LymeLight

October 1, 2009
You will have pain, but your pain will turn to joy.—John 16:20
“Mom how do I turn this … on?” our daughter asks, pointing to the water faucet. “How do I put on this?” she asks, using hand movements to mime putting on mascara. Our daughter is fourteen years old. What has happened to her? She didn’t know how to turn on the water, and although she used the motions, she didn’t know how to get the mascara on her eyelashes.
Imagine the chaos and confusion we experienced that morning in October 2009, when Grace woke up with sudden loss of all her long-term memory.
The day before, Grace had stayed after school for extracurricular activities and returned home like any other typical teenage girl. When you have a crisis like the one we experienced, you relive the days leading up to the event. What could have happened to cause this drastic change in our daughter? Had she been assaulted? Did she fall and hit her head? Had she been bullied? Was she drugged?
Grace, like any other American teenage girl, had gone to middle school at seven o’clock in the morning on the day before this strange chain of events. After school, our neighbor picked her up from color-guard practice, and she got home at five. She’d had a long ten-hour day at school and extracurricular activities, but this was typical of her everyday schedule. When she arrived home, everything was normal. After eating a healthy dinner, she proceeded up to her room to do her homework. Again, everything was normal—physically, psychologically, and socially. Grace did not complain of feeling sick. She did not talk about anything upsetting her.
Later that evening, Grace asked me to quiz her on the science material in preparation for a quiz for the following week. With clarity, she verbalized her knowledge of the material. Grace still had several days to review and master a few remaining study-guide items. I was impressed with her knowledge of this subject. As Grace went to bed, she had a runny nose, and I gave her a decongestant before she fell asleep.
Never in my mind did I anticipate how our lives would change in eight hours. These were the last eight hours of pure sleep and relaxation we would have for many months. When Grace awoke the next morning, it was instantly apparent something was wrong. Grace’s speech was not clear as she woke up. The words she spoke were clear but nonsensical. She was talking about things as if she had woken from a deep sleep. Grace finally got out of bed and walked into the bathroom, her normal routine in the morning before school. I went down to the kitchen to prepare breakfast and lunch for the day ahead. I would be leaving for work as Grace left for school.
Grace came downstairs into the kitchen, complained of a headache, and was asking how to do things that are simple and natural for a teenage girl.
I am a nurse, but I didn’t suspect anything was seriously wrong; I thought Grace just needed to eat. I gave her Tylenol for her headache and said, “Let’s sit down and have breakfast.”
I thought, Let’s relax and regroup, and we’ll get going in a little bit. Even though we might be later than normal, we would get our day together. I’ve always been a mother who goes with what God has given me to work with. So being late this morning would not be a huge deal. We could only do what we could do.
As Grace and I sat to eat breakfast, I ate one spoonful of oatmeal and then dropped my spoon as I watched my daughter. Grace didn’t know what to do with the cereal in front of her or how to use a spoon. I thought, Oh Lord, Grace is having a stroke. What else could it be? A fourteen-year-old just doesn’t forget how to eat.
I knew that prompt medical attention improves recovery for stroke victims, according to all of the current medical literature and protocols. Immediately, Grace and I left for the local community hospital. Yes, this was the right thing to do. A stroke was life-threatening but caught in the early stages, the prognosis would be much better. We left so abruptly, I did not wake up my husband to tell him about the situation. Time was of the essence. I planned to call him from the emergency room.
I recalled a young boy in our community who had suffered a stroke the year before. As this young boy got off the school bus at the end of a school day, he experienced weakness and confusion. His mother was able to get him to the local hospital for immediate medical attention. His recovery was 100 percent. So our going to the hospital was imperative.
We would do whatever we had to do to get through this. Praying for strength to hold us together was all that we had at that time, as God carried us.
The day we had planned was indeed not what God had planned for Grace and me. I quickly realized I would not be able to teach my nursing students on this day as scheduled, but how could I get that information to the students at this late notice? I placed a call to one of my nursing students and asked her to inform my class I wouldn’t be there. I told her, “Something is wrong with Grace, and I must take her to the emergency room.”
I then left with Grace for fifteen-minute drive to the hospital. Later in Grace’s illness, the short distance to this local hospital would seem like a journey across the entire state of Pennsylvania. We would travel this route with continuous prayers for comfort and healing.
Upon arrival at the hospital, Grace was triaged immediately and seen by nurses and physicians within minutes.