My phone rang while I was heading home. It was my six-year-old daughter, sobbing, saying she was in pain everywhere and terrified. I asked where her dad was. She said he was there—suffering too, helpless. I drove faster than I ever had, my heart pounding with fear. What I walked into moments later shattered every expectation I had.

I kept thinking about that phone call. About how close I’d come to losing everything because of something invisible.

When we were discharged, the house was declared unsafe until repairs were complete. Friends took us in. My company granted me emergency leave. Life slowed, then slowly began to reset.

But I was no longer the same person.

Surviving didn’t mean the fear ended.
In many ways, that was when it truly began.

Michael came home after six days in the hospital, thinner and quieter than the man who had been carried out on a stretcher. He tried to act normal, joked weakly with Sophie, thanked everyone who visited—but at night, I could hear him awake, staring at the ceiling, breathing too carefully, as if afraid his lungs might betray him again.

Continue reading…