Sunday morning, 6:55AM: The world comes from a blur as I notice a familiar Latin song being played. My cell phone is going off. I climb out of my loft, fumbling down the ladder and reach for the annoying piece of technology and it turns off. I sigh and grab the phone, searching frantically for the missed calls menu with which I am still unfamiliar. RIIING! My room phone begins going off I pick it up and my voice still scratchy I mumble “Hello?” “Josh, its Crystal.” Her voice is very feeble. “I’m calling to let you know that I’m going to the emergency room.”
That’s definitely not a phrase you want to hear from your fiancée at anytime of the day. Crystal’s back had been bothering her all night and she wasn’t able to sleep, the pain had gotten to the point where she couldn’t walk and had to switch any position she was in after about a minute. I took her to the emergency room and waited until the ER staff took her in the back with her mother (who had arrived shortly after with Crystal’s father). The doctors told her she had a kidney infection and gave her Vicodin and some antibiotics. She actually called me Sunday night after she had taken the Vicodin, she sounded very relaxed (almost like she was high) and said she couldn’t even feel her back. The next morning she told me she was feeling much better, but still tired from the whole ordeal.
When she called me on the phone, I think I felt what she must have felt when I told her I was going to the hospital before I had been diagnosed with diabetes mellitus Type 1. The level of fear when you’re on the receiving end of that call is much greater than when you are the one who is ill. That moment the world pauses and spins in that moment what seems like hours but is probably less than a second is a perfect view of mortality. Just after, I felt this gut-wrenching fear; there was a moment of peace and calm and then a feeling of strength. I knew I was going over to her house to rush her to the hospital and I would fight any obstacle that stood in my way. The Lord was definitely with me in those moments (I said several hurried prayers for help on my way over as well) and it was wonderful when I felt His strength behind me.