Community contributor: In this column, the cousin of campus students Daniel and Josh Hopper, junior Hayden Fletcher, tells about the adventure and trials facing he and his seven siblings throughout the past few years.
In June of 2008, my seven-week old brother was rushed to the emergency room after being found white, cold, and unresponsive.
After testing positive for enterovirus, a virus similar to the flu, which is often fatal to young children, Joe spent a total of 11 days in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), where a majority of the time were spent in drug-induced sleep.
Though he survived the virus, neurological reports showed two holes in his brain. These holes are right where the part of the brain that controls vision is, so doctors and neurologists fully expected him to be blind, if not worse. Joe, now 22 months, walks around the house everyday, making messes of rooms with his perfect vision. He can even make the rest of us burst out laughing by crossing one eye.
Seven months later, my then five-year-old sister jumped out of our still-moving 12-passenger van and was run over by the back wheel. With her pelvis fractured in several places, she spent three weeks in a wheel chair, out of which she practically jumped when she was given permission.
Annesley now laughs with us about the fact that she shouldn’t be jumping out of cars. She has bragging rights for being the only person we know who has experienced a car tire within six inches of her major organs.
During this year’s dreaded flu season, my eight-year-old sister, Caroline, was sick in bed. Her stomach was in constant pain. As she always had a weak stomach, and observing that the other nine family members had the flu, we naturally assumed that she was just hit harder than the rest of us.
Six days later, Caroline hadn’t gotten any better; in fact, when she woke up that morning, she was unresponsive, with clammy, mottled skin. Now very worried, my dad rushed her to the emergency room. As it turned out, Caroline was not only sick with the flu; her appendix had ruptured 24-48 hours before she was taken to the hospital.
Caroline went into emergency surgery within an hour of arriving in the E.R., and, over the course of the next two weeks, underwent two other similar surgeries, the goal of which was to remove the deadly infection that was spreading through her body.
For the next 21 days, Caroline stayed in the ICU, where she was the only child among many sickly adults. She was constantly pumped with various drugs, and had two drains coming out of her stomach, out of which the infection seeped into bags.
With my family’s school and work schedules now thrown way out of balance and my parents having to be at the hospital all hours of the day, my 14 year-old brother, Nate and I were given the task of watching the house. At times it was just the two of us, but when we had to watch all of our five other siblings, the task became very stressful.
At times, the repetition of day-to-day life, consisting of anticipation for news of her condition and taking care of my siblings, things became monotonous. I was still able to go out and relax every few days, but my responsibilities with school and family kept me at home.
Through all of this, I somehow never sensed any fear for my sister. I did not feel afraid that the infection might take over Caroline so that she might not make it through the next day, nor did I fear a doctor making a mistake to permanently harm her. My sister was near death, yet I had no worry.
I came to understand that throughout all of history, God has provided a plan for His world. And, however small, Caroline was a part in that plan. My dad’s blog, “The Mango Times”, spiked from getting less than 100 views a day to more than 1,200, and my mom’s, Preschoolers and Peace went from 1,600 to 2,600 while Caroline was in the ICU. As they both express their Christian worldview in their posts, the blogs’ potential outreach was huge.
Caroline going into the hospital was part of God’s plan, and whether she lived or died was entirely up to him. If a doctor’s hand had slipped or the infection had been unreachable, this would have been part of the plan.
While I prayed fervently that she would recover, those 21 extremely stressful and scary days taught me a very important lesson: to trust God through everything, even the scariest, most stressful days of all. His plan will never fail, and will always work for the best, even if it involves death.
However, Caroline dying was not a part of God’s plan. My sister is now just as healthy as before. While she is not able to run around very much yet, and is exhausted by the end of the day, she bears her scars with pride, and will gladly show them off to anyone who is interested.
When Caroline speaks of her nearly fatal experience, she says that while she did not like being poked or encountering mean nurses, she enjoyed the opportunity to watch a large amount of TV and receiving plenty of gifts. I am glad to know that, while I learned to trust God even in the hardest times, Caroline learned that when you get seriously sick, people bring you presents.
For mores stories by guest writers, read the Jan. 27 article, Dress all-out at NOTS or the March 1 article, Look deep, reflect and lead.
