Let me explain to you the week and then day I had surrounding "the call."Monday morning I wake up and I am s-i-c-k. I feel awful-sore throat, achy, you get the gist. At about 9:30 that morning my dad calls me to tell me my brother, Jeb, had a "spell." He was having a hard time talking and a hard time holding his cell phone. I honestly didn't think much about it. I of course was praying for him, but just didn't think it would be too serious. That afternoon Jeb's wife Cathy calls and says he is talking better and they were still waiting on test results. At about 6:30 I get the call that he has had a stroke, they found a hole in his heart and he would have to have surgery. WHAT? I forgot to mention my brother is 33 years old. I could not believe it.
My dad had my step-mom call because they were on the way to Knoxville. I was crying so hard and had so many questions. The problem was they had no answers. They told me not to come to Knoxville until they knew more of what was going on. I knew they were right but it was so hard for me to stay here when I knew my brother was sick and in the hospital. I felt so helpless. When I hung up the phone I couldn't even talk because I was crying so hard. Heath kept asking me what was going on and I couldn't even talk to tell him. I was finally able to get it out and he just held me while I cried. He also prayed for my brother, for his healing and for peace for him and the rest of our family.
My dad got to the hospital about 10 p.m. and called to tell me that he was encouraged being there and seeing and talking to Jeb-which made me feel a lot better. He said Jeb told him to tell me not to worry about him-yeah right! The next day Jeb was doing a lot better and his speech had improved a lot. They still told me not to come because there was nothing I could do. My dad and step-mom made sure to call me anytime they heard anything from the doctor which I was so thankful for. I just prayed and prayed for him. On Wednesday he would have a procedure where they went in and looked at his heart to see how big the hole is.
Wednesday rolls around and I still am feeling terrible. I decide to go to the doctor and guess what? Strep throat-yay! I talk to my step-mom about 11 and she tells me Jeb has just gone into his procedure. Heath came home for lunch about noon. I was in bed in my pajamas, looking a mess. He came to check on me and then went downstairs to make his lunch. I hear him downstairs say "what? what? are you kidding me?" All I could think is that something went terribly wrong in the procedure and they were calling Heath to make sure he was home with me. As he was walking up the stairs I was so scared. I didn't want to hear what he had to say because I just knew it was bad.
He got to the door and said "I'm going to put you on speaker phone so can you tell my wife what you just told me?" I said hello and that's when I heard those sweet words "you're going to be a mommy."
Wow! So different than what I was expecting.
I called my dad to tell him and my step-mom answered. They had just gotten out from a meeting with the doctor and she told me that the hole was significant enough for him to need surgery, but the FDA wouldn't allow them to do the surgery until he had 2 "episodes." They were putting in for an appeal of that. I asked to talk to my dad and she said he was upstairs with Jeb. I told her to have him call me as soon as he could. A few minutes later he called back and I got to tell him. He immediately walked back to Jeb's room and told me to tell him. Keep in mind this is the first time I had talked to my brother since all of this had happened. I told him we were praying for him and were so thankful for how well he was doing. Then I got to tell him he was going to be an uncle!!! I think it was sweet of God to let that be my first conversation with him.
We then called other family and friends and shared the news with them. When I talked to Carlee-our adoption consultant-she said "God knew your family would need this news this week." She was right.
To say that week was an emotional roller coaster would be an understatement. What a week! It definitely had it's lows and it's highs. I am thankful to say that my brother is doing well, he had his surgery and is on his way to making a complete recovery. He better be ready by January because he is going to have a niece to spoil!
No, "the call" didn't go exactly as I thought, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. We prayed for a lot of things that week and God answered so many of them! We did get to take pictures though. Please excuse how disgusting I look. We just want baby girl to know we were excited from the second we found out!
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