Family News

My 16-year-old brother, Joshua, has been providing the family drama lately. He is not part of my household, but I'm going to tell this story because it is a perfect example of God working.

Friday morning, September 8th, my mom called me as I was leaving for work to tell me she was calling Rescue for Joshua. He had stroke-like symptoms and he wasn't coherent. I arrived at her house just as the Resque squad was arriving. This is what had happened up to that point: He had a sleepwalking episode early Friday morning and it woke my mom up around 1:30 a.m. She knew that something was wrong because he couldn't communicate and he almost fell down the stairs. (Some history: Joshua has a long history of sleepwalking during which you can have entire conversations with him without him ever waking up. If you were seeing it happen for the first time, you would not believe he was sleepwalking unitl the next morning when he wouldn't remember anything. For him not to be able to talk and walk normally was really unusual.) They got him back to bed and stayed up until 3 a.m. to make sure he didn't get up again. When she went to wake him up for school, he couldn't talk, he wasn't coherent, one side of his mouth was drawn down (like a stroke victim's), and he couldn't control his body. He was jerking and twitching, and he didn't realize it. All of this, on top of the bizarre sleepwalking episode, convinced her to call Rescue.

The paramedics checked is blood sugar (it was 60) and his blood pressure (102/60); both were pretty low. He had played basketball after dinner the night before, so they thought maybe he didn't eat enough. They continued talking to him and gave him an oral glucose test. Meanwhile, they we were discussing his prescriptions. He was taking two, and one of them didn't list the dosage on the bottle. I went to get the bottle the second time and realized that it was empty. It was empty, and according to the date on the bottle, there should have been a week's worth of pills left in it. This was an anti-anxiety medication that he was taking to prevent stress-induced migraines. I brought this to my mom's attention and she asked him if he had taken it. He said he took it before bed (like normal) and there were pills in the bottle, but he couldn't remember anything after that. At this point, my fears of epilepsy or other unexplainable causes were replaced by fears of overdose. The paramedics finished up and told my mom to take him to the ER.

They spent the entire day there, with him hooked to a heart monitor most of the time. After 8 hours, with no further setbacks and some improvement, they sent him home. It would be Monday before they got the results from his bloodwork so we could find out exactly what happened. It was unclear because the symptoms for low-blood sugar and for an overdose on that medicine are almost identical.

Fast forward to Monday: He went to school but called home because he felt really bad and he couldn't remember anything from the week before. His short term memory seemed to be completely shot. He was also still twitching. They went back to the ER to get his test results and have them sent to his regular doctor. The doctor found the evidence to be inconclusive, but decided to act on the assumption that he had in fact overdosed since the levels of medicine in his blood were high and that was most likely, given the circumstances. The thing that really concerned her was his memory loss. She decided to follow up with a CT scan to rule out a fall (while he was sleepwalking) that caused head trauma or a tumor. The CT scan was scheduled for Friday afternoon.

Meanwhile, we found out that he had gone to bed with a headache Thursday night, which would explain why he took his medicine while he was sleepwalking. We also found out that his other prescription, which he had just started taking the week before, can cause sleepwalking. This was his first sleepwalking episode in several years, so that explains why it started again.

The God parts: 1. Had this happened early Saturday morning, he may have died because my mom wouldn't have been trying to wake him up for school. 2. Had there been more than a week's worth of pills in that bottle, he probably would have died before she tried to wake him up for school. The medicine quickly and strongly affects the central nervous system and the heart, and kids have died as late as 72 hours after overdosing on it. 3. In our Wednesday night Bible study about prayer, we added him to our prayer list. Our specific prayers for him were that his CT scan come back normal and that he find some peace of mind (because he was really upset and had almost quit talking). Friday afternoon, the CT scan was normal, his blood tests were normal, and over the weekend he started returning to his old self. Those were answered prayers.

We still don't know what to expect as far as long term effects, and he's still twitching involuntarily, but it looks like he's going to be okay. It was a very scary week.

God is amazing and prayer works. This Bible study has demonstrated that fact over and over again. It is really exciting to watch God answer prayers.

Other news:
My other brother, Rob, turns 17 a week from today. We had a September birthday party last night (there are a few in our family), and Dave and I gave him a tie-dye kit. Tonight, he's coming over to learn the art of tye-dying from Dave. He's really going through a psuedo-hippie/Beatles phase right now. Oh, and I feel old. How did he get to be 17?

Rebecca and I spent Saturday looking at wedding and bridesmaids dresses with our cousin, Jessica, who is getting married in July. She found a dress that is absolutely beautiful, and perfect for the occasion. We didn't have as much luck with the bridesmaids dresses, but I think she has a better idea now of what she wants us to wear. It was a fun day, and the plans are coming along.

Life is crazy as ever.