4 years ago…

4 years ago my world stopped, plans stopped, and life as we knew it changed forever. Last Saturday marked 4 years of the scariest day of my life. Some of you know this about me but not a lot of people do. I don’t talk about it much or if I do I really don’t tell a lot of detail…. because to be honest every time I do I get knots in my stomach. Lately I feel like so many families are facing tragedies. My Aunt Tina is still battling cancer, my neighbors little girl, who is one, just found out she has partial hearing loss, a friend of a friend just found out that her unborn baby has serious complications, and it just seems like every time I turn around I hear of something else going on. You want to just ask why?…

Okay well here it is in a really short version(or as short as I can make it)…. January 21st, 2007 Jeremy woke up with a really bad headache. It got worse throughout the day until we ended up taking him to the doctor. After evaluating him they said he had a migraine headache and sent us home with medicine. Keep in mind that at this point we had only been married for 4 months. These series of events is a bit of a blur but here you go. That night, just after midnight, he woke me up and said, “Kristy help!“. I look over and he is having a seizure. I called 911 and what seemed like years they finally arrived and took him by ambulance to the local hospital. At that point he was completely incoherent. I road in the ambulance with them, but because he was not responding they made me ride up front. I guess they saw what a wreck I was and figured I wouldn’t be much help. When we arrived at the hospital he was having seizure after seizure. They immediately took him back for a CT scan. At this point my mom had arrived, thank God. The nurse walked out and said, “Mrs. Dickerson, your husband’s brain is bleeding. At this point we don’t know the extent of the damage but we are life-flighting him to a neurology unit. You need to say your goodbyes.” I begged to go with them, but of course they said no. So in a busy bustling hospital hall I said my goodbyes to my incoherent husband and told him I would meet him there… not knowing what would happen next.

My Mom and I left and darted to the hospital to meet him. When I say darted…. that is an understatement. It was 3 in the morning and I remember my mom’s car engine making sounds because we were going so fast. Not quite sure how we did it but we beat the helicopter!

After unloading him and staying in an ER holding room all night, we finally met the doctor that morning. He told me we had two options at this point, brain surgery to try to stop the bleeding or just wait and see if it will stop on it’s own. If we went with the surgery it could result in permanent brain damage and possibly effect his motor skills and/or his speech. If we didn’t do surgery and it didn’t stop bleeding… well, yeah. We couldn’t make a decision and at this point his seizures were starting to dissipate, so we decided to wait. The doctor concluded he had an aneurysm and it was probably related to stress. Day two Jeremy started coming around, and soon after they sent him home with me. He had slurred speech, loss of function in his right arm, and was still having seizures. By far the lowest point in my life. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t leave his side, I was a wreck. As days went on he started to get better. Slowly they were able to start controlling the seizures with medicine, and day-by-day he started to return to somewhat normal.

Towards the end of February he woke up one morning and said his leg was hurting. That it felt like he had a pulled muscle or something. Of course I started panicking and “Googling”… FYI if you are suspicious of anything related to medicine, don’t ever Google it, just go to the doctor. 🙂 I came across a bunch of posts and I saw one that said blood clot. I immediately made Jeremy get in the car and go to the ER. I really didn’t think he had a blood clot but I wasn’t taking any chances with anything. And sure enough he had a blood clot in his left leg that was moving up and heading to his lungs. Really? Really? Can you repeat that again…. They immediately took him into surgery and inserted a vena cava filter. Just in case it broke loose, it would help take away some of the impact. Typically with a blood clot you treat it with a blood thinner. But remember 2 months earlier his brain was bleeding… So really, they told us they didn’t know what to do. Perfect, right?… just what we wanted to hear. Weeks went by and his leg kept getting bigger and bigger due to decreased blood flow. Specialist after specialist we finally met Dr.Kempton at Emory Healthcare. She did a ton of tests and asked a ton of questions. She called one afternoon and said to come in. Jeremy was then told he had a genetic disorder known as Factor V Leiden. Five percent of Americans have the disorder, but it typically only shows up during a traumatic experience. Then she went on to tell us that of that 5%, a few who have the disorder actually have the homozygous version(meaning both of the genes are malfunctioned), which is really rare and pretty severe, and yes, Jeremy has Factor V Leiden Homozygous. Through all of this I became obsessed with medicine and knowledge with his disorder. I created a folder and documented everything at every doctor visit and every new pill bottle he received. There was one thing that she said that day that gave me a peaceful mind for the first time in 6 months. She said, “I promise we are going to get you living back to a “normal” life.”

So where is his disorder now? It is still there, and monitored and treated daily. He is on Coumadin, which is a blood thinner to control the clotting. In 2008 they were able to start weening him off the seizure medicine. In January of 2009 he was completely taken off the seizure medicine and a CT scan confirmed that the blood had completely dissipated from his brain.

He is 80 times more likely to clot than a normal person. If he gets dehydrated he can clot, if he breaks a bone he can clot, etc… I don’t talk about it for many reasons but the main reason is I want to live “normal”. I don’t want to look at my son and lose my breath because I am afraid of what if. I don’t want to be afraid to live. Yes, I am over protective and, yes, I make him text me every time he goes to the doctor to get his blood level checked. Yes, every time he gets a slight headache or starts feeling sick I freak out. And yes my husband laughs at me and jokes saying, “Why can’t I do this… Oh wait, I will answer, because I am on Coumadin.”

Here is a snapshot of my crazy folder… organized by dates. 🙂 Why was he dealt these cards?… who knows why anyone is. Our son also has the disorder but he is heterozygous, meaning he only has one malfunctioned gene. Which means he is 8 times more likely to clot than a normal person instead of 80. Both of Jeremy’s parents have one malfunctioned gene and didn’t even know it and they are in their sixties. So there it is. Saturday I gave platelets and blood for my Aunt Tina, and it also marked Jeremy’s 4 year anniversary. Prior to Saturday I had never donated blood before but I vouch that this will become a regular thing and what a day to start it on. I don’t think we will ever really know why… why anyone has to deal with health complications. But looking back it has shaped both of us into the people we are today. I have to say though, dealing with something like this, yes, it has it’s blessings. It was hard to understand or see it back four years ago, but I think going through something like that was a wake-up call and a reminder that life is short and precious. Jeremy having the series of events he did also lead me to pick up a camera and eventually become a wedding photographer. So when a bride asks why I shoot weddings or what makes me tick… you can see it is way deeper for me.

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.”- Buddha