Rewind to August 24th, 2017 around 11:00 a.m.- I went to grab my phone from my office and had 15 missed calls, this was not completely unusual because the kids had summer break and they would call me every 10 minutes "MOM!!! Amelia is looking at me funny!!" "MOM!!! There is nothing good to eat in this house!!", "MOM!! We're bored!!!", "MOM!!!!!!!!!" I also had 10 text messages, so I called Amelia back and she was sobbing beyond control "Mom...the ambulance is here, mom, Abigayle is not waking up, mom she's shaking, MOMMMMMMMMM. .. . " My heart dropped I couldn't breathe, Derek got on the phone " I don't know what's going on . . .Abigayle can you hear me??? Abigayle BREATHE!!!!, Marsha she's shaking, there's blood, I don't know what is going on!! Abigayle!! ok, ok. . .her eyes are open, Can you hear me Abigayle??"
I was listening to my worst nightmare and could not do anything about it, even typing this is hard. I kept yelling into the phone "Tell me what is going on, tell me!!!!! ABIGAYLE!!!" I ran out of work, drove to the ER to meet the ambulance, I'm not even sure now how I managed to drive there.
When they let me go back to see her she was just chilling on the stretcher with her neck in a brace, blood dried to her puffy face "Hiiiiii mom" I can still hear it "Hiiiii mom" like "What are you doing here dude??" I kissed her head I grabbed her hand I said "I love you, what happened??" She had no clue, in fact she didn't even remember getting out of bed. What happened was a grand mal seizure. . "flopping like a tuna" as the Dr. at the ER so eloquently put it. She seized for about 2 minutes, hitting her head, biting her tongue. I would have never in a million years imagined this would ever happen, EVER!!! Out of nowhere this horrible thing just hit us. She was checked for injuries and released. I have prayed my whole life, but this event stopped me in my tracks. It brought my prayer life to a whole new level. It brought our lives to a whole new level.
When we got home she lay in my bed, her tongue like hamburger, a horrible headache and just exhausted. I got in bed with her, have you ever heard about moms who can feel or sense when something is wrong with their children? I lay there with my hand on her back and my mouth filled with a bloody metal taste, I kept taking drinks of water, it was all I could taste. She woke up and said "My mouth tastes like blood, I need an icee from Wesco" - That day I was so moved by the friendships that were displayed by girls that were close to her. Her best friend at the time came to the hospital when she heard what happened, another friend brought her that icee. . .it made my heart happy. I could taste that blood in my mouth for 2 days. . . her head ached, my head ached, she was exhausted, I felt exhausted. I now know what those moms felt when they said they felt everything their children felt.
Around this same time Hurricane Harvey had devastated Texas, Facebook was full of negative reports of what the city of Houston did or did not do. What the President did or did not do, but most intriguing to me at the time was all the horrible things I was reading about a Pastor of a mega- church who wasn't doing anything for anybody, or so the reports were saying. Pastor Joel Osteen, locked up his huge church and let people just suffer with no where to go. I had never heard of this Pastor, but surely he was not a good pastor if that's what he was truly doing. So I googled him and this changed everything.
In the midst of Abigayle being diagnosed with epilepsy, my begging God for answers, begging God to protect Abigayle, no sleep because my mind would't stop running every "what -if" possible, I found the voice of God streaming through the radio by a man named Joel. The what-ifs were relentless in my mind, what if this had happened when she was swimming alone, what if she was in drivers training, what if she has them all the time, what if she can never work now, what if she hits her mouth when she has one and loses her teeth. . .I was going insane with the what ifs. Then one day after listening to Joel on the radio and reading passages from his book, I was in the shower and begging God my daily begs "Please God, please God take this away". . .a whisper came through down in my heart, in my soul that took all of this away, it was a peace that washed over me like I could never imagine, it took that worry, it took that anxiety and it washed it away. God took it from me and from that day forward my prayers changed, Joel says to pray bold prayers and that's what I did " God, you said if you be for us who shall be against us, God you said as for me and my house we will serve you, God you said you will make me to lie down in green pastures. . . ." He took it all and guided my mind and my heart.
We didn't pursue traditional anti- seizure medicines, instead God showed us what was right for Abigayle. . .her morning myoclonic twitches stopped immediately (these had been going on for YEARS and we never recognized them as "seizures", in fact I would yell and say "KNOCK it OFF!!! Stop doing that!!!" Her eyelid fluttering every every morning stopped, this too was something I use to tell her "STOP it!!"
Looking back over the past 6 months, because of Abiagyle's seizure, my faith and my love for God has grown by a million percent. He is the Great I am. I thank him for his favor everyday on our lives, especially that of my children. This whole 6 months has been like the poem Footprints in the Sand:
"One night I dreamed a dream.
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.
After the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,
especially at the very lowest and saddest times,
there was only one set of footprints.
This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.
"Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,
You'd walk with me all the way.
But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me."
He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and will never leave you
Never, ever, during your trials and testings.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you."
Without God carrying me and my girls I would not have been able to get through any of this- I am so happy to say that we made it to 6 months and we will make it to 7 months and we will make it to 1 year!! But first, today, we are going to celebrate and thank God.
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