miracles

a couple of fridays ago, i received a disheartening call from kendrick, letting me know that his dad had just had a stroke. he wasn't clear on the severity of it- all that he knew was that his dad was on his way to the hospital by ambulance. it was a long day of work, eagerly checking my phone every five minutes, waiting for any updates on paul's condition. once four o'clock hit, i quickly made my way over to the imc hospital to join kendrick and his mom. 

(quick humorous story- knowing that they might be hungry, i stopped at the chick-fil-a across the street to grab a few chicken sandwiches, fries, and a couple of large drinks. once at the hospital, i was unfamiliar with the parking situation, and had no idea where to park and what entrance to use. i ended up parking pretty far away, and walked as quickly as i could to the entrance- while balancing a large bag of food and two good-sized drinks. when i got to the front, i had a feeling that i was at the wrong place, so quickly turned around to head back to my car. this is when the lid flew off one of the drinks- it was a very windy day. now, being even more careful with my food haul and one compromised drink, in heels, i hobbled my way across the street to my car. halfway across the crosswalk, the paper bag started to rip and then before i could make it to the sidewalk alllll of the food poured out and the diet coke spilled all down my pants and blouse. mind you- there were two cars waiting for me to cross the street- so they got a front row seat to my graceful performance. embarrassed and sticky, i gathered what was left of the sad meal, quickly made my way to the correct hospital entrance, and tried explaining to kendrick and his mom why the sandwiches were smashed, the fries were missing, and why on earth i smelled so strongly of diet coke).

anyways- luckily, at this point, paul's condition was stable. the two main evidences of his stroke were his pounding headache and his inability to get out words. turns out, the bleeding happened on the side of his brain that controlled speech recognition, so while he knew what things were, he could not say them. frustrating, right? the biggest hurdle for him was saying what month it was- each time the nurse would ask, he would reply "i know it- i just cannot say it!". (about an hour after a nurse gave him the quiz on what month it was, paul exclaimed out of no where "it's march!"... it was pretty dang funny)

we ended up staying with kendrick's mom until about ten o'clock that night, eagerly trying to comfort her and give her any assurance that she needed. kamiya came around this time so that he could join kendrick in giving paul a blessing. while the blessing was said, i felt the spirit so strongly and started to tear up. the power of the priesthood really is so incredible- how you can go one minute from feeling helpless and afraid, to the next knowing with all assurance that God is mindful of you, loves you, and is there for you. 

long story short- after a couple of days, paul was talking normally and walking around, as if the stroke never even happened. he was discharged from the hospital after only a few says, and the doctors even commented that recoveries from strokes really don't happen this fast. we all feel so incredibly blessed. miracles do happen and prayers are answered!

(and every time we drove past the crosswalk that had a small trail of french fries leading to the sidewalk, i couldn't help but laugh).