Holding on

The surgery was successful. He could wiggle his toes and move his left arm. We clung to that—those small signs of hope. But even though the bleeding had stopped, the inflammation was only getting worse, and it would continue to over the next few days. The pressure on his spinal cord hadn’t eased.

The main concern now was his breathing and his blood pressure. Neither would stabilize. Even on high ventilator settings, he struggled to maintain adequate oxygen levels, and his blood pressure would spike without warning—putting him at risk for re-bleeding. The doctors and nurses were doing everything they possibly could.

And us… all we could do was wait. And pray.

The morning after his surgery, everything changed again. He took a severe turn for the worse. During his hourly neuro check, his nurse, Dom, noticed he wasn’t responding the same—and then, no movement. None. It was all gone again.

He acted immediately. They rushed him back to MRI. We held our breath, praying it wasn’t another bleed. By the grace of God, it wasn’t. But the inflammation had spread—far beyond what we had hoped.

His injury was at C4, but now the inflammation had climbed above C1 and stretched all the way down to T4. Nearly his entire spinal cord was under attack. Every system in his body below C1 was being affected.

It was overwhelming. It was terrifying. And it felt so incredibly out of our control.

So Brett and I did the only thing we knew to do—we went to the chapel. And somehow, in the middle of all that chaos, a Catholic priest just happened to be there, preparing to say Mass. It didn’t feel like coincidence. It felt like God met us right where we were.

We sat in that chapel, hearts shattered but desperate for peace. After Mass, we spoke with him—Fr. Expedito—and asked if he would anoint Camden through the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.

Standing there, watching that moment… it was holy. It was still. It was something deeper than fear.

We didn’t know what was going to happen, but we knew this—God was with him. God was with us. And somehow, that gave us just enough strength to keep going.

The next few days were critical. His lungs would take turns collapsing, making it harder and harder for him to breathe. Most of the time, he couldn’t respond. But every now and then, he would open his eyes… and sometimes, he could nod or shake his head to answer yes-or-no questions.

Those moments felt like everything.

But the doctors continued to prepare us. They told us his prognosis was poor. Guarded. That we needed to be ready for the possibility that he may not recover.

On day two after surgery, I truly thought we were losing him.

His lung collapsed again. They tried to reposition him, but it dislodged everything that had built up in his lungs. His oxygen saturations dropped—fast—into the 60s.

Time slowed.

He opened his eyes and looked straight at me. And there was fear in them. Pure fear.

I knew he couldn’t breathe. And I couldn’t help him.

I have never felt that level of panic and helplessness in my life. It consumed me. I walked over to wake Brett as the room suddenly filled with nurses and doctors. Everything moved so fast.

They pulled him off the ventilator and began bagging him, ushering us out of the room. They told us to go to the waiting room—but we couldn’t. We wouldn’t. We needed to be as close to him as possible.

And then… God moved.

Through the hands of his medical team, through their urgency and skill, through every second that felt like it might be his last—he stabilized.

By the grace of God, he stabilized.

The days that followed were still fragile. Still uncertain. They constantly adjusted his oxygen and ventilator settings, watching every number, every breath.

But slowly… something began to change.

He started to stabilize.

And then, on day four post-op, it happened—he moved his left hand.

It was small. So small. But to us, it was everything.

It was a miracle.

He was fighting—harder than any of us could have ever imagined. Even when he couldn’t respond, even when his body felt so still… he was in there.

That was who Camden had always been. He gave everything he had in everything he did. And even now, in the hardest battle of his life, he wasn’t giving up.

He was already defying the odds.

And we had no idea just how much fight was still in him.

His story wasn’t ending here.

It was only just beginning.