God Story About Joe

A long time ago I posted a God story and had planned to post one here and there.  I haven't done that as much as I would like but here's another one.  When Joe was about 7 months old he choked on the pit of a pluot (a plum/apricot sometimes called a dinosaur egg in the store).  I had been eating one and let him suck on the pit and he immediately sucked it down his throat.  I did exactly what you are not supposed to do and reached my finger in to get it out and pushed it in further.  He pretty quickly turned blue (I am feeling panicky as I write this--it was awful!) and I called 911.  I tried the Heimlich but it wasn't coming out.  I had him upside down beating on him.  I put my finger back into his mouth and could feel it and I very gently and carefully tried to pry it out.  After a minute or more of doing this I got it out.  He was passed out at this point and did not start to breathe right away so I laid him on the floor and did mouth to mouth resuscitation.  I did that wrong too--didn't put my mouth over his mouth and nose.  But it worked and he started breathing.  About that time the paramedics walked in and were incredibly relieved to hear a baby crying.  They gave him oxygen and we went in an ambulance to the hospital.  Hannah was at a friend's house and Grace was napping (amazingly she didn't wake up--I was screaming hysterically and she slept through it) so our neighbor came to stay with her.  Ollie was on his way home and got here before we went to the hospital.  Joe fell asleep in the ambulance and I didn't know if he would have brain damage or not.  He was without air at least 4 minutes I think.  Thankfully, when he woke up he was fine.  They did an x-ray to check his trachea and that was okay too.  Amazingly, he was completely fine.  Me?  I was a complete mess.  It was traumatizing.  For a week I would just cry for no reason.  I couldn't look at him asleep unless he had his pacifier in his mouth because I would have a flashback of him not breathing before I did mouth to mouth.  I couldn't lay him down in the same spot that I laid him down on to change him or get him dressed.  I had to keep reminding myself that he was okay.   A week later I went to a friend's wedding (Lynne's).  It was in Winter Haven and I took Joe because he was still nursing at the time.  I cried the whole way there.  In the middle of the wedding Joe decided to try out his voice box.  Until this point he was not a babbler but he started that day and so I walked out in the foyer of this church.  While out there I could hear the service perfectly.  A man read a letter that he felt like God had given him for Lynne and her husband.   The letter spoke right to my heart.  I can't remember much of it now but it may as well have been written to me.  It was like a balm to my wounded spirit.  I cried a lot more just listening.  The next thing to happen was that her daughters signed to a song and to hear I had to press my ear up to the door.  It was then that I realized that I could hear everything the man had read while sitting across the room yet I had to put my ear to the door to hear this song.  God had a message for me that day and I was a different person after it.  He continued healing me the next day in church where I guess you would say I had a vision.  I could picture me leaning over Joe giving him mouth to mouth and Jesus kneeling right next to me.  I knew that He was with me through the whole thing.  Joe came out of it healthy and fine but even if he hadn't, even if my worst fear had happened, Jesus was right there next to me.  Through these two things I was healed.  It took about a year before I stopped bursting into tears at the sight of an ambulance flying past me.  I still have the outfit Joe wore, the bib he had on, and the pit he choked on.  I just can't throw it away.  It was an awful thing but a huge thing and I can't just throw it away.  On a side note I learned what my body does when I am truly terrified--my left leg shakes uncontrollably.  It did it that day and the week after that when he climbed out of his crib and fell on his head (at 7 months old).