Patrice and Ian Fletcher
An Unbreakable Bond
Story By:
SAMANTHA CHERY
P
atrice and Ian Fletcher have plenty to do to occupy themselves as a Gainesville power couple. Patrice works as a Senior Administrative Assistant at the engineering consulting firm Jones Edmunds, and Ian is the Vice President of Education and Talent Alignment for the Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce. Together, they serve as church leaders at the Trinity Assembly Dream Center, own a business consulting firm, and run two
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nonprofit organizations. The hardest and most important position they fill is being parents. In 2008, their son, Joshua Joel Fletcher, was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, a disorder mainly affecting babies and children that weakens muscle control and makes it increasingly difficult to breathe over time. Joshua had to be hospitalized for six months at the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando. “It really was a heavy, heavy thing to learn,” Ian said.
Doctors told them Joshua likely wouldn’t live past his first birthday, and he would be bedridden at the hospital under 24-hour care.
pushed back on medical orders with better options, and Joshua fared better than many of his doctors expected.
The Fletchers had to make quality-of-life decisions, which are preferences for procedures and practices the hospital would perform to treat Joshua.
Joshua’s Gainesville pulmonologist, Dr. Pamela Schuler, staunchly advocated for the family, allowing them to take Joshua home with a ventilator. And the Fletchers were taught how to change the tube their son needed for breathing.
Instead of blindly accepting the doctors’ grim prognosis, the parents journaled about Joshua’s condition and researched suggested treatments and the effects they’ve had on others with the disease. They
Throughout this period, Patrice and Ian’s daughter, Julia Fletcher, never missed an event as a competitive dancer.
