Replies

Here’s a copy of an email I’ve sent around for people to forward and pray...

Prayer requested...

Dear Friends,

On Nov. 1, 2007, our 13 year old grandson Josh Eberly went into a local clinic and had the last allergy shot in a series of 7. He’d been receiving this for a year. Josh has asthma also.

On this particular date they were running late and even asked the clerk at the desk if they were too late to get the shot. Oh how I wish they’d had the doors locked that day because while he was given that shot the person giving it to him was discussing trick or treating with him. Josh explained that they don’t do trick or treating and the clerk gave him some candy.

The shot was given at 6:15 PM and within 2 minutes Josh had an allergic reaction. His last words to his mother as he was falling to the floor was “Help me!”.

Because the clinic had nothing there except the epi pen for such things Josh suffered cardiac arrest. The ambulance was busy in that community so they had to radio one from a nearby town. Valuable time was lost. Our daughter tried to administer CPR but began to hyperventilate. The “drs” just stood by and watched.

We took the call around 6:23 from Josh’s brother Jake 17 (our oldest grandson). He was hysterical and it took me awhile to get out of him what had happened. We headed there not even knowing where he was. At first I thought maybe they had been riding their bicycles and something had happened to Josh. The words he said to me were “Grandma, you need to pray for my brother. It’s BAD!” as he was screaming! I could hear him yelling at the “dr” “What did you give my brother!”

By the time we got there, Josh was being placed into the ambulance. The local hospital got him stable as he literally died. His eyes were fixed and dilated. He was life-flighted to Mott’s Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor where he spent the next 102 days. They say he went without oxygen for 20 minutes. We think it wasn’t that long but still too long.

After the first week an MRI was done. We had a meeting where we were told the worse of the worse. They said he’d never be able to gag, cough, walk, talk and that he would always be on life support. They told us we should let him go. Of course, our faith in God told us that as long as there was life, there is hope.

Our daughter told us that we aren’t the givers of life and the Dr said “While we respect your faith, if God wanted to heal your son, he would have already done that. God doesn’t need a week”.

We were devastated! Our daughter, Josh’s mom, held fast to her beliefs. We prayed and prayed. Our Pastor and his wife came up and prayed with all of us. The next day Josh started doing some of those things they had just told us he’d never be able to do. So they became “hopefully optimistic”. So are we.

Josh now goes to Ann Arbor twice a week. He is making progress and we have faith in God and know that God is able. It’s been difficult for the whole family because Josh’s dad quit his job in order to take full time care of Josh. He’s in a wheelchair and can not move or speak. Josh can’t initiate any movement. He’s in a minimal state of consciousness.

The reason I’m sending this email is because we are requesting prayer. Our prayer focus is that Josh will begin to move his arms or legs, fingers, toes...That he would speak...a word, anything...now he moans or groans and yells. We believe he’s trying very hard to come back to us. He is making progress, be it ever so slow.

Even though he suffered from a lack of oxygen we believe that God can restore anything that was lost. His memories, cognitive abilities, neurons, transmitters and all the other things that go along with an anoxic brain injury. (lack of oxygen)

When you receive this please say a prayer for Josh and pass this email on to everyone in your email list. I can’t promise as other emails do, that if you send this to 12 people within 12 minutes something good will happen to you ... or if you don’t that something terrible will happen to you. We just want to bombard heaven, as we’ve been doing for the past 9 plus months, but sometimes people forget to fervently pray. Josh stays home for the most part in order to keep him away from infections, etc. He’s very vulnerable right now. So out of sight, out of mind maybe? Many are praying faithfully for Josh to be restored and we do SO appreciate that.

Please say a prayer specifically for the things mentioned and pass this email on to as many other people who you know will pray for Josh.

In the meantime we’ve set up a carepage for Josh where you can get all the information and more recently a caringbridge site. The address for carepage is www.carepages.com and put joshuaourwarrior in for the title. The CaringBridge site is www.caringbridge.org/visit/joshuaeberly THERE ARE PHOTOS POSTED ON BOTH OF THESE SITES

Kathy Giles
Josh’s Grandma
kggma@yahoo.com

I won’t back down and I won’t back up!
Joshua will be restored and he will proclaim the illustrious works of our Lord!
www.caringbridge.org/visit/joshuaeberly