.  She showed me a lot of strength during that time.

The months that followed were a blur.  Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years – all came and went and I remained checked out.  I was happy that I had my wife back and my baby was healthy.  I had learned a lot about Alicia during that time.  First and foremost,  she’s a fighter.  She could’ve given in to the pain many times but she fought and made sure she kept G’s health a top concern.  Getting home though did not mean a jump back into society.  I was able to go and do some of the things I enjoyed doing, but I remained mentally out of touch.  My life was consumed with medication reminders, side effects and blood pressure.  Everytime she moved her leg, I would immediately panic and think the pain was back and the doctors would not be able to do anything.  Everytime we checked her blood pressure, if it went up one point, I began worrying.  I spent a lot of time wondering about whether or not the heart condition would fully heal.  And as far as work, I was as good as unemployed during that time. If not for such a supportive group of co-workers like Mark Imes, Chris Cliett, Brent Davis, April James, Christie Donald, Mitchell Smith and countless others, I would have never been able to recover in my job.  I just wasn’t able to get back into the world outside of home and family and feel totally comfortable. The family was doing well but the fear of those months had a serious effect on me.  Once everything was over, then the gravity of it all pressed down on my mental health.  Life had a different purpose and meaning.  It would take more time and more willingness to reach out to others to get me back to normal.  And that was the goal, to bring life back to normal.

To be continued…..

Joey