"I Don't Know Why You're Alive..."

I love my life. I really do. Like everyone else we get busy and believe the world is crashing down around us, and I'm no different. But deep down I know I am a lucky, lucky man.

I have a beautiful, loving wife who for the last 20 years has also been my best friend. We have a relationship that allows us to joke and kid around with each other a lot but there's no one on this planet I'd rather spend time with. I don't say that often enough, either. Jeannie is my soulmate and to a large degree has been divinely put in my life to keep me sane and grounded.

I have four lovely children, who I write about frequently in this blog. I love each and every one of them will all my heart and don't know how I lived the first 28 years of my life without them. I pray every day that God will teach me and mold me into being the father they all deserve.

I have a job that allows me to work in an environment centered around Christ and different people. The hours are sometimes long and the pay frankly isn't nearly as much as I'd like, but especially in these times, in this country, I am thankful to have a place to work. ETBU has been good to me.

I also love my church. I grew up at IBC and continue to worship there, and hopefully if the Lord sees fit I'll be there until Jesus comes back. I have wonderful friends, a great pastor and staff and people who genuinely care for one another. What else could a man want?

I almost lost all of this back in June of 2001, however. For some reason I've been thinking about this episode a lot lately. Not sure why, which worries me a bit, but as I learned back then I have no control over my life. It's all in God's hands.

I just completed my first year here at ETBU and had taken a couple of really long bus rides cross-country in May. No big deal, I'd been riding on buses my entire life to athletic events, either playing or covering them. I'd also finished what for me was a very physically-demanding Easter drama at IBC, "The Sacrifice," during which I thought I pulled a calf muscle. For several weeks my left leg was in severe pain from the knee down, but with time the pain subsided a bit and I moved on with my busy schedule.

In early June, once everything had settled down from the past school year and all, the pain returned in my leg, around the knee this time. This time it got so intense it was literally difficult to move. It didn't feel like a knee injury, as the area was just gosh-awful sore and swelling. The pain centered around an area just above the knee, where the thigh meets the knee, and on the inside portion of my leg. It became painful just to touch, very red, swollen and you could actually feel heat around the area.

Again, I thought I had somehow pulled a muscle, maybe related to "The Sacrifice." I went on an overnight golfing trip with some coaching buddies and on the first day found myself having difficulty breathing. I was so fat and out of shape this was regular occurence so I didn't think too much about it. But as the day wore on my breathing became more and more difficult, and I could feel a huge tightness in my chest, like when you try to take a deep breath but can't. I went to bed that night feeling pretty bad but thinking I'd maybe gotten too hot during the day or something. The pain in my leg had also subsided, so I didn't think too much about it anyway.

I woke up the next morning and the pain in my leg was back. I played another round of golf and came home but by the next day it was painful just to walk again. I decided to make a doctor's appointment to check out the pulled muscle and get some pain medication. Things had gotten that bad.

The doc ushered me in and immediately sent me across the street to test for a blood clot. I'd had a bloood clot in a similar area of my leg a few years earlier and was hospitalized and placed on blood thinners for six months. After the six month period I was taken off the blood thinners because they couldn't find anything that would have caused the clot, so I wasn't considered high-risk.

Anyway, because of that previous problem the doctor wanted to first rule out a blood clot in my left leg. They took an ultrasound of my left leg and then actually admitted me to run more tests, because of the shortness of breath I'd experienced a couple of days earlier. Jeannie and I checked into the hotel and were there for a little while before she needed to leave and for a hair appointment or something. I kicked back in the bed and felt quite comfortable, actually; I was going to do nothing but rest and have people wait on me for a day or two in the hospital, no big deal, then I'd go home.

It had just gotten dark outside when the phone rang. It was my doctor. After I said hello he said words that have haunted me for the rest of my life ever since.

"Mr. Weaver, you have what is called a pulmonary embolism. It's a blood clot in your lung, a very large one. Apparently it developed in your leg and broke off and moved into your lungs. This is very dangerous and we are going to have to put you on blood thinning medication immediately to break up the clot....Mr. Weaver, frankly, I don't know why you are still alive. You should have died on the golf course."

My relaxing mood was gone. I was rushed into a medium intensive care unit where I was watched and monitored around the clock. The shortness of breath, the pain in my chest, was all a result of a large blood clot making its way through my lungs. Apparently, and I'm a little vague on this, but the clot was very large but somehow managed to push its way through my lungs and away from my heart. Had that not happened, yes, I would have dropped dead on the golf course.

Ever since that stay in the hospital not a day goes by where I miss taking blood thinners. Over eight years now, every day, I take medication to keep my blood thin enough to avoid clotting. I have a filter in the main vein of my chest to block any clots that may arise and try to come up through my lower extremeties. As it turns out I have a genetic clotting disorder that makes it very easy for my blood to clot up, and in this case the combination of pulled calf muscle from the Easter drama, two long bus rides where I did nothing but sit for hours, and the stress of work all led to the P.E.

Unless you've ever had a doctor say those words to you, "I don't know why you're still alive," you can't understand how helpless you feel. For months after the hospital stay I would lie awake in bed, unable to sleep because I was afraid to close my eyes. I was afraid that if I closed them I wouldn't wake up, and the fear was very real that it caused me to nearly hyperventilate at times. All I could think of was missing my wife and my then-two young children, Coby and Melody, who were only 4 and 2 respectively. Abby and Lily were not even considerations yet.

I had people come up to me with "God's just not finished with you yet," but you know that isn't much consolation quite frankly. I know God saved my life literally that week, for whatever reason, but coming that close with death years ago was a very big deal for me. A simple "God has plans for you here" wasn't what I was looking to hear.

But I do know that He does have plans, for all of us. What I try to do now, and this has been a long process I'm working out to this day, is simply live each day and not worry about tomorrow. If you worry about what happens next you miss what is going on now in your life. And you also miss interacting and loving the people around you, living life with you.

Yes I am a lucky man. And yes I know God saved my life back then for a reason. But only He knows why. And some day yes, I hope to ask Him when I get to heaven, and I firmly believe He loves me enough to give me the answer. But for now I will just try to live, the best way I can, and be the best husband and father I can, without worrying about tomorrow.

Setting The (Arm) Record Straight

Okay, okay. I need to clear up a couple of rumors and accusations out there that have been popping up since my wife's unfortunate accident this past Sunday in church.

1) No, I did not trip Jeannie as she was exiting the pew with Lily for a routine feeding in the middle of the pastor's sermon, thereby causing her to fall following an impressive somersault that saved the baby from injury.

2) No, Jeannie was not "slain in the Spirit," thereby causing said fall.

3) No, I am not the worst husband/father in the world for returning to my seat after helping her up off the aisle floor in front of 300 or so shocked church-goers. "I'm fine," "I'm okay," what more do you expect when you hear this come out of one's mouth?

4) No, apparently there is no such thing as a "little cracked" bone.

5) Yes, the arm is broken and now in a huge cast stretching from my beloved's shoulder to her hand. She's gonna be checked out again next week and after that, hopefully, the cast can be removed in three weeks or so.

All joking aside, the Lord has been good to us once again during a trying time. I wouldn't say he's put us in a valley this summer because that would be saying the birth of a precious baby is a valley which is not the case at all. But our patience and stamina, especially Jeannie's has been tested over the last month or so through Lily's birth, resulting jaundice issues and now a painful fall resulting in a broken arm.

But we have been surrounded by great friends and family who have swarmed us with love and care. Our Sunday School class has kept us fat and fed, and we have wonderful family who have spent their time helping around the house, with the kids, even giving me a night off for much-needed rest by spending the night and helping Jeannie and the baby.

Jeannie is the true hero here. She's had the natural challenge of caring for a premature newborn -- who, by the way is no longer premature as of Sunday, ironically, which was her due date...and the day her mother's arm was snapped at the elbow. Now she's having to provide mother's care for the baby with one arm free and the other in a heavy, bulky cast that has actually helped things considerably than the previous sling she was in for the first two days.

She's tired and worn out, and in pain occasionally, but she trudges on for Lily's sake. Little Abby has some issues with the whole situation we're afraid, but I don't think they have anything to do with Mommy's arm. We are all trying to be extra attentive to the two-year-old whose world has been turned upside down with the new baby the last few weeks.

And our older kids have been God-sends as well. Melody is the perfect big sister -- she took Abby and cousins Triston and Lydia outside yesterday for a while and was the best babysitter you'll find. Coby is also willing to do anything we ask...but like most 12-year-old boys, we do have to ask most of the time.

I could write individual thank-yous to everyone but I would most certainly leave someone out, so I will resist that temptation. But thank you, thank you, thank you, everyone -- and I ask that you will continue to pray for our family. We are going to come out on the other side of all this with more faith and love for the Lord than we had going in, that's for sure, and as I've been trying to tell my sometimes-despondent wife the last few days...

This too shall pass. Now, be careful with that weapon on your arm.