Hello one, hello all. If you are a friend of mine on Facebook and you have been tracking my boyfriend (John) of 5 months medical progress, this post is mostly to engage an even larger audience mixed with believers and unbelievers who might be interested in giving financially or positive thoughts/prayer during his time of recovery. All of my thanks go out to every single person who has prayed, sent positive thoughts, given financially, or sacrificed their valuable time and energy for John and I. We are a very blessed couple.
Just to start this detailed report of all that has gone down since the initial incident, I'm going to start at the beginning.
On Wednesday night, November 8, 2017, I was exchanging texts with John around 8:30pm. I was unsure of when he would be home from working with a friend of his that evening; I had finished helping with our monthly dorm deep clean and was hungry for Waffle House. We agreed that whether he was going to be home sooner or later, I was good to go to Waffle House with/without him. I try to keep to a tight schedule in order to do better than I did last year at ASOM. He understood that I was trying to get back to my normal school schedule; if he could get back in time to say goodnight, he would, but he really cared about me getting rest.
After cleaning, a friend of mine and I decided to walk over to Waffle House. We then received an urgent message regarding a fellow Second Year. We had to be back by 9pm. We rushed back over, attended the meeting, and heard some news that didn't feel real until it was told by the Director of our school (please be in prayer). Afterwards, I finished eating my food and went up to my dorm room. Feeling very distraught over the news, I contemplated laying in bed and crying my eyes out, or sitting and talking with some First Years about life. I chose the latter. I left my phone on my bed to charge, and headed across the room to talk with them. After a bit of conversation, they asked me to tell the story of John and I. It's my favorite story to tell; how could I refuse?
When I return to my bed, I notice that I missed a couple calls and texts from John. He wanted to let me know that he got home earlier than he thought and since I wasn't answering, he assumed I was asleep. He proceeded to ride his skateboard to the local mexican grocery store. I quickly texted him back that I was still awake and wanted to see him. When he got to the store he saw that it was closed. At this point, he called me and informed me it was closed and that he was coming back. He asked me to meet him outside in 5 minutes. I told him that he should just text me when he got there. He expressed to me that he would really like me to be out there waiting when he arrived.
I took a couple minutes to freshen up and prepare myself to meet him. When I stepped outside, I was greeted by another student who looked fine on the outside but when she began to tell me of John at first I thought, "Yeah, I know, he's probably waiting for me; it's no big deal." But when she said that John was on the pavement with a head injury, the smile on my face quickly faded. She told me where he was and I immediately rushed from her to where John was.
At first, John didn't recognize me. He recognized me as my friend Jordyn and was instantly annoyed that she was there. He proceeded to get up, act like everything was fine, except for the small part where blood was pooling out of John's right ear. And he was as steady as a drunk man.
An ambulance was called, and John was confused as to why it was called for him. He was reluctant to get onto the stretcher. Eventually he did get on it and was placed inside the ambulance. This began the worst part of the whole situation. John has told me before of his past with anxiety and once the neck brace was put on him, he flew into a huge anxiety attack. It hurt my heart to be sitting up in the passenger seat, feeling like I should be in the cab with the other nurse/doctor/whatever their proper title is. I did mention to the woman back there that he does have anxiety, but I don't think she really listened to me.
Upon arriving at the hospital, he was very insistent on getting water. However, with his fresh head injury, it was not a good idea for him to drink anything until they could get a scan of his head. They even tried giving him a little bit of water and he almost immediately threw it up. He really didn't calm down until he was brought up to ICU. They had him on haldol which is a common antipsychotic drug (not that John is or ever has been or ever will be psychotic 😅) due to how he was constantly trying to get out of the hospital bed/removing IV's, etc. He was on it for only a day.
The next day, he woke up for a second, waved at me and slightly smiled. I came to him and he touched his forehead as if to indicate he wanted to be touched there. I did so and then he asked me to kiss his forehead in which I gladly did 😊.
Each time he would wake up, he would complain of headache which was due to his head injury. The doctors informed me that on the left side of his head has a contusion which is a bruising of the skull and on the right side he has a slight fracture on the outermost layer of his skull. They told me that if someone were to fracture their skull, that would be the best place to do so. John also had a little bit of blood on his brain due to the injury. It is also the main reason for his headaches and him getting more easily agitated than normal.
The next night, since John's recent scans had stabilized, he was moved from ICU to CCU. There he would still be monitored but less often. In CCU we had some more interactions. He was able to conversate with me, repeating himself only twice after I got to mostly explain what happened. He was able to pull me close to him for a hug. He whispered to me, "I need to be strong enough to get out of here."
The day after that he was more insistent in asking to leave. Around 10am, the physical therapy doctors came by to check him out. He went for a short walk around the hospital, displayed fine thinking and simple math skills. Afterwards, I'm guessing he was tired because he laid down to sleep a little longer.
When he woke up, he asked again to be checked out and allowed to leave. The doctor during this shift told him she was going to get the neurologist to check him out and in the meantime she would bring by a paper that he needed to sign in order to be released. When she came back, he was asleep and wouldn't wake up again.
We (the doctors and I) hoped he would stay at the hospital at least until his mom got there. But at 1am today, November 11, 2017, he was adamant about leaving the hospital. Right that very moment. I bursted into tears. The nurse thought that I would be unwilling to take John home but I assured her that wasn't the case. I would take John home; of course. How could I just leave him to wander the streets carelessly? I couldn't. I wouldn't. Never, ever, ever. Everyone besides John thought he should at least stay until 6am. He wouldn't hear it. He signed the paper. We packed up our stuff, tried to reason with him one more time, he stayed true to his plan.
Even before he entered the dorm building, his best friend of 10 years tried to talk sense into him. He still insisted on sleeping in his own bed. So we let him in, he went to bed for an hour. Then he woke up and took a shower all on his own.
In bringing him back to the dorms, I really had to place him and my trust in God's hands. John has always been protected well by God, and when I heard from an eye-witness what happened, the way God responded when the enemy attacked John was truly beautiful.
The student that rushed to tell me of John's accident was sitting outside with her boyfriend not even 40 seconds before John went down. All she saw was a skateboard fly. She didn't see a person fall until her and her boyfriend rushed out to find the skateboard. She recognized John right away. When she was coming back inside the dorms to grab another male was the very moment that I stepped outside to meet my love.
From those details down to no severe brain damage or skull damage, no surgery needed, it is evident how much God was smiling down on John during this attack.
Today, I am thankful for God not missing a second of what happened. I am thankful for His healing power working evidently in John's body. I am grateful for strong, sober-minded friends who held me steady when I felt I could hardly contain my desire to be hysterical. I am thankful for a new sense of closeness with John's family. Ideally, I wanted to meet them under better circumstances but what better way to let my real character shine than in this desperation?
I don't know what John's medical bill will look like. I can only imagine its horrificness. I am asking first that you pray. If you feel led to donate towards his bill (and I can greatly assure you every dollar given will go towards paying off his bill--it's top priority) you can send it through my PayPal email:
angelistic124@yahoo.com
Should you have further questions, feel free to comment. Be blessed and be at peace. Our God is with us.
💙Samantha Scott
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