1st Anniversary of Ethan's Volvulus

It was a year ago today that Ethan was so sick. I've been pretty emotional all day as I've spent time writing some letters to thank the ER staff and doctors who worked on Ethan and just spent time remembering all that happened. I've replayed everything that happened countless times in my mind this past year. Most often I replay things and think about each point where something could have gone differently. Sometimes I think about how it could have gone better-about how we could have brought Ethan in sooner. But mostly I think about how things could easily have gone worse. What if my mom wasn't there when Ethan passed out? Trent and I weren't even looking at him-we were discussing how much longer we should wait to take him in. What if we hadn't even seen him? What if, what if, what if...and then I have to stop before I make myself too sick inside. I don't really feel guilt anymore, like I used to. I used to feel such guilt. Mostly about why I didn't know how sick he really was and why didn't I bring him in sooner. Guilt about how I was so tired the night he was throwing up; that because he was writhing in pain and kicking me I left him in his bed to go sleep in mine. Then when I woke up to check on him he was lying in bed with Logan and throw up was all on his floor, the hallway and the bathroom. It was just liquid mostly. Pretty much all the food had been thrown up hours before. I felt frustrated with him being sick instead of realizing that he was literally dying in front of me and was in the worst pain he will probably ever feel and he needed all the comfort I could give him. I get anxiety thinking about how close we came to losing him. How little time he had left when we finally got him to the hospital. I used to agonize about it. Now I just try to push it from my mind when it comes to me because I know how pointless that thinking is.

I am grateful. I really, really am. My first thoughts about Ethan and that incident are just that I am so, so glad he is still here. I look at him breathing as he sleeps in bed and I think about how fragile life is. About how terrible it would be to hold him and not feel his chest rising and falling. About how awful it would have been to leave my boy's dead body at the hospital and go home. I know I could not have born it. I would have died inside. I never would have forgiven myself for not bringing him in sooner. I could hardly forgive myself as it was. Let alone if the worst had happened. I'm crying just thinking about it. But after gratitude my thoughts are just filled with anxiety. About how close we came. And it makes me feel physically ill inside.

There were many miracles that occurred that week. Most of them had to do with saving Ethan's life, but one saved my life from myself and my thoughts. All the doctors and nurses we talked to said Ethan would take at least seven days to recover, maybe more. We flew out of Kalispell on a Sunday night so I assumed we'd be leave Spokane the next Monday at the earliest. Well Ethan recovered so quickly, and then on Saturday morning they told us we could go home. We could hardly believe it! Already?! We drove home and went to church the next day. All week I had been feeling that guilt I just wrote about. Just making myself sick over everything I could possibly think of that I could have done better. I was just sick. I knew I'd never forgive myself. And there was a part of me that liked this-I think I felt like maybe it would prevent it from happening again, prevent me from failing again if I kept that guilt inside of me. If I reminded myself that it was my fault that my sweet, precious boy had almost died. But then I went to church that morning and heard a talk that changed me. I knew that very morning that Ethan had recovered so quickly so that I could be there to hear Stephen Jerman's youth talk that morning. Stephen Jerman was 13 years old but when he was done Trent and I looked at each other and said that it could have been a talk given at General Conference. The topic he spoke on must have been something about us choosing our attitudes and he told this story-The parable of the two wolves:

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

All I heard about the evil wolf was: sorrow, self-pity, and especially guilt. And about the good wolf I heard peace and humility. The Spirit told me this was true and I realized that if I kept going on this path of guilt that I was on that I would slowly destroy myself and my life. I needed to feed the love, self-acceptance, and kindness towards myself, I needed to humble myself and I needed to forgive myself. After that whenever I wanted to indulge my guilt and beat myself up I would tell myself that I could not feed that wolf. As much as part of me wanted to I could not do it. It would destroy me. And I would try as best I could to tell myself that it was okay. That I was okay. That everything had worked out okay and that maybe it had worked out exactly as God had planned it. And then I started to accept it. And then I started to believe it. And slowly I came out of the cycle of blaming and guilting myself. I know that that talk was for me. And I talked to Stephen's mom about how much his talk had helped me. She told me that Stephen had taken his talk very seriously and had spent a lot of time preparing it. I know that he was directed by the Lord to know what to say that day. And that the Lord got me home to hear it. The Spirit really had to soften my heart so that I would listen and follow that counsel but I know that it saved my spiritual life that day. It saved me from myself and the very dark path that I was on.