Pause.

My whole life feels as if it’s on pause as I wait for answers, and yet the sun continues to rise and fall. It’s hard to explain the suspense; I’m barely holding it together as minutes turn to hours, and hours turn into days. Becoming unattached, numb to the grief … I’m not living, just surviving—waiting to break. On Sunday, January 30th, an ambulance ride to the hospital led to a life-altering zoom call with one of the world’s top neurosurgeons, explaining the true severity and complexity of Brocks situation.

On Wednesday, January 26th, I had a zoom call with the Australian doctor. He gave an in-depth explanation of Brock’s functional MRI results (this type of MRI looks at how the brain communicates and sends signals to various areas of the brain while completing simple tasks). Brock’s short term memory (the fornix) is still sending some signals, but not correctly, hence his short term memory deficiencies. However, the doctor explained that the reason this is happening is a medical mystery…another daunting term to add to the list. Brock didn’t have a stroke in the brain, and the neurosurgeon was extra cautious to avoid damage during surgery, and yet here we are. This doctor developed a TMS treatment that can’t be found anywhere else in the world…it is cutting edge. The simple goal would be for the electromagnetic pulses to ‘shock’ specific areas of Brock’s brain back into a normal rhythm. There are no side effects or guarantees. It will either cause improvement or nothing at all. He was ready and willing to take Brock as soon as February 14th! My prayer going into this zoom call was for unity; I wanted our next steps to be clear to not just me, but our families as well. A seemingly impossible prayer answered—we hung up the call and everyone was confident that Australia was our next step. Brock’s new passport even got returned to us in one week thanks to a state representative who heard our story. Waymaker.

In the early hours of Sunday, January 30th, I woke to Brock shouting to me from the bathroom that he “can’t walk”. Normally this would freak a person out, but because of our current circumstances, I took this with a grain of salt. To put things into perspective: I was startled awake earlier in the night to Brock climbing out of bed to get dressed because in his words “his dad was outside honking the horn waiting for him”. I told him to look out the window to see that there were no cars in the driveway, but in his mind his dad was still there. It is a battle to bring him back to actuality. As the morning progressed, Brock continued to struggle to move or stand on his legs. I had his dad come over in hopes that Brock would ‘snap’ out of it, but through tearful eyes and might, he just had no strength. The ambulance was called and the kids were rushed to grandma’s house. A normal me would start to panic, but I have become numb to the adrenaline rush of crisis. Time ticked by as I sat waiting for answers with an extra-confused and now paralyzed husband. The doctor came in and explained that his electrolyte and sodium levels were unbalanced, causing diabetes insipidus. DI is when your body can’t properly balance fluids. The pituitary gland and hypothalamus help in our bodies natural ability to balance fluid levels, but both are currently not functioning properly. Brock was admitted and transported to the fourth floor, room 4112. The same floor and room he was placed in post surgery on October 26th, the dreadful night I sat by his bedside begging him to wake up. I paused before going through the double doors to the locked unit…how could this be? Deja Vu. The sweet nurses recognized us right away. We were known as the ‘high school sweethearts with three kids’…it is a bittersweet feeling to be known and loved by the hospital staff. Brock was placed under critical care as they started the process of balancing out his levels. High sodium levels can have detrimental effects on the body, some of those being muscle weakness and confusion, which explained Brock’s dilemma. That same week, I spent many nights awake taking care of sick kids, only to walk out the door in the morning, torn between being a mom or a wife. I couldn’t be both and it broke me. When will enough be enough? As his levels slowly balanced out, his muscle strength returned, allowing him to walk again. He was discharged on Friday, February 5th, after a five night stay.

While in the hospital, I got an email from the clinic over in Australia, stating that one of the partners from the clinic would like to have a consultation with Brock. This is a colleague of the Australian doctor, and together they started up the clinic. We will call the colleague Dr. X to make it easier. The zoom call was scheduled for Saturday, February 6th, and I naively expected it to be a simple, quick call to establish final details before finalizing our travel plans. Dr. X is one of the top neurosurgeons in the world, and very well-versed in rare and complicated craniopharyngioma tumors, as well as the post surgical effects that it has on the body. I explained our story and current situation and how Brock was just recently in the hospital for DI. In turn, Dr. X explained that although not cancerous, this tumor is just as aggressive, and surrounded by a variety of delicate areas of the brain. Treatment is controversial—some surgeons will remove the whole tumor (regardless of damaging those delicate areas to avoid regrowth), while others will remove most, but not all, in order to avoid damage and give a better quality of life post surgery. Brock is worst case scenario: residual tumor left behind, and damage to crucial areas of the brain. A short summary of that dreadful hour-long call is this: ambulance calls like last week will continue until it’s too late. Because of Brock having DI as well as damage to the pituitary gland and hypothalamus, dangerously elevated sodium levels will be a regular occurrence. Dr. X said that I needed to shift my focus off of his memory and onto keeping him alive and stable. Insert gut punch.

Now what? That’s a great question … Brock is currently on a medication given to Alzheimers patients. It has made some improvement in his memory, and I got approved to up the dose, but it comes with side effects. In the next couple of weeks we will tour some different rehab facilities who are well versed in brain injury. I will be working closely with endocrinology to get levels monitored more frequently. Being Brock’s caretaker is weighing on myself and the kids. I am realizing just how limited I am to do it all. I was able to work out a hybrid schedule where he spends the daytime hours with his parents and/or grandparents 4 days of the week. This works for now but isn’t a long term solution. Brock is blissfully unaware of his health dilemmas, but too emotionally aware to go to a live-in facility. How do I move forward? Do I keep fighting for his memory in hopes of getting my husband and kid’s father back, or do I solely focus on his hormone levels? Currently, both seem to be unattainable.

This is where I sit, in an unimaginable scenario of unknowns. I stare at a silhouette of my husband trying to grapple with the thought that he will most likely never be back. A celebratory family trip to look back on this journey is becoming a fading dream. No longer crying over how many missed holidays and birthdays, but instead weeping and wondering how many more we have together as a family to celebrate. I find it hard to pray anymore, and I can’t decide if my heart is hardening or if this is just part of the grieving process. Honestly I don’t have the strength to find out; low mumbled prayers are all I have left. God promises us hope and a future, but now, hope and health seem to be antonyms. I find myself questioning where does my hope actually come from? Do I want the healing more than the Healer?

"...We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” 2 Chronicles 20:12