The Starbucks Seizure...IN HIS WORDS

As we enter a new year and give thanks for our blessings, especially over the past year, we think back to one of the wild days in our journey where we saw God's hand of protection.

It was three years ago, and our newborn baby girl was just one month old. Both of our parents had traveled out to visit us in Indianapolis that December to welcome little Johanna. They had gone home, the new year had come and I was spending maternity leave at home with our two girls. At the time, Adrian was working for an insurance company in a high rise 45 minutes away on the north side of the city. He loved this opportunity, as it was the only time in the past six years that he had returned to the workforce...leaving the life of Stay At Home Dad behind, but only briefly.

The seizures kept returning. They kept him from pursuing these types of things. And as usual, they came without warning. Surprising not only us, but total strangers as well. I'll let Adrian tell the story of the Starbucks Seizure.

IN HIS WORDS...

I believe in miracles, as I shared in the past (We Believe in Miracles). Even though we don’t have the option of a visible miracle, we do have the option in asking for and believing in daily miracles, which I do. That is how I start each day is by asking for another day seizure free and believing that it will be. But even when the miracle of being seizure free doesn’t happen, that is when the visible miracles kick in.

Three years ago in Indiana, January 5^th actually, on my way to work I had stopped at Starbucks to get a latte before I got on I-65 heading north. The line for the drive-through was horrendous so I decided to go in and order. While in line, a young lady my sister’s age in military uniform got in line behind me so I asked if I could pay for her drink hoping that somebody else would be buying my sister, who is also military, a coffee. I paid for the drinks and the next thing I know... I am in an ambulance surrounded by people asking the typical questions of who, what, where, when. 

It had happened again, right there in the middle of Starbucks. 

This was the first seizure I’d had in public without anyone I knew around me. I later found out that the girl whose coffee I paid for is a paramedic for the military, and she was able to take care of me and keep everybody calm until the ambulance got there. 

IF I hadn’t gone in I would have been flying down the interstate when that happened and likely wouldn’t be writing this right now. BUT….I did go in….I did buy her a coffee….she just happened to have medical training…….and I am not dead. I am a realist, but I don’t believe this was all just circumstance.

Here we are with our precious little Johanna, born just a month before this incident.

It's me again... To be honest, this one was hard on me today. As I allowed my mind to relive the events not only of that day but of the weeks preceeding and following it. To remember what it felt like to enjoy a happy morning together and kiss my husband goodbye, only to receive a call from a paramedic less than an hour later saying my husband was in the hospital. I recall the desperation and loneliness I felt when I quickly packed up a month old baby and her 3 year old sister to go see my husband in the Emergency Room...again. But I wasn't alone, we did have friends nearby who came to help, and I later found out the miracle behind this first and only seizure that Adrian had in public with noone he knew around.

Hours later when I returned to pick up his vehicle at Starbucks, I walked inside and they told me what happened that morning. Adrian did not know. They said my husband had paid for this military woman's coffee, then just minutes later as he fell to the ground convulsing with the onset of a seizure, she was the one with medical training who stepped in to help. She not only assisted Adrian, but she helped explain what was happening and calm the people in the store who had likely never seen a seizure before. She took charge of the situation and had the ambulance called immediately. Even when Adrian was alone, he was not really alone.

It's an incredible story, that I'm sure some folks in Indiana still retell. For us, it was another day when we fell down but got up again. By the grace of God.