Hi all, just a quick post to thank everyone who has reached out to my wife and myself with their condolences. It's deeply appreciated. We're very touched by the outpouring of support from our peers and fellow gamers.
In answer to someone's question up above, Amber had Cerebral Palsy. She was sharp as a whip and had an incredible sense of humor. She filled every empty spot in our lives and her smile was contagious. It's the one thing almost everyone who met her has mentioned these past few days.
She was in a wheel chair all of her life but it didn't really hold her down. She had more good days than bad and although her health had been steadily declining in recent years her death was quite unexpected.
Last Monday in the wee hours of the morning, my wife woke me to tell me Amber wanted to go to the ER. She had what we thought was the flu and had been feeling nauseous the night before. We weren't to alarmed as we made the drive to the hospital. We thought we'd have the standard several-hour wait and they would prescribe meds and we'd be back home by lunch.
Within minutes of the nurse attempting to draw blood however her heart stopped. What followed was a 12 hour ordeal. I won't go into details but she never regained consciousness and in the end we asked the doctors to let her pass should her heart stop again.
It's the most difficult thing I've ever experienced and our hearts are broken. But we're grateful she passed before either myself or my wife. As any parent of a child with special needs will tell you one of the greatest fears/concerns is "what will happen to our child when we are gone?"
The thought of her in a nursing home with less attentive care-takers than what she'd been used to was almost unbearable.
We're grateful she passed quickly with relatively little pain/anzexity. It was always our fear there would be a 'long goodbye" with a lengthy hospital stay and a lot of pain.
She's free now. It will be difficult continuing our journey without her but we're comforted by the thought she's in a better place.
Once again, our thanks to everyone who has reached out to the Blackburn family.
Jolly and Barbara Blackburn