This blog post is going to be long. I want to update everyone on what has been happening with Kinsley the last few days and list a few ways you can pray. But before I go there, I want to share some of the fun we have been having. A lot has happened in such a little time.
Last weekend, we took the girls hiking in Lory State Park on a trail that Ed and I conquered almost 6 years ago. We didn’t make it to the top this time, but we did enjoy beautiful views of Fort Collins and the girls got to get their feet wet with hiking (well, both of them were being carried, so technically they didn’t walk at all!). Man, hiking is so much more difficult with children AND gear attached!
Last week, Kinsley went to Vacation Bible School at a local church. Some good friends of ours were taking their daughter and told us about it. She loved it! It was a rodeo/cowgirl theme and she loved singing songs about Jesus and saying “yeehaw”. She thought she was such a big girl being dropped off and picked up at school and she loved that she could take her backpack and go to school like daddy. At the end of the week, they had a VBS program. We didn’t know how she would do and it is worth going because every day when I went to pick her up, she wasn’t participating and was just standing there or being held. We decided to go anyways and she hammed it up for the cameras. Here is a video (click the link below) of her dancing (more like running). She was the kid that everyone said was so cute and that they were entertained by the whole time – there is always one and why not her with her big personality.
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Here a few other random pics:
Kinsley’s version of “hide and seek”. So easy to find but so cute!
The girls riding around at the store. Emerson loves being able to look around and Kinsley loves sitting beside her sis.
Emerson is 8 months old! She is so stinking cute! She loves standing holding onto things, crawling around, loves going after her sister’s (or anyone else’s) food, loves playing hide and seek, loves eating, loves swimming and being in the water, and is way more of a risk-taker than Kinsley.
But now this brings us to the story of what has happened in our lives the last few days. This story is still hard to tell and brings me to tears thinking/talking about it. This past Tuesday, I, along with a few others, threw an ice cream social for those who are joining staff in our region this summer. Ed was watching the girls. When I finished, I was going to go to another staff couple’s apartment to get their blender to use. Being that their apartment was around the corner from ours, I decided to let Ed and the girls ride with us (the girls love riding in the car without car seats and Kinsley loves “driving”). When we got there, Ed sat in the car with Emerson and I went to the apartment with Kinsley in my arms. I tripped over some uneven concrete and tried so hard to recover or to brace us, but we both ended up falling and hitting the concrete, me on my stomach and Kinsley on her back.
I jumped up, went over to Kinsley to make sure she was okay, and started to pull her up. It was then that i realized that she couldn’t stand, wasn’t crying or talking, and couldn’t move one whole side of her body. Her neck was turned and she couldn’t turn it back and it almost looked like one whole side of her body had had a stroke, with her mouth drooping and that side paralyzed. I immediately scooped her up, ran to the car, and began frantically telling Ed what happened. Ed is normally the really calm one. He was frantic when he saw her and started yelling “Call 911. Call 911.”
We decided not to call 911 but got in the car and went back to our apartment to take a look at her and decide next steps. By the time we got back to the apartment and inside, she was starting to regain movement and her mouth wasn’t drooping near as much. We almost immediately realized she had a concussion – she was very lethargic, sleepy, her eyes were bloodshot, her pupils were very slow to dilate, the back of her head (which was bleeding a little) was not swollen or knotted. We decided that Ed would stay and put Emerson to bed but that I would take Kinsley to the ER for them to assess her. We knew she had a concussion, but we didn’t know what more had happened with the paralyzation/stroke incident.
We raced to the Er and Kinsley started vomiting before we ever made it inside (yet another sign of a concussion). Even though they were busy, they took us back pretty quickly (praise the Lord!) and decided pretty quickly to do a cat scan. Kinsley was amazing during the whole thing – cooperating, sleeping in between, staying still for the cat scan, and not complaining one bit. As we were going through all this, some sweet and dear friends of ours were arranging childcare for Emerson and a ride for Ed to get to the hospital (so thankful for Cru family!). After what felt like forever, we got the results of the CT scan: normal! The doctor assured us that while that was good, we weren’t out of the woods yet and needed to watch her very closely to make sure she returned to her normal self. The doctor said “If she isn’t herself in a few days, you need to bring her back in no matter what the cat scan showed.” You can bet this momma slept right beside her all night.
She woke up at 6 the next morning feeling an urge to vommit, which she did. We were concerned after she vomitted the second time and were instructed by our doctors in NC to bring her in if it happened again. Praise the Lord, it didn’t happen again and she even kept down food and drink that day. While we are optimistic, we are aware that we are not out of the woods yet. She is still complaining of her head hurting, and while I know that is normal with a concussion and that bad of a blow, it should be getting better (its hard to get a 3 year old to tell you if its hurting more or less than the day before). While is acting more normal, she is definitely not 100%, so we are watching her very closely and making sure nothing is amiss. So please pray that the Lord heals her completely and quickly and that we don’t have to make a return visit. You could also pray the Lord blocks out the images and memories we have from when it happened. I have been really struggling with replaying over and over again what she looked like in those moments when she couldn’t move or respond. It brings me to tears every time and breaks my heart.
In the midst of all of this, the Lord has been so good to us. One, he provided people who could serve us by watching Emerson and giving Ed a ride. Second, he allowed me not to feel any guilt about what happened (which was a miracle because I could have beat myself up!). Third, even though I was super, super scared and stressed, I felt the Lord reassuring me on the way to the hospital with truths from His Word: God is good, He is in control, and He cares for her way more than I do. I felt like the Lord was reassuring me that she is His child, and that if something were to happen to her, we were blessed that He allowed us to look after her for a short period of time. None of that made it easier or dried the tears, but it did give me a deep peace. Praise the Lord that wasn’t the outcome!! Fourth, praise the Lord the CT scan was normal! If you could have seen her when it happened, there would be no doubt in your mind that its a miracle that there was no internal bleeding!
Thank you for your prayers and support – and for believing the Lord can heal her completely.