July 1 2004

We had, at long last, come home to TX after 6 years of enlistment in the Air Force. Ethan was born May 9th and we headed back to San Antonio about 6 weeks later, at the end of June. The plan was to move in with Mom and Dad until Eric found a job in the private sector. Eric's parents lived in Missouri at the time and wanted us to come to a 4th of July family get together. We hadn't yet committed because we had just driven from GA to TX and Ethan cried the whole way. (I'm not really exaggerating about that either) Anyway, we decided not to go and told the family up there. They totally understood. But after a day or two, we changed our minds and decided to surprise everyone instead.

So, on July 1st Daddy and Eric began loading our van to head to Missouri. As they headed up the steps in the garage, Dad suddenly lost his balance and had to hang on to the wall to keep from falling. Eric helped him to the couch in the living room and Daddy shut his eyes. He kept them closed for the next 24 hours or so. He said the room was spinning. His head hurt terribly. Mom got him a bucket in case he was sick and just kept trying to talk to him and get him to give her some more information. All he said, mostly, was that the room was spinning and he felt sick and his head hurt. I told Eric, after 30 minutes of this or so, that I didn't think we should leave right then. "If mom needs to take him to the hospital, she can't get him to the car by herself.", I said. Eric said,"If he can't help us, the 3 of us couldn't get him to the car." Dad is a big man and his balance was so far gone that he couldn't help support his weight and move at the same time. So a little while later, Mom and Eric tried to get him up and to the car. He made it about 10 feet before getting sick. We laid him on the floor and Mother told me to call 911.

The EMT guys got there really quickly. They hooked him up to oxygen and a heart monitor. His heart was doing something crazy. Daddy was never unconscious and could answer questions but he wouldn't open his eyes. They took him to the hospital and there he stayed for about 3 weeks. It was determined through testing that he had suffered a stroke right in the back of his head, where balance lives, apparently. He had no memory loss, no gross motor skill loss, really. He was just terribly dizzy. Once the blood flow to his head was normalized, the headache went away. He had to do therapy to get his sense of balance back. After he was home, he would get dizzy if he was at church and lots of people were moving past him. He would kinda lean against a wall to keep steady.

Now, most people here don't even know he's had a stroke. Mother still doesn't want him up on ladders or on the roof, which makes it nice that we live close and Eric can do that stuff, but for the most part, he is absolutely fine. It could have been another story entirely and we are so, so glad that he recovered so well. Obviously, we didn't go to Missouri for the 4th of July picnic, we waited til much later to go. It was such a provision of God that we were there. If the stroke had struck just an hour or 2 later, Mother would have been on her own to get him to the hospital. If we had been far away, Eric wouldn't have been there to take care of the house while Daddy was in the hospital.

God does know what He is doing...all the time. And He is good...all the time.