A Johnston County family desperate to get home to the Triangle after their dream vacation to Hawaii in April became a medical emergency.
Ellen Ennis Smith, her 37-year-old special needs son Geoffrey, and her husband Patrick, who goes by PJ, an Air Force veteran, arrived in Hawaii on April 9th. “It has always been my dream to come to Hawaii. He surprised me and he said, ‘Let’s do the trip now. Let’s make memories now.'” The three of them made memories together as they did a land and sea cruise around the islands. When they got off the cruise, PJ started feeling sick.
Ellen says her husband said to her, “I feel like I can’t breathe and we took him to urgent care. We called an ambulance and he’s been in the hospital since April 20th.”
PJ is still in the hospital in Hawaii, and Smith and Geoffrey are staying in a hotel as they did not want to leave PJ in Hawaii for the last three months. Smith adds, “He ended up with a fungal lung infection, which is difficult for someone who’s had a transplant. They can’t fight it with their immunity.”So sick that doctors intubated PJ and put him in a medically induced coma. “There were a lot of conversations, and we were preparing ourselves to say goodbye and that PJ would pass in Hawaii, but he’s a fighter,” Smith said.
PJ did fight, and he is now awake, but still in the hospital. Smith says she found a hospital here in the Triangle to accept PJ, as the goal is for them to get home to North Carolina. “It has been a long three months. I need to get back to work and start getting a paycheck again.” Smith says she also has to get back to Four Oaks for Geoffrey as he has cerebral palsy and needs to get back to his team, “My son rides horses with the North Carolina equestrian team, and if he is not back by a certain date, he loses his place on the team and this is his physical therapy. It’s his emotional therapy, and it’s been very difficult for him here because he doesn’t have a home.”…