“I was rushed to the PICU. I tried to stay calm, but I was terrified. I couldn’t help but think, ‘How could I have done anything wrong to deserve this?’ I hid everything behind a smile, but I knew my life would never be ‘normal’ again.”
‘I woke up with the worst pain. ‘They’re just headaches,’ I said. Something in my mom’s heart kept pushing. ‘There’s something in your brain,’ the doctor said. I was 11, and so confused.’
‘The guy who brought me to the party passed out. I should have left him, but I’m a loyal person. I fell asleep and was awoken by a man’s body on top of mine. I couldn’t move and yelled for help.’
“I remember telling my mom, ‘I would die if something happened to you.’ She always reassured me, ‘I’m not going anywhere Erica.’ I whole-heartedly believed she would live forever. Then she started complaining of severe headaches. Selfishly, I thought, ‘Well if God took my Grannie, he can’t take my mom too.'”
‘For the first 3 months everything seemed fine. At 4 months old, we noticed her soft spot looked different and started bulging from her head. Then, our lives changed forever.’
“One morning, Ellie woke up in extreme pain. We rushed to the ER. The MRI would give us news that would completely devastate our family. It never gets easier to watch her in pain when all you want to do, in your job as a mom, is take their pain away.”
‘I told him his grandfather was dying. ‘He doesn’t look good, and may not recognize you.’ He said, ‘that’s fine Mom, I’ll just sit with him then.’ I looked over, and saw this.’
“An hour later, my brother called me. ‘Meghan I just found dad in the bathroom, he isn’t responsive.’ ‘Facetime me, let me try and talk to him!’ ‘No Meghan, I’m telling you, there’s something wrong.’ The image of my dad is something I’ll never forget.”
‘His eyes would shake back and forth. He started throwing his head back, screaming at the top of his lungs. He had lost so much weight. Something was terribly wrong with my bundle of joy.’
“Three doctors came in. They told us we needed to sit down and relax. Nothing could ever have prepared us for what they were about to say. I just sat there, blank. He’s just a baby.”
‘Doctors said my surgery would be smooth, and all would go well. To my surprise, I woke up in the ICU with tubes coming out of me, double vision, and not able to walk.’
“In an instant, my whole world came crashing down. I knew I needed to call my mom. I had no idea how to break the news to her though. That’s a parent’s worst nightmare.”
‘We lost Addy on June 3rd. We found out 3 weeks later my wife was pregnant.’ Father reveals pregnancy news 3 months after losing daughter to aggressive brain tumor
“We didn’t have much time left with her, but our hope was to have her long enough to tell her she was going to be a big sister. It would have lit up her world. That happy news was never delivered.”
