Sacrifices for a dream deferred

Hi, my name is Tamiko Chandler and I am the daughter of the people featured in my cover photo. They are my parents George and Rose Berry. I chose their picture because my family and I are in a serious situation that calls for love and sacrifices. Have you ever found yourself in a position that calls for you to be the next of kin for not one but potentially both parents. This is a story of a teacher, a Vietnam veteran, and a wife/mother turned caregiver. This is our story! I became a teacher 2008. As I was studying and going through student teaching, my family and I was planning our Thanksgiving meal one year. I offered to do desserts, specifically cheesecake. I began looking online at different recipes and didn’t like anything I saw. I said I would try my own. I made a Carmel apple cheesecake from scratch for my family and they were blown away. My oldest son was 2 at the time, and we would just make cheesecakes for friends and family all the time after that. This was 2005! My son is now 18 years old and preparing for his freshman year of college. I fell in love with cheesecakes and found joy in serving customers near and far. I decided to put the dream in 2nd place and became a teacher to care for my son and I. The dream always lingered and people have supported it as a 2nd job/side hustle for many many years. I sacrificed, but never let it go. People know me for having an amazing product and and often joke when I’m out, asking do I have any cheesecakes in my purse. We laugh, but it always reminds me of the passion I have for putting a smile on the face of others. Let’s fast forward to 2018. My family and I decided to try something different. My husband and I moved our family to San Antonio, Tx to try something new. Things were going well until December 2019. During a visit back home for Christmas, my father, the Vietnam Veteran took a nasty fall outside and hit his head on a corner of a brick on the house. We took him in for evaluation but they only patched up his scar on his eye. They never did a CT scan or anything. We didn’t think to ask for one because we are not medical professionals. Well he is a disabled vet, so he was receiving PT on a regular basis for his disability that has gotten worse over time. During a PT session in January they noticed his stance off. My mom had also noticed his mobility was changing. He was falling in the house. The PT jumped on it and said something was wrong. They rushed and did a CT scan and discovered that he was bleeding on the brain. He would need emergency brain surgery within the next 24 hours. I had to get a plane ticket and fly back to Memphis to make it in time for the procedure. They said the blood had been there for a few weeks and the longer blood sits on your brain, the more damage it causes. They completed the surgery but because the blood had been sitting on a pocket of his brain for that amount of time, it literally caused the section of his brain to sink and that caused an early onset of dementia. My father was being diagnosed with having dementia and we were devastated. He needed intense therapy and recovery after the surgery and was away from home for 3 months in a rehabilitation facility, leaving mom alone for the first time (this wouldn’t be the only time she would experience this however). Mom instantly became a caregiver after working for over 40 years and retiring from her job in 2018. She was no longer retired, she had to work daily to provide care for him, all while caring for the home and cooking all of the meals and keeping up with all of different appointments with the VA. Things were running ok, but when Covid hit we decided to come back to Memphis/Southaven to be here to help her because it was a lot. We left Texas in he summer of 2020. I kept teaching, and we would come over on evenings and weekends to help out. Well fast forward to March 2022. He began to lose even more mobility and one day he went in the restroom and lost his balance. He fell and landed on the bathtub and was injured. My sister and I worked together to get him to the VA and mom joined us later on. Well it was determined that he did break a bone in his back, but they wanted to admit him into the spinal unit of the hospital to help with the mobility issues he was experiencing and to help him learn to wear a back brace instead of doing a surgery to repair the break due to his age. He was 71 at the time, he has since turned 72. This was March 9, 2022. They said we will keep him for a few weeks to help him with the rehab that he needed. Well after one week of rehab, he began to get very sick. Nothing could stay on his stomach. He was very sick! They did a CT scan on his stomach to see why he was so sick, and they discovered that he had a bowel obstruction. Mathis basically meant that his bowel was damaged near and around his small intestines. They would need to do emergency surgery to repair this issue, and we are all worried and discouraged because this would be his 3rd time having this particular surgery. They said the issue is that when you have major surgery like this, scar tissue becomes an issue because it keeps coming back and causing more damage (the scar tissue). So ultimately they were blaming it on scar tissue. They presented the case to mother who had to consent to the surgery. She did, it was needed to save him. Anyone would’ve given consent to save their loved ones as well. Well they began the surgery but had to stop due to dehydration from the previous days of not being able to hold anything down. They would keep him under anesthesia for 4 days, checking on him daily to see if his body was recovering from the initial cuts and the work. They would not be able to close my father’s incision until Sunday. They began this work on Wednesday. My mother, sister, and I are scared at this point. They closed him up but said that since he had it so many times before, he didn’t have all of the necessary components needed to close the left and right side together in so many words. The closed incision would slowly begin to reopen. He was not ok and now we are having complications from surgery. He would need to be hospitalized and bed-riden and not released to go home until early June. 3 months of hospitalization for a dementia patient is not good. Mom is now home alone again for 3 months and my sister and I are doing all we can. They finally agreed to let him come home but he now has this wound in his abdomen area that needs intense care and it sits right about the private area of his body, my sister snd I would not be able to help much. Additionally since it’s connected to his stomach and not healing, they have him on a no food/drink by mouth diet. We have to provide liquid diet through iv daily. He came home And we all became medical staff, with my mom being the main caregiver of all things. We were told there was nothing else they could do ☹️. Imagine going to the hospital for a broken bone to hearing we’ve done all we can do!!! Let that sink in!! That’s the gut punch we felt!! By the time they discharged him, they began to seem slow progress and said we will just monitor him weekly and provide transportation service to and from the hospital weekly since he couldn’t get out of bed. Things flipped in our lives overnight. Well let’s visit the cheesecakes again. In august of 2021, i discovered an amazing opportunity for my now established business Cheesysugar. I found a shared commercial kitchen that welcomed me with open arms. Memphis kitchen Co-Op was a heaven sent and truly helped me take my business to a new level. I gained so much knowledge and access to new customers through their marketplace for vendors like myself. I would teach in the day, and bake in the evenings at the kitchen. I loved it, no matter how tired I was. I worked there from August 2021-May 2022 and that’s when I realized that I couldn’t do everything I had on my plate with the awareness of my father returning home eventually. I spoke to the owners of the business and let them know that I would have to step away from my business to help care for my father. I knew my mother would need help, there was no question about it. So back to daddy! He was home by early June and my sister and I would help clean and care for the home. We ran any and all errands. By now it’s summer and I’m a teacher, so I’m pretty free to work for them. There was always something to do we have kept busy. Well my father’s dementia did get worse with that extended hospital stay, and now that he’s home it’s been challenging. He left one way, and returned totally different and we are all trying our best to see it through. My sister, mom, and I would often pray God please keep mama strong and healthy, because what will happen to daddy if mom goes down. Well July 6th, God set us on a new level of this test. Mom was not feeling well and had taken all that she could. I came to sit with my dad to care for him when she drove to the ER. They discovered a mass growing on her esophagus behind her lungs. We are currently awaiting answers about her condition. God is good in spite of the uncertainty that we are facing as family. During my break from my business, my keeps flipping back to it and how much I love it. God is pushing me towards my goal, becoming a bakery owner. We believe that the feelings about owning the bakery has intensified because we are in a big shift in our lives and God has put this dream back in the table. I’ve spent much of my adult life sacrificing for others and my parents believe wholeheartedly in my vision and dream. So much so, they never let me give them cheesecakes. They always pay for it. Talk about believing in your child! They said they have to set the standard because it is a great product and everyone should support it, including them. So here I am, facing a big dream in the face of uncertainty. I am asking for assistance to purchase the bakery equipment to build the kitchen in our location, but we want to have the equipment secured before we begin to move forward. I hope this story inspires you to take care of your families, but never let go of your dreams. We have had so many people ask what they can do to help. Here’s what we came up with. Help CheesySugar, LLC become a store front bakery. It’s not only a dream of mine that is in process of becoming true, but it’s something that my parents want for their child as well. Thank you and please share our story with others. I hope it has inspired you!