On April 23, 2006, Evan was admitted into the emergency room with decreased level of conciousness and altered mental
status. Soon, it was determined that my son's brain was bleeding and was riddled with clots. He was
placed on life support and began fighting for his life. There was no way Evan was going anywhere! He stayed strong
and he survived both a hemmorhagic and ischemic stroke which damaged his thalamus, ganglia and deep cerebral veins.
My God, the fear we felt, the pain we endured, the "not knowing". We felt his pain, we cried tears that he could
not. We looked for every possible answer as to why.
Evan spent 6 long weeks at All Children's Hospital. My husband, my youngest son and I stayed a block
away at the Ronald McDonald House where they gave us a bed to sleep in and food to eat whenever we needed it. RMH took
a giant load off of our back. We were able to stay close to our son.
We walked back and forth from RMH to ACH hundreds of times during that time. A lot of the time, my husband and
I would take turns with Evan because my youngest son was still an infant and could not go into the ICU. All in all,
the days were long and worrisome but besides prayer something else brought us hope.......
Pacing the hallways, the hospital ramp, the sidewalks, something always seemed to catch our eye. I know that prayer
was running through our heads every second of the day. We prayed to ourselves, silently, round the clock. With
every prayer, we found a penny.
No matter where we were, what time of day it was and who we were with, when we looked down, we saw a coin. We started
collecting each coin we found, and placed it heads up next to Evan's bed. Before we knew it, the coins were stacked
high. We were finding several coins each day. No matter where we were, there was a lost coin laying nearby.
We called them our "lucky coins". As they started to accumulate, we starting keeping them in a sterile specimen container....heads
up and stacked neatly. We labeled the container "Evan's Lucky Coins".
We were astonished to see how many coins showed up under our noses, whether we were looking for them or not. Every
day, we added to the lucky pile.
These coins may or may not have brought us luck, but for some reason, it brought us comfort.
Everyone finds a coin now and then. But to find several a day? Everyday? It seemed like coins were
falling from heaven, (as odd as that may sound). It reminded us that God was there. IN GOD WE TRUST, get it?
The word "GOD" is printed on each coin and that (to me) was a great sign of encouragement. God was taking care of my
beautiful baby and delivered him safely back to us.
