The Wake Up Call

This is a true story.
It was late in October 1997. My husband Ken was working evenings and on this particular night he called me and said that he would be working 4 hours overtime. So I decided I would take our girls (ages 3 & 4 ,and my 16 year old niece that was living with us at the time going to school) to visit my parents for awhile.

After being at my parents house for about hour I received a phone call from Ken. He told me that he decided not to work over and was going to come home. I thought this was odd at the time because he had never changed his mind once he had told them he would work. (It was later that he told me that he had this feeling that he needed to go home.) After I hung up the phone from talking to him I packed up the kids to go home so we would be there before he got home.

After Ken got home, he was playing a game on the computer. I was standing behind him watching him play. After a few minutes I felt something hit my hand. I thought it was one of the girls that had come up behind me on the bed. They were always doing that. As I turned around to look behind me I saw my left hand swing around like a dead weight. It was then that I realized that it was my own hand that I had felt hit my back. It was like it belonged to someone else. This is when I realized something was happening to me. As I sat down on the edge of the bed I tried to get Ken's attention by touching his chair.

When I grabbed the back of the chair I started shaking it. I tried to speak to him but my voice sounded strange. It was like I could hear my voice in a tunnel (something like when you get water in your ears and you hear your voice inside your head ) He thought I was playing around when I started shaking his chair and making my voice sound funny. But when he turned around I could tell for a brief second by the look on his face that he knew something was wrong. I think that is when I started to get scared.

He told me later what he had seen was that when I spoke to him that the left side of my face was not moving and my voice was garbled. He said he could not see any color of my eyes ,only the black pupils of my eyes. We learned later, that I had probably went into shock and that was why my eyes were dilated that way.)

I could hear everything going on around me. I did not lose my ability to think. I could hear Ken go to the phone and call 911 and I heard him talking to them. I could see what was right in front of me but did not attempt to turn my head to look around. I had no use of anything on my left side. My left arm was a dead weight and I could not move my left leg either. I really did not know what was happening to me and I was scared. It is an awaking moment when you think you might be dying. Things go through your mind so quickly. The first thing I thought of was if I was dying I wanted to make my peace with God and wondering if I would ever see my children again.

When the paramedics put me in the ambulance, the last thing I saw was my better half standing there. He told me that he was following the ambulance to the hospital. In the ambulance I remember praying to God to please let me be there for my children and I would make things different. I remember hearing my voice like I was in the tunnel so I think I must have been praying aloud. It was then, that I felt the sense that I wasn't going to die.

Once we reached the hospital they told me that I had the symptoms of having a stroke but I was too young for that. I was put through a series of tests. I had begun to be able to use my left leg after an hour of being there but there was still no feeling whatsoever in my left arm. It was like it belonged to someone else. I was frightened that I wasn't going to get the use of my left arm back. If it was a stroke, my grandmother has had 3. The last stroke took her ability to speak. They say that when you have a stroke that usually you get things back within the first 24 hours or you don't usually get them back.

After they had taken me into have the cat scan done ,when they lifted me off the table. I felt a pinch and cried out! It was then that I realized that when they had put me on the table they had gotten my left hand somehow under me and the pain I was feeling was my hand. I never thought I would be so happy to feel pain as I was then. I was so excited I couldn't wait to tell my husband Ken.

When I was wheeled back to the ER Room I kept waiting for him to come in the room. I asked the nurse for him and she told me that she thought he had went to the chapel. When he finally came back to the room I said "I can feel my hand." At the time his response was odd to me because he didn't say anything at first. He just got this big smile on his face and and his eyes watered up. He said "I Know". I thought this was odd. How did he know? He told me later that when they took me for the cat scan that he had went to the chapel to pray. He asked God to let me get the feeling back in my hand. When he came back to my room and that was the first thing that I had told him he felt like God did it for him to let him know that he had heard and answered his prayer.

In the weeks and months that passed I was able to get a full recovery of the use of my left hand. I went through a series of tests. I was even sent to a Internal Medicine doctor and a Neurologist. They could not determine the cause of my incident or even what to even call it. They would not say that I had had a stroke. But they would say that it could have been a TIA. (mini stroke) Prior to this happening I had just had a complete physical 6 months before and been told that I was healthy as a horse.

My husband and I feel like it was God giving us a wake up call. I do know that it brought me closer to the Lord. My husband and I are on a closer level since then too. It is easy to think you have plenty of time. That you are too young to die. But in reality you never really know when it is your time so you should stay ready all the time.

I usually keep things to myself and I do not talk about things that happen to me personally. But I felt like I must share this with anyone who would listen. Because God did something for me. He gave me another chance to make things right and realize not to take things for granted. I am blessed!

I feel this is a testimony because there were too many things that proved to us that God was watching over us.
1. My husband deciding to come home instead of working. I would have been here alone with the girls.
2. Our children were asleep when all this happened so they did not see Mommy being wheeled away in an ambulance.
3. The moment I got my feeling back in my hand at the same time my husband Ken prayed for this to happen.
4. The doctors baffled to what had caused it or what to say had happened.
There are so many little things that may not mean much to someone else but they mean a lot to us. But we know God was there with us and he was opening our eyes to tell us to stay ready for you never know when the hour is at hand.