SS 006 How My Wife Became a Crackhead – Our Story of Seizures Brain Surgery and Hope

Standing Stronger Podcast Episode number 6! Every day is a new day, And everything's going your way. You just want to make it last forever, Keep it together, cause it keeps getting better. That's right everyone, it keeps getting better. Welcome back to the Standing Stronger Podcast. My name is Shannon. And I'm Shannon. What? They have the same name? That's crazy! Who does that? Let's keep going. Why would anyone marry someone with the same name? That's ludicrous. Let's go. Crazy. Hey guys, welcome back. This is a show about inspiration, motivation, and hope. Bringing you stories to let you know that you, my friend, are not alone.

That's right, if you're struggling, if you're having fears, if you're having panic, if you're having suicidal thoughts, stay tuned because we're going to bring some amazing stories to you. However, we're not doctors, psychiatrists. Do not listen to a word we say, is what I'm saying. I like that disclaimer. Yeah, there you go. What am I supposed to do? Why are you pointing at this? I'm just wondering to make sure we have an SD card in there. Oh yeah, there is. We've done many recordings where we were not set up properly. Right. Yes. And this is going to be a good one, so I don't want to repeat it.

Yeah, we have Mackenzie Marie is in the room with us too, so if you hear her yelling, that's because she's ready for some milk. Or diaper change. And I have no milk for her. I do. Yep. All right, today we're going to get into the story. You've heard us mention it a couple times throughout the podcast already. However, my beautiful wife of, man, how many years have we been married? Today 10, 11? Yes, 11. We're going on 12, right? Right. We've been together 20 years though. But anyway, my beautiful wife of 11 years, I call her a crackhead. And it's not because she likes crack. It's because she has a crack in her head, literally, with some plates and stuff.

Yeah, we had to quit using that phrase once we had our son, because that's all I needed him to do was go to preschool and say, my mom's a crackhead. What do you mean once we had our son? You became a crackhead while we already had him. Once he was able to talk and go to school. Right. Yeah, and I called her a crackhead, and I was a cokehead. And that's because I love Coca-Cola Classic, and she loves, well, she doesn't love it, but she has a crack in the head. People that didn't know us just thought we were. Hey, we're crazy. We're wild and crazy people. Anyway, so yeah, that's what we're going to be getting into today and starting that story off. Yeah, so we go all the way back to 2007.

Yep, 2007. Actually, we go back a little bit further, because we became pregnant with Jordan in 2005. She found her thumb. We became pregnant with Jordan in 2005, and everything was hunky-dory. We were just trucking along through the pregnancy, and about end of my second trimester, I was, I think the first episode I had was at work, and I had lost vision in one eye, and about 20 seconds later, lost hearing in one ear, about 20 seconds later, the numbness and tingling in my gums, which if you've never felt is a very, very odd feeling. And that, well, that's really weird. So the girls I work with, I'm in the medical field, so they took my blood pressure, and no, everything's fine.

You seem to be good. I said, I feel okay. I said, it's just weird that that just happened. So I came home. I told Shannon about it. No big deal. And then I was seeing a midwife at the time, and she said, oh, well, it's just the baby pressing on something. You'll be fine. Okay, so this girl is the one that has examined me for years before I had Jordan as well, so I trusted her. We went on and started the third trimester, and it happened again. I said, this is, something's off. It doesn't happen all the time, but something's really off. So the nurse practitioner was going out of town and said, you know, you can skip the next appointment if you want.

It's just, you know, your normal be in a cup, take your blood pressure type of visit, or you can see the doctor that we have on staff. I said, you know what, I would rather just see the doctor. It's not a big deal. So I came in, and I saw her, and something just told me to reiterate to her what was going on. Were you with me? You weren't with me, were you? No, I was not. So I told her, you know, I told the nurse practitioner this, and this has happened again, and it's just something that's weird. She said, that wouldn't be the baby. It's something neurologically going on. So, you know, let's run some tests on you. She said, you know, we can send you over for an MRI.

I said, well, is that going to work because I'm pregnant? You know, yeah, everything's fine. You'll be all right for the scan. So I worked for an imaging center at the time, went in, had the scan done. We didn't even make it home. I guess I had already called. That was like before cell phones were really big. No, we had cell phones, but yeah, they weren't really big. They left a message on our answering machine that was plugged into a wall. I think back then our cell phones were probably charged by the minute or something. Yeah, it was like, do not call this phone. I don't care if it's an emergency. Unless you're calling me from my husband's phone, don't call me. So we got home.

There was a message on the answer machine. It was the technician. He said, you know, I just want to let you know we did see something on your brain. I don't know what it is. I'm calling the radiologist. He's going to come right in and read it, and we'll call you back. So, of course, we started to freak out. First thing you always think of is I have cancer. The crazy thing about that is she says that, but that thought never crossed my mind. I don't know why. That was the first thing I thought about, a brain tumor, and I had cancer. That was the first thing that popped in my head. So the radiologist called me back, and he said, there's definitely something there. We don't know what it is.

We want you to go see the neurologist tomorrow morning. So that wasn't very comforting. No. We started to panic a little bit. We had to go over and talk to my parents and tell them what was going on. I look back on it now and just see all the people and places that God put in our paths, and I know now for the reason. But my cousin's wife worked for a neurologist at the time. She got me right in that morning, and he said, you know, I think we're just experiencing some migraine issues. Oh, wait. I feel like I'm messing something up here. Yeah, you messed it up. You went and saw him first. That's right. The doctor sent you to the neurologist. That's right. That's right.

And he said, I think you're just having migraines. Let's send you for the test. Went for the test, you know, and that's how it all played out. So back that up. Sorry. I had brain surgery. Get over it. Right. You have an excuse. Pass. Yeah. So we went, you know, had all that done, went back to him. He said, you know, we're going to get you right over next. He worked right next door to the hospital. So we went to the hospital and started in-depth testing because, again, no one knew what it was. What did you experience that day? Because I was just locked up in machines.

Well, it was crazy because they had doctors, like, from everywhere because they really couldn't figure out exactly what was going on. So, you know, there was like 15 doctors huddled around her MRIs and everything else. And this is really, I think, before computers got huge, like Google, because remember you said they had books out. So it wasn't like someone sitting on computers Googling. They're all going through textbooks and everything else. It was a crazy time. It was not very comforting. So we came out of the test that day, and I had had MRAs and MRIs and CTs, and I don't even know whatever other abbreviation you can use. I had it.

So they came out, and the neurologist and the neurosurgeon, they all said, well, this is what we're going to do. We're going to admit you over to Baptist Hospital. We're going to, you know, monitor you over the weekend, and we're probably going to set you up to have the C-section and then take you in for brain surgery. Now, I was 32 weeks pregnant with Jordan at that time. And Shannon and I went, er, put on the brakes, because that's just a lot to go right then, and no one knowing what we were dealing with to say, okay, let's do this right now. So we talked it over with the doctors. We said, listen, you know, this isn't something that's happening every day.

I mean, this has only happened twice in my pregnancy. You don't even know what That was October 15th. And the next weekend we went on vacation. No, we didn't. I wasn't allowed to drive, you know, nothing like that. But that was October 15th of 2005. Jordan was born, thankfully, at November 7th, 2005. We went in the morning. I was seeing a specialist because of all the issues. They wanted to make sure baby was OK. So I kept seeing the specialist. Weekly we'd go in. They'd listen, you know, put them on the monitor, do an ultrasound. We got in there that morning and they were like, you're having contractions. Well, we went in that morning because your amniotic fluid was also low.

So they were going to jab a needle into your stomach and test your amniotic fluid. So we went in and I said, you know, you're having contractions. I was like, no, I'm not. They said, yeah, you are. I said, well, I keep feeling a push on me. And they're like, no, that's your uterus contracting. Oh, OK. So, well, let's put you on the monitor and see how far apart they are. They were every five minutes. So they said, let's send you over to the hospital. We'll get you started an IV. If they stop, then you'll go home. If not, then you're having a baby today. So that's what we did. And we got over there.

Now, remember I said the nurse practitioners who has always seen me and has never said anything about anything in my pelvic exams. And the doctor came in to check me and did the pelvic. And she said, you know, even if we weren't doing anything with doing the C-section because of your brain, we would be doing a C-section because your pelvic bones are so small, there's no way you could deliver more than a three pound baby. And what's crazy about that is I can remember talking with Shannon and one of my best friends, Crystal, and telling them, I know I'm going to be OK. I just really feel like this is a God thing. Like he's just trying to protect us.

I don't know why I feel that way, but I just feel like he's trying to protect us from something. And so that was amazing to hear, you know, in that moment that I'm going to be OK. And this is all just to protect me and this baby. And so we did. We went in and had the C-section. Jordan was born, healthy little boy. He was four weeks early, but he was healthy. And we went on about our day and they said, we'll give you three months to bond with your son and then we'll go in and do brain surgery. So we were OK with that. So we continued on and as they got a little bit closer, we called the neurosurgeon and we said, yeah, we're ready to go. You know, we just need to get in and get things rolling.

And the receptionist said, well, he doesn't have an opening for six months. We're like, well, what are you talking about? Six months, just two months ago, you were telling us we have to do this right now and there's no other option. And we talked to you guys in the waiting. Now you're telling me we got to wait another six months? Yeah, it was very frustrating, especially being in the medical field myself. I just thought if I could just get past this girl that's on the phone, somebody's going to take care of this for me. And it didn't. Nothing happened. So we kept going, you know, pushing and pushing again in this doctor. It didn't work. So we started, we did get online, dial up.

You got mail. We got online and started looking into, I guess, because at that point they did tell us it was a cavernous malformation. Yeah, at that point we knew it was a cavernous malformation. We started looking around and we decided to go to the Mayo Clinic because they had brain specialists at the Mayo Clinic. Well, they specialized in cavernous malformations, which is just a malformation, a lesion. It's like a lesion. It was basically a lesion on her brain is what it is. And you can have them anywhere. Like you can have them in your kidneys. You can have them in your liver. She happened to have one in her brain. And having this on your brain is very, very rare.

Yeah, I think they said like 0.8% of the world has this. And they can be as little as little pinpoints all through your brain. They could just be one, you know, and they hadn't figured anything out on why I had that. Yeah, her bleed and everything was probably around the size of a penny, I would say. So, we gave up on that neurosurgeon. We scheduled our appointment at the Mayo Clinic. We got down there. We had my scans. We had everything. We got to the front desk. And again, that front desk girl does everything. And she says, Okay, well, you're going to have to pay 30% down. We said, What? I hadn't even seen a doctor. But they already knew I needed brain surgery.

And they said, It'll be 30% down. I said, On brain surgery? She said, Yeah. I said, But I have insurance. Well, we take your insurance. We're just out of network. Yeah, it was like $300,000 that we needed to put down. It was ridiculous. We're like, Yeah, we don't have that. We had Blue Cross Blue Shield at the time too, right? Yeah, we're not going to do that. And they're like, Well, I mean, I don't have that kind of money. I mean, who just has that kind of money laying around? Not us. So, they said, Well, do you own your home? We can put a lien on your home. We're like, We're not going to do that. We're going to find an in-network doctor.

So, I became very frustrated because for me, that was just nobody wants to help me. This is just getting ridiculous. All these doors are being closed. I don't understand why. And it takes a lot for me to get to that point. And Shannon knows that. And I finally looked at him and I said, I'm done. I don't know what needs to happen. I don't know where we need to go or what we need to do. But I'm done trying to figure it out. And I'm not doing it anymore. Yeah, it was like a John Q moment. She was screaming at me, Do something! You do something right now! And I didn't go and stick up the hospital or anything. However, I... Yeah, I lost it that day. I was very upset. I remember that. And he did.

He went right into action and... Found one of the best surgeons in Florida. Yeah, it was down in Tampa General Hospital. So, then we thought, Well, what are we going to do? We live in Jacksonville. Let's just go on down. And we didn't even get that far, I don't think. We had sold our house. We made all these decisions. You know, you were going back to firefighter school and we were going to move in with your parents because obviously if I was having brain surgery, you know, a three-month-old son, you know, all these things were going to happen. I was going to need help. You know, your mom owned her own business. We were going to work it all out. We were going to move down here.

It was all going to work out. So, we did all that. We sold our house all within like a week. We did everything we needed to do. We came down here, saw the, scheduled our appointment, waited like three hours to see him and got in there. He actually put my films up. It was the first time somebody really put up my films and went over what we were looking at and what was going on. And his name was Dr. Argazi, a phenomenal physician. And he said, I'm going to tell you, this is not an active bleed. You know, I know they said it was a cavernous malformation, but it looks like, you know, he said, I have to ask you, you know, did you ever have a brain injury? I said, you know, car accident?

Did you ever hit your head? And I said, well, I did hit my head when I was like 12 years old. I was a cheerleader and we were at competition and I was a flyer and I was on the top of the pyramid and the girl that was holding me in her hand gave out and I fell and the girl that was supposed to catch me didn't and I landed straight back on a gym floor and hit my head right in that spot, actually. And he said, well, there's your answer. He said, what's happened? He said, at that point, you had a bleed and then it stopped. And what's happened now is that lesion is forming around the artery. And when you were pregnant, that extra blood flow was constricting the artery, causing all the symptoms.

But actually what he said, he said, you can get a cavernous malformation one of two ways. It's hereditary and it runs in the family or blunt force trauma. Have you ever hit your head? Right. And that's how that story came out. So he said, you know, I love doing brain surgery. That's what I do. But I don't think we need to do that. You can live your whole life and it never bother you. And I said, OK. And we had been praying for that, you know, and we thought, OK, well. Yeah. Amazing. Sweet. Right. So we left. We were He's like, no. Hola habla ingles? I'm like, that would be really cool. Hola mi amo Shannon. Flip the switch and all of a sudden I'm a Spanish girl. I don't know.

Let's back up the story one more second. We were actually, after all that happened, we were actually getting ready to go back to Jacksonville. I had gotten done with EMT school. I was going to finish the fire academy. I was going to finish the fire academy in Ocala and we were going to move back to Jacksonville. In December of 06, we found out that my dad had cancer. Shannon and I made the decision to stay there to help them as my dad was fighting cancer. Yes, that's a very important part of the story. That's okay, well we're not going back to Jacksonville. We're going to stay here. It's going to help your mom at the shop and take care of your dad. This is all going to work out.

That's what we started doing. They had to go out of town and so I was working the shop for her. I'd had a headache all day long. This is in March. It was March 24, 2007. It's crazy how those dates stick in your mind. I was working at the shop. I came home. We said, let's barbecue. We're the only ones here. Everybody else was out of town. We had a couple of friends over. We barbecued. I kept saying, gosh, I have the worst headache. It's funny because my best friend's boyfriend at the time, he's like, just drink a beer. You'll be all right. I said, yeah, I'm not a heavy drinker or nothing like that, just socially. I said, yeah, you know what? You're probably right.

I probably just didn't eat enough or didn't have enough caffeine today or whatever. I'll be all right. I drank probably about a half a beer. This isn't going away. I don't feel too good. Cleaned up the kitchen. We were sitting on the back patio. Well, let me take over the story here because you kind of get everything wrong from this point on. Well, all I remember, the point of this show is two different perspectives. My perspective is we were sitting on the back patio and we're all just talking. I really wasn't saying anything. I remember Shannon looking at me and saying, are you okay? I just kind of nodded my head and shrugged my shoulders. He looked at me again.

He said, are you sure you're okay? I went to go say I'm fine, and that's not what came out of my mouth. What came out of my mouth? Red fire truck elephant. I didn't know I'd said that, but I knew what I said was I'm fine because I could see the looks on all of their faces. I remember him saying, what? Then I must have said something else. After that, you kept repeating fire truck. I remember getting frustrated. Fire truck, fire truck. I remember getting very frustrated and hitting my leg or the side of the arm of the chair because I couldn't say what I wanted to say. I just remember the frightening look on his face and my best friend Michelle's face at the time.

Their looks, it's like all the blood rushed out of their faces, and that's the last thing I remember. From that point, she kept saying fire truck, fire truck, and I knew instantly. I'm like, someone call 911. This is a valuable, valuable lesson I learned that night is you cannot yell, call 911 because what everyone does is they stop and stare at each other trying to figure out who is going to call 911. Finally, I pointed at her best friend. I'm like, call 911 now. She calls 911, and the whole time, Shannon was just saying fire truck. She was looking at us and saying fire truck, and you could see that she was frustrated.

Well, the paramedic walks in, and when the paramedic walks in, boom, she falls down with her first grand mal seizure. Now, if you've ever seen a grand mal seizure, you know how terrifying that is. If you haven't seen a grand mal seizure in person, I pray that you never have to do it because it is very, very scary, and I freak out at that moment, and I start screaming at the paramedics telling them, help her, help her, help her, and then my best friend, Sonny, grabs me. He's like, you've got to calm down. This is not helping her. So instantly, I'm like, you're right. I calm down, and we start letting them know what's going on. I explain the whole situation to them.

They rush her to the hospital, and this is a local small little hospital, and I get my first real taste of how horrible small hospitals are because they take her in. In the ambulance, she had another seizure. They take her in. She has another seizure. They pump her full of volume and everything else, so she's like knocked out cold and stuff like that, and nothing's happening. I go in, and I tell them the story of everything that's going on, and then nothing's happening. My wife's just laying there. No one's really coming in. No one's helping her. No one's checking on her.

They just pumped her full of drugs and left her be, and I'm like, aren't you guys going to take her in and do a CAT scan, excuse me, a CAT scan or an MRI or anything like that? And they're like, no. I'm like, why not? They're like, we don't need to. You already told us what's going on. I'm like, I am not a doctor. I'm like, how do we not know that her brain is bleeding and hemorrhaging right now? How do we not know this? And finally, so what we did was we got her doctor's records and called the hospital and surgeon down in Tampa, and they initiated a life flight, or not a life flight. They actually came in by ambulance. Yeah, because the rain was so bad I couldn't fly.

Right, and they took her by ambulance. So they get her down there, and man, I'll never forget it. They get her into Tampa General right up in there, and then they come out, and as soon as the doctor starts talking to her, because she's in and out at this time. I don't remember any of that. But when she comes in and out, she's making absolutely no sense when she's talking. She couldn't answer the questions. Whenever you have brain injuries, they ask you simple questions like, how old are you? Right, who's the president? What's today? She had no clue how old she was, and she'd make a guess, 20? And she was also having petite mal seizures, so she would have petite mal seizures in between there.

And petite mal seizures are different than grand mal seizures because it's like you're just staring off into space or something. So you'd be talking to her, and all of a sudden she would just, bam, she'd be gone. It's like looking into a soulless creature or something. Her eyes are just glassed over and looking out into space. And so they have this huge, the neurologist is talking to her, brings out this huge needle. I'm talking about like seven, eight inches long, like thickest needle I ever seen, and is getting ready to stick her because she's having these symptoms. And then, boom, she snaps out of it, and she's totally fine for a while. So she never got stuck with that huge needle.

I don't remember that at all. Man, I'll never forget it. When he pulled that thing out, I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is not good. This is not good at all. So what ends up happening is during this whole process, she ends up in the... Neuro ICU. Neuro ICU. So she's in the neuro ICU. They're trying to figure out how they're going to do surgery and everything else because this is a huge, huge issue because of where it is. It's right on an artery, everything else. So they're mapping out this plan on what they're going to do for her. So you kind of remember a little bit in this time, right? Not really.

I remember being in that ICU, and I remember the nurses, I think more because I yelled at them later. I remember your parents coming in. I don't remember anyone else coming in. I remember your parents coming in, and I remember opening my eyes and seeing your dad take a piece of candy out of your mom's purse. And apparently I had a 30-minute conversation with them I have no clue about. And I remember them trying to move me. Yeah. Well, what ends up happening is my parents leave, and right after my parents leave, her organs start to fail. They don't know why, but all of a sudden all of her organs are starting to shut down, and she's dying. They call in everyone.

They start pumping her full of all these drugs, everything else, trying to stabilize her. And at that point, that's the first time that she legitimately almost died right there. And I praise God every single day that she was in the right hospital because if she would have been in Spring Hill, she probably wouldn't be here right now. But luckily they were able to keep her alive. And then what was it? March 29th is when they did the actual brain surgery. Now this is crazy because she's conscious during this whole time, like in and out. She would go in and out of consciousness between seizures and stuff like that. She was awake quite a bit.

However, you know, we had to discuss, you know, living will, you know, what to do, when to pull her off of life support, all this crazy stuff. And we're 27, I think I was, and you're 24 or 25. I was 27. I mean, man, and that's some hard stuff to deal with when you're that young. Yeah, there's nothing like feeling this could be it for you. I can, you know, remember, like, sorry. That's all right. It's a tough time. I mean, it's a tough memory. I remember thinking, who's going to take care of my son? I remember thinking, you know, my sister wasn't married at the time and things like that. And I remember thinking, I can't expect you to marry my husband, but I expect you to take care of them.

You know, I mean, I would need her to move in with them and take care of him and take care of Jordan. I mean, that was my plan. You can't get married to anyone else. You can't marry my husband, but you have to take care of them. You know, that's scary. That was definitely a scary time because, you know, when you're that young, you never think you're going to be that close to death. And she was because it was a risky surgery. They came out and they were giving us all of the scenarios. You know, worst case scenario, your wife is going to die on the table. You know, best case scenario, she comes out of it and is going to need a lot of rehab. She's going to need to learn to walk again.

She's going to learn to need to talk again. She's going to need to learn how to feed herself again. You know, all this stuff. Basically, their hopes for how she was going to come out of this surgery were not the best. I guess the best, the right words would be, you know, they felt confident that she was going to come out alive. However, they felt confident she was going to come out with a lot of work that needed to be done. Right. I do remember that. You know, you're going to have to learn to walk and talk again and read again and, you know, all these things. So that was scary. But, I mean, obviously, I would be here and we would get through it.

So we went in, had the surgery, and boy, that was rough. If anyone out there has ever had brain surgery, you'll know exactly what I'm saying when I say noises are magnified by 100%. So I do remember after the surgery, I remember asking for my husband. I remember him being there and I remember screaming, like, and cursing. You know, I said some really, really bad things to those nurses. Yeah, listen, this is where the amazing thing happens. They said she's going to need to learn to walk, talk, everything else again. And guess what? Not only is she walking, I mean talking, she actually wakes up and starts cursing at the nurses. I'm in there and she's going like this to me.

She's like, tell him to shut up. Tell him to shut up. Tell him to shut the F up. Oh, it was so loud to me. And I was just behind a curtain in the ICU. You know, it wasn't in my own, you know, a closed out room or anything like that. And he swears they were whispering. He swears they were whispering on their, you know, going over charts or whatever. No, they were not whispering. It was like almost completely black. Everyone was whispering. It was the quietest place I think I've ever experienced. And she's screaming because it was so loud. It was so loud. So I remember then they moved me out of ICU and they put me in a room.

Well, the room they put me in had construction going on on the other side of the wall. And as soon as we got in there, I looked at him and I said, this is not going to work. Move me. And they moved me. I remember, again, I was so mean to those nurses because I was not having that. So they did. They moved me to a private room. I had my own little suite at the end of the hall. No one would bother me. So, you know, we got things taken care of. Sorry for those nurses. Yeah, well, it was a blessing, though, because when she woke up, she had some trouble with her words. She had some issues with her mouth. But really, she was fantastic. I mean, everything was great. The baby's starting to wake up.

Let's take a commercial break. Yeah, we're going to have to take a break because she's starting to get mad. All right, so it's a good thing that we took a break because I just realized we have kind of gone over our time limit. So we're going to wrap things up here in a second. However, to finish the thought I was talking about is, you know, it was a blessing because not only did she wake up, she woke up without all of the issues. She had some issues. However, she was able to talk, and within, you know, a couple days, she was up and walking around, and everything was great. I mean, it was great. She had some issues, and the issues are going to be discussed in the next episode.

So the next episode, what we're going to be talking about is the issues that we experienced after that, some issues with my family, what happened. And just to leave you a cliffhanger, this is where the story gets really good. So you're going to want to make sure you listen to the episode coming up this Thursday. Yeah, I just want to finish up with, you know, people get diagnoses all the time. Shannon's trying to hold the baby and talk. I just have to. Sorry, I've got to sit down. People get diagnosed with different things all the time, and it can be very, very scary, not only for you, but for those that are going through it with you.

And you'll never understand both sides of it unless you've been on both sides of it. And I just want to just tell you that medicine is medicine, and it's very important. We need medicine. But during this time, you know, the biggest thing we're leaving out is we depended on God through a lot of this, everything, every day. It was so strong. It was, you know, it was hard, and we had to realize that things like this were out of our hands. And to move forward, we needed him, and that's very important. And I don't want to leave that part of the story out because, you know, we were baptized in that time frame. We were, you know.

Actually, my first thoughts of suicide came in that first time frame as well. I've started seeing a counselor for the first time because of thoughts of suicide after you were told about the brain situation because I was freaking out. I didn't know what to do, and I don't know why that would make me want to kill myself. Well, I remember because it was over the money. We needed money. You know, we had big insurance policies at that point, and, you know, we needed money for brain surgery. So you thought, well, if I'm not here, she'll have the money, and then she'll be able to have brain surgery.

You know, we saw a Christian counselor at that time and learned a lot of things about our pastor at our church at that time, you know, and God just put so many people in place to walk us through this walk with him, and it was very important that we trusted in him. And I want to make sure that that's clear. That's the whole point of all of this is medicine is medicine, but there is someone in control. Yeah, medicine doesn't give you your hope back. What gives you your hope back is, you know, knowing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that things are going to be okay no matter how they turn out.

So, yeah, that's kind of what happened, how that story not all the way goes, but that's how it starts. So you're not going to want to miss the next episode. And the great thing about the next episode is it's only two days away. So it's coming soon, and we're going to finish up this story for you and take you down a wild ride and let you see that, hey, life is bad, you know, and I don't know your situation, but I can understand. You know, in your mind it's bad, and it probably is. However, other people are going through bad stuff, and you're not alone with your struggle. When you're struggling through these hard times, it's easy to pull into ourselves and say, I'm all alone.

I can't do this by myself. But we're here to help you realize, number one, you're not alone. Hundreds and thousands and millions of people are struggling each and every day. However, it's not your struggle. I know that. However, they're struggling as well. You're not alone. Number two, you're not alone because as you're struggling, even if you have no friends, no family, no dog, no cat, there is someone right beside you, and that's God. So I guess that's how we'll wrap it up. Oh, we need to start some music here. I don't think this is the professional way to do it, telling you that I'm going to start music. However, that's how we're going to do it. We're not professional.

We are not professionals. We've already said that. Remember our disclaimer. We're not doctors. You should not listen to a word we say. And remember, just stand a little stronger today.

Make today better than yesterday. next five minutes better than the last five minutes it's all in your way of handling things today just stand stronger that's right and we would like to thank our sponsors and our sponsors are you yes that's right we are listener funded so if you think this show is worth supporting head on over to standingstronger.com forward slash support standingstronger.com forward slash support that will take you to our patreon page patreon will allow you to become a patron and if you do that you'll get some pretty cool perks as well so go ahead and do that listen you guys are amazing i believe in you so before we head off i'm just going to say a quick prayer and we'll get going dear lord we love you we thank you each and every day thank you for allowing shannon and i to do this podcast and we just pray that if there's someone out there that needs you that you you wrap your arms around them i pray that they realize that they're not alone that you are there with them and when times are tough to lean on you because that's the only way they are going to make it through i pray that if someone is hurting right now you come down and you put your hand on them i pray if they're they're considering suicide that you let them know that death is not the option however if they want to die they can die to their old selves and be resurrected into a new self through your amazing grace and that's getting baptized and believing in god lord we just thank you we love you and you're an amazing god it's in jesus name we pray amen that's it folks thank you have a fantastic day and as always hopefully i'll see you on the beaches of the world that's right theme song baby walk through life every day is a new beginning shine your light it's your day and the world is waiting move along to the song singing in your soul feel the beat clap your hands better take control all you need all you want are you ready to find your way oh oh oh oh oh cause every day is a new day oh oh oh oh oh and everything's going your way oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh