My Turn
April 2015
I will never forget April 19, 2015. But as time continues to churn, I am forgetting bits and pieces. I remember the phone call with the insurance nurse telling me to not go to urgent care but go straight to Children’s Hospital in Washington DC. The severity of the situation jumped right over the ten point scale. I remember getting in the car and putting the hospital into the GPS. I don’t remember much of the drive itself.
It was dusk. I couldn’t concentrate on the music. I prayed. And prayed. I watched my son fidget in the backseat. I kept looking back at him with my rearview mirror. I was already pleading with God to heal him, protect him, and prepare us for whatever would lie ahead.
The drive to Children’s is not easy. There is no direct way to get there. Once I left the interstate, I had to figure out the maze of DC streets. When we finally arrived, it was dark and I was unsure of where to park and where to enter. The extra amount of unknown details were an unwelcome ingredient to an off the scale stress level.
I knew I was supposed to go to the emergency room. But once I figured out where it was, I could not just drop him off. Josiah could hardly stand on his own two feet. No one was there at the emergency doors. No one was there to tell me where to park. So I did the only thing I could do. Put it in “Park” and walk my child inside. I would deal with the ticket later.
Josiah leaned heavily on me as he seemed to have left his center of gravity in the car. He giggled. I don’t know if he amused himself at the fact he could not put one foot directly in front of the other or it was just nerves escaping as laughter. Probably both.
We were quickly placed in a room. They began checking his vitals and I was told that I had to move my car or it would be quickly towed. I was assured he was in good hands and ran out to remove my car from danger. I really, really do not like parking in DC to this day.
When I got back into the room, the nurse told me his vitals were normal. He was sitting up in the bed and was checking out the oxygen counter on his finger. The nurse left the room and turned out most of the lights in case Josiah wanted to sleep.
Sleeping was not in the cards that night.
“Hey Dad.”
“Yep bud.”
“Take a picture of me.”
Josiah was not a kid who normally liked his picture taken. So I was surprised not to mention our current situation. Thus a follow up question was required.
“Why?”
“I want to so Sissy can see that I am in the hospital.”
“Okay?”
“She has spent so much time in hospitals, I want to show her it’s my turn.”
So he put up his index finger glowing red because of the oxygen counter. He smiled and I texted the picture. I smiled, he smiled and I told him that his sister would see it in the morning.
older sister
When Josiah was about a year old, his sister took a ride in an ambulance. He was screaming in my ear as he emoted externally the internal angst of his mother and I. My daughter was comatose. My little almost three year old sprite with the lightening sparkle in her bright blue eyes was unconscious and completely limp as her mom carried her into the bright red ambulance with twirling lights and loud sounds. I said nothing to Josiah as he cried. I was busy praying for my baby girl, asking God to spare her life. Many tears were shed by all.
Over the next six years, my daughter went to many doctors appointments and took a lot of medication. She had epilepsy. She also had a severe kind where she had a brain “storm” about every 2o to 30 seconds. It was not a full on Grand Mall but a scramble that bolted through her brain. From the Fall of 2006 our family lived helping her manage these storms until the Spring of 2013. Then God answered our prayers. Her brain scans went from storms every half minute to none. The doctors had hoped and projected she would grow out of them in a couple of years. But that was not the plan as the storms whipped around her head for six years. But I still praise God for healing my baby girl.
Two years later, Josiah was ready to get some attention and see God at work in his life. His sister was fine and so would he. I did not tell him, he knew. We prayed that God would heal him the moment we saw what was happening. It was his turn to see God at work.
This post is a continuation of Josiah’s Journey—a blog series I have written and am rewriting to share my son’s courageous fight with pediatric cancer. I wrote a blog detailing his medical and emotional battle from April 2015 until after he passed on May 2016. I am now writing to fill in some of the informational gaps from the former blog including personal reflections. A boy or girl with cancer is a life altering experience for family, friends and the surrounding community. When the story is fully told, I plan to publish it to so it can be shared with others in their struggles and trials. Please comment or suggest a topic or ask a question so that I can connect with as many people as possible.
Related articles: Healing in Time