More than 10 months after he was shot at point-blank range, the pain is all over Christopher Sparkman’s face. From his hospital bed, it’s hard to put into words, he says.
“Several times, I’ve reached that point where my whole body is convulsing, I’m crying uncontrollably,” Sparkman said in a video released Wednesday. “It is just an unbelievable amount of pain. I never thought that a human being could survive through so much pain. It’s just unbelievable.”
Sparkman, 29, is still recovering from the day last April when he was shot multiple times while working as a security guard at a Cobb County FedEx facility. As if the physical pain wasn’t enough, Sparkman and his wife, Jamie Lynn, 25, have found themselves in the uncomfortable position of needing money. The medical expenses are covered, but there is little money for day-to-day living expenses.
Jamie Lynn quit her job to care for her husband, who she said has been denied disability benefits twice. Though he worked at the FedEx facility, Christopher was a contract worker through Allied Barton, his wife said.
"Our only source of income has been small weekly benefits of workman's comp from Allied Barton, and the benevolent gifts you all have given," Jamie Lynn wrote in a blog devoted to her husband's ordeal.
The couple is publicly asking for financial help for the first time, and it admittedly isn't easy. Christopher says he'd much rather be working and able to support his family himself. Those wishing to assist the couple should go to the blog page for directions: http://sparkmanstrong.blogspot.com/
Christopher has endured 32 surgeries since he was working on April 29, 2014. That was the day Geddy Lee Kramer opened fire on co-workers at the Kennesaw area facility before killing himself.
His injuries were the most severe that day, but Christopher survived. Since then, he’s been in and out of WellStar Kennestone Hospital. It’s been almost a roller coaster ride for Sparkman and his wife. The two celebrated their first wedding anniversary last summer in a hospital room.
For several months, the Sparkmans were able to return home. A February surgery was supposed to be the last, but there were complications. Five surgeries later, Sparkman is still in the hospital. Surgeons have said they can't operate on Christopher for a year, though he is not healed.
"The (colon) leak happened again, and Chris will now be sent home with some of the same wound care as before, until they can operate again," Jamie Lynn wrote on the couple's blog. "The pain he has endured over and over is unimaginable, and watching him go through it again has taken a toll on our families."
Christopher has the option of remaining at the hospital for a year, where he’ll be on a liquid diet. Or, he can go home, where he’ll require extensive wound care treatment while awaiting another surgery, his wife wrote.
“We are heartbroken and feeling so crushed because our expectations of Chris being healthy again have been shattered,” Jamie Lynn wrote.
Wednesday afternoon, Jamie Lynn spoke to the media during a break from her husband’s hospital bedside.
“We have to take it day by day,” Jamie Lynn said of her husband’s recovery.
She then returned to the hospital, where she says she’ll continue to serve as her husband’s caregiver.
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