People often ask, “When did all the health struggles start for you guys?” You’ll be surprised to know that our family’s health saga didn’t begin with my mom or me. In fact, our journey began when my dad became gravely sick with bacterial spinal meningitis.
If you know my dad at all, then you know that the man doesn’t understand the concept of “sick-days,” matter-of-fact it wasn’t until meningitis came pounding at his door that I can ever recall him even taking a sick day.
I have this vivid image in my mind from the day that dad got sick. I was running up the stairs to change for soccer practice as I glanced to the left of the staircase to see my dad laying on the bathroom floor. I asked him if he was going to make it soccer practice and he told me that he was sick and that mom was going to take him to the doctor. I finished my sprint up the stairs to change and then headed to soccer practice.
It was at soccer practice after my friend’s parents and my coach showed their concern of my seemingly superhuman of a dad who never “got sick,” that I would start to wonder if something was really wrong. Coming home from soccer I was greeted by my mom’s best friend; all I knew was that mom had taken dad to the doctor. I wouldn’t see mom again until the next morning when she came home to change. She gave my brother and me hugs, she cried, but I still didn’t have the slightest clue as to what was going on. My mom’s best friend took us to school and that’s when I figured out that everything was not okay.
My mom and dad had gone to urgent care. After a few tests, vitals, and examination the urgent care called not the nearest hospital, but the hospital that could handle infectious diseases. Mom assured the urgent care that she would make no stops but drive directly to the emergency room. The E.R was ready for dad when mom pulled up. Mom parked the car in a panic. The E.R. began its litany of tests and came to the diagnosis of meningitis.
In the early hours of the morning, dad was sent to the ICU. They instructed mom to go home as they moved dad to ICU and as they performed a spinal tap to diagnose what type of meningitis he had contracted. Mom went to find her car that morning and couldn’t remember in the slightest where she had parked in the panic of the night before. As she was thinking of where to even start to look, a hospital security officer pulled up beside her and asked if she needed help. She explained the situation and the officer informed her that he knew where her car was, as he had just seen the lights flashing. He took mom to her car and mom made her way home to change. After hugging my brother and me and changing mom went back to the E.R.
Something you need to understand about the school I was attending was that it wasn’t just a school, it was family. My mom worked at the school, my brother attended the high school, I was in the elementary school and all our friends were there. So, when I showed up to school that day, everybody knew what was going on, even if I couldn’t comprehend it all. A couple hours into the day some of the moms pulled me out of class to check in on me. I managed my way through the rest of the day until school was out and it was time for me to go see my dad.
The doctors gave little hope. My dad was in ICU and not just normal ICU, but isolation ICU. The kind where they wear yellow zip-up suits and white astronaut looking helmets. The kind of place where no personal belongings are allowed, and nurses and doctors scrub themselves down as they leave the room.
Dad had contracted bacterial spinal meningitis. He was given a low chance of survival and was told he had hours to live.
Dad was supposed to have gone to Africa for work and had received among many vaccinations, the yellow fever vaccine. Dad had received a bad batch of the vaccine and was now fighting off bacterial meningitis. We were informed that the 2 other people who had received the same contaminated vaccine had died.
My dad’s company flew my grandparents in so that they could say their goodbyes. Dad’s brain was swelling and there was nothing they could do. They tried to make him comfortable, but nothing seemed to dull the bomb exploding in his brain.
It was my first time in an ICU. I remember seeing old people and thinking to myself, “Why is dad here? These people look like they’re dying!” They walked us all the way to the corner past the rest of the ICU patients, the more we walked, the sicker people looked.
I saw mom first and some other people around her. Mom looked through a glass window. I stood as tall as I could and looked through the window to see my dad. The nurse snuck dad’s phone into the room with him and mom handed me her phone. It was the first time I ever saw my dad cry. I remember that day pretty vividly for it being 12 years ago.
When dad made it to that night, the doctors confidently said that he would not make it through the night.
The next morning my dad was still as ornery as ever. The doctors had no explanation but warned that if for “some reason” my dad made it through, that he would have severe brain damage due to the amount of swelling.
3 days later dad was moved to a normal unit in the hospital. That day was the first day I would realize hospitals are only scary when you let them be.
Less than 8 days from when dad was first told he was dying, my dad walked out of the hospital with no remanence of meningitis.
My mom went to thank the security officer who had helped her find her car. The head of security said that no one with his name worked for them.
In the weeks following my dad’s miracle recovery he would get the chance to share his story to hundreds of students. The only physical proof of his sickness would be the bruises up and down his arms from the IV’s.
Less than 2 weeks from dad being released from the hospital mom would go into respiratory arrest in an ambulance and start her medical journey.
While mom was in the hospital dad and I would be at Target when someone from my school would recognize my school uniform and ask if I had been in chapel that day when a guy had shared his miracle recovery. The mom would share how her husband wouldn’t even discuss God, but the testimony of some superhuman of a guy who got gravely sick with a rare type of meningitis and was miraculously healed would lead to a conversation with her husband and ultimately the miraculous salvation of his soul.
Less than 6 months later I would fracture my back and begin my medical journey.
Today on World Meningitis Day 2020 our family celebrates and remembers the miracles we have witnessed.
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