Help the Pansoy’s Heal

Celena Sanchez is organizing this fundraiser.

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If you asked my brother in law Phil to describe himself, he would probably start with father to Tobias (3) and Eleanor (1) and husband in love with his crazy wife Monica. He may tell you stories of serving in the Navy and the lifetime bonds formed with his brothers in arms, or he might ramble on about his work in IT at his new job with great co-workers at OpenTable. He would proudly tell you about his Saturdays at church with his family in Hayward and the how-to’s of editing church videos or running sound for the musicians. He would tell you about the worship and the fellowship and would casually invite you to discover it for yourself. I hope one day Phil will tell you these stories, and our family’s faith in God’s omnipotence commits us to continual prayer for his complete restoration. For now, I will tell this story for him.

In December of 2020, Phil and Monica’s children both contracted Covid through childcare. Both Phil and Mony spent the next weeks caring for their sick kids while taking the precautions they could. Unfortunately, on January 5th of 2021, Phil contracted Covid as well. Due to complications, Phil subsequently was admitted to the ICU where he stayed for over four months.

On January 13, 2021, Phil was hospitalized at Stanford Healthcare Valleycare. January and February inched along with many ups and downs, too frequent each day to list; each medical event was defeating and humbling. It was inspiring to see the dedication of his tireless ICU nurses who gave him not only consistent support but rooted for him as if he were their brother or child. Each day in the ICU was rough, but created for Monica a new family out of strangers who gave everything they had to care for the needs of Phil.

Although his body was working to fight Covid, he was not able to avoid intubation. He was intubated for three weeks to allow his lungs to rest and recover. During the intubation, he began battling infections and failures. As we have learned about Covid, it can hit all your organs, and unfortunately that was the case with Phil. Friends and family recorded comforting words to be played to Phil during his sedation. Many loved ones from across the country sent messages of hope and prayer to the family.

A few times at the end of January, the Doctors informed Monica that they did not think Phil would make it through the night. Monica was, at the age of 30, making decisions about life and resuscitation that she never would have been expected to make otherwise. Our familial belief has always been that God has the ultimate say in anyone’s recovery and she held close to that as she made decisions.

As the next month showed, God was truly in control. The staff in the ICU dubbed him the Comeback Kid. Phil regained consciousness and was responsive. In a miraculous stretch, Phil seemed to regain his health. On February 23, 2021, his isolation orders were lifted and on February 24, 2021, Monica got permission to celebrate their 8th wedding anniversary with him in an ICU room (I helped him order her flowers and chocolate covered strawberries as a surprise). Monica sent videos to friends and family of the progress. On February 27, the hospital gave her the news that he would be moving out of ICU and to another floor of the hospital and that he was off the ventilator and breathing on his own. He passed his swallow test and was eating and drinking all on his own.

Unfortunately, the month of March brought unexpected downturns, especially devastating after such a high point. Phil started to forget who his loved ones were and who he was. He did not know where he was or what had happened. The primary focus before had been to stabilize his lungs and organs, and now his brain was showing signs of being affected as well. No doctor could answer the questions about the decline. He began to sleep all day and looked lifeless, unmoving. Phil was diagnosed with leukoencephalopathy (damage to the white matter in his brain ). The doctors are still not sure of the cause. Soon after, he suffered another life threatening episode and was re-ventilated. With a team laboring around him for weeks, Phil’s body once again made the necessary recovery to stabilize and prove that there was still fight left.

111 days after his original intake on May 5th, Phil was transferred to Kindred Hospital in San Leandro to continue recovering. Phil has started to make incremental improvements - he started by moving his toes on cue, and his feet and slight movement in his legs followed in the next weeks. We don’t know what will happen with Phil and his brain, and the next steps in his life are unknown. He has been moved to a long term acute care facility (LTAC), where the focus will be on getting him off the ventilator. Our prayer is that he will come off the ventilator strong enough to transfer to an intensive rehabilitation facility, where we pray that God allow him to handle the intensive therapy needed to regain physical mobility and some independence.

Through it all, Monica has been caring for her children, caring for Phil and maintaining her job since the beginning of January. The new facility where Phil is requires over an hour drive (one-way) from her home. She has decided to take time off work to help Phil with his rehabilitation and to spend time supporting her kids, who are also struggling with the changes in their life. The family has been without Dad at home for five months, and Monica has not had a day without juggling competing responsibilities that she used to tackle along side her husband.

We are asking that you support in any way you can to help alleviate some of the stress and financial burden on Monica and Phil. We want her focus to be on her kids and family without worrying about the financial consequences of these decisions. It is our belief that God will provide. Apart from any monetary contribution, please join us in prayer each day for the physical, mental, and spiritual health of Ryan Phillip Pansoy. It is our prayer that Phil can rejoin his family at home by God’s gracious hand, and we ask that you join us in that prayer as well.

(A note: Many of you reading this know Phil as Ryan, or Ryan as Phil; Phil introduced himself in different chapters of life as either Phil or Ryan to others, and I hope that this clarifies that they interchange depending on who he was at the time you met him).