My husband, Tyler, and I were lying in bed and the kids were sleeping when it happened. A sharp pain in the back of my head. I shut my eyes suddenly and reached for my head. A sudden wave of nausea sent me to the bathroom, but I was too dizzy to walk. Tyler helped me. As my body shook, I saw the fear in his eyes. Realizing, I knew I needed to calm my body, so I didn’t scare him. Taking a deep breath, I reassured him, “I’m alright. My head just hurts.” I wanted to be for his sake.

He knew what it was, and it was his greatest fear. He knew all the symptoms, though he was an airman for the Airforce, with no medical education under his belt.  We still called him, “Dr. Dad,” because he knew a little about everything.

Tyler grabbed a bucket and tried to have me walk to the car, but my body wasn’t willing to move through the pain. He carried me.

He started to drive and called the most unexpected person. He knew Beau would be the only one awake at this hour. “Grab your pillow and a blanket and crash on the couch, I’m going to the hospital, I’ll explain more later.” Click. He hung up.

As he drove, I was pleading with God, and holding my head in my hands, leaning into the bucket, and breathing heavily from the pain that only kept getting worse. I could tell Tyler was speeding as fast as he could, it was a 25-minute drive… normally.

God, please… I can’t die, who will raise my children? And I haven’t done what you asked of me yet!  I cried out to God in my head.

I didn’t even realize that Tyler jumped out of the car, grabbed a wheelchair, and rushed me to the front desk of the hospital. All I could hear now was that they thought I had food poisoning, but Tyler stood his ground.

 “No, I think she’s bleeding in the brain. You must bring her blood pressure down.”

Breathing heavily, head pounding, and curling up to protect my body helplessly, I heard echoes of voices and arguing.

“It’s not food poisoning. Scan her head, you’ll see!”

See, we were in a small town in Texas, five minutes from the border of Mexico and the poor doctors there, they just didn’t know what they were working with.

They arrived with a syringe to administer a sedative, but he dropped it on the dirty floor. He was ready to use it still, until Tyler stopped him. He got a new one and soon my breathing slowed down for the first time since my bedroom. I got drowsy and everything went black.  When I came back to my senses, Tyler and the doctor were talking.

“You were right. It’s not good…” the Doc said.

“So, what are you going to do next?”

“I don’t know, I can’t do anything.”

I fell asleep again. When I awoke and there were people surrounding me, “Hi, I’m here to fly you to San Antonio to another hospital, your husband already left hours ago and is driving there right now. Don’t worry, you’re in good hands.”

It was a four-hour drive, and it would be the hardest drive of his life, not knowing if I was okay, because he had to leave before the helicopter arrived. He cried out to God for mercy and fell asleep at a gas station.

I fell asleep too.

When I woke up, I was being unloaded from the helicopter and people swarmed around me. They scanned my head and performed an angiogram. They couldn’t find the source. They determined it was a subarachnoid brain hemorrhage.  Tyler arrived and we were told that my chances of survival were only 25%.  The chances of walking and functioning normally were 25% of the already low 25%.

By God’s grace, I recovered enough to be able to shower. Everyone was amazed.  As I stood there looking at myself, I realized something. Today was the first day in my life that I wasn’t disgusted with myself, I didn’t hate myself, I wasn’t even upset with how my body looked. All I saw was the beautiful life God gave me and how he answered my prayer and Tyler’s.

I Get to be Tyler’s wife, to raise my babies, and I Get to fulfill God’s calling on my life.

It’s that simple. Yet, the loud world distracted me from the most important things in life. Now, I can hear God louder.

(If you are interested in watching this testimony, you can also view it here on YouTube.)