Brandon Gilbert

When the Doctor told us Ryne had had a stroke, I thought I might have one myself. I felt as if he had literally punched me in the gut. My head spun and the room followed suit. How could this even be close to being true? How does a 22 month old have a stroke? Why wasn’t this on the warning label when we decided to have kids? After that, Jamie and I were left alone again, but luckily some of our good friends from church and my parents had arrived.

We went out to share with them the news that just floored us. We cried a lot and expressed our disbelief that something like that could happen and waited for Jamie’s parents to arrive so we could let them in on our bombshell (how do you tell someone that on the phone?)  We all waited together for Ryne’s MRI to be done. It was originally supposed to be an hour, but ended up being almost 3.

After the MRI was done, Ryne was moved to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). He started to be a little responsive later that evening, saying “Mama” and even trying to dance a little bit. It was hard because he had so much fluid built up in him that his eyelids were swollen shut. We couldn’t tell if he was really awake and coming out of his fog. The next morning all of the progress stopped at 5:45 when Ryne had another seizure. Over the next two days, I lost count of all the seizures he had. He would show signs of himself and then a seizure would hit his reset button.

Finally, the doctors gave him a third anti-seizure med that seem to finally stop the seizures. He also seemed to start coming out of a fog.  He started making lots of progress, though it was plain to see that there were physical effects. He couldn’t talk like he could before and the right side of his body wouldn’t move very much. Ryne wasn’t even aware that he had a right side. To him, his field of vision ended in front of his nose. The Doctors asked us to start going to his right side to help him move toward that side. The hardest part was that Ryne was hooked up to an EEG machine that read his brainwaves. The Doctors wanted to make sure that he wasn’t having any sub-clinical seizures (these are seizures that have no physical symptoms). He was supposed to have it on for 24 hours, but 24 hours turned into 72 hours. So all the time he’s starting to feel better, he’s held down by all these wires attached to his head and body. He had a turban of cotton around his head to protect the wires, and it was extremely uncomfortable for him. All he did when he was awake was pull at every wire and lead he could find to try and get it off his body.

There are so many more things that went on during this time, but I am really just ready to move on to the recovery phase. Ryne is making such great strides and it’s hard to think about the dark uncertainty of those first days. One thing that helped us and continues to help us was the MASSIVE outpouring of love and support from literally thousands of people. Of course our family was awesome, but our Restoration Church family stepped up to make sure that basic needs were the last thing on our mind. They brought us food and love and friendship. It seems like an oversimplification just writing it out, but their awesomeness is really hard to put into words.

There were other church families that we heard from and that blessed us. We had people praying for us all over the country. The love and support we got from everyone has truly been what enabled us to make it these last few weeks. From here on out, we’ll concentrate on the positives of Ryne’s recovery. I know it was hard, but thanks for reliving my nightmare with me.