It was about 5 months after my sweet baby moved to Heaven and unfortunately we were still under investigation until they finished the findings of the autopsy. The detectives ensured me that this was just standard procedure and the case would be closed after the autopsy results. I was still on my journey, trying to continue to hold on to the peace of God that he had bestowed upon me through this most tragic day of my life. I decided to watch a 20/20 episode. The worst mistake of my journey. The episode was about a mother of five who met a young child that was in foster care who had many emotional problems from abuse in his past. She met him at church and fell in love with him. Her husband and family made a decision to take him home with them and become his forever home. Their hearts were in the right place and they wanted to love him back to life. Along this journey, he had a compulsive eating problem along with many other behavioral problems. He was about 3 or 4 years old. He would get up in the middle of the night and just eat everything he could get his hands on. They had to lock up all the food to try to stop him. At church, he would go through the trash and just eat anything he could put in his mouth. Many people saw this and were trying to keep him safe and they had to go through extremes to keep things out of his mouth. One day, he got a hold of a box of salt and ate the whole thing. He soon got really sick. She did not know yet what he had done, but she began to treat him just like any other mother would. Gave him tylenol to get his fever down. After a little bit, put him in the bathtub with lukewarm water to try to get his fever down. He started convulsing not long after that and they put him in the car to rush him to the hospital. He passed away at the hospital. They did an autopsy and found out that he died from an overdose of salt. The mother was arrested for not taking him to the hospital fast enough. She did exactly what any mother would do when their children become sick. They try to control it at home and then if they get worse, take them to the doctor. Well, in the end, she was sentenced to 20 years for manslaughter. I was so shocked, mad, and troubled by this injustice.

When you lose a child, you already think to yourself that it is your fault, what could you have done differently, what if I would have taken him to the hospital immediately when he showed a sign of being sick. Ryder had a 24 hour stomach bug a week previously and it had spread to the whole family one by one. After that and during that week he also developed an ear infection and he had already had tubes in his ears. I took him to the doctor for his ear infection and they put him on antibiotics and had him on ear drops. As Bobby was recovering from the stomach bug, he and Dalton were the last to get it, Ryder came down with it again. I thought obviously it was a virus and he would be fine in a day or so because he was already on antibiotics and the virus would have to run its course. Well, after he threw up three times, he was taking a nap that he never woke up from. We didn’t understand why he passed away. At first, I thought he aspirated and choked, but we were right there and I didn’t see anything in his mouth. When he was in the hospital, they said that they didn’t see any sign of aspiration. We were in the dark for so many months waiting on the autopsy. While we were at a hotel during the waiting time, we met a young boy at the pool who showed us his new scar from his surgery. His mother explained that he had a heart defect that was never detected by his doctor and suddenly he ended up having open heart surgery at 6. Bobby and I thought to ourselves that maybe that was what happened to Ryder. We just wanted to know why. We were all over the board with our theories while we waited.

So after watching this 20/20 episode, about 5 months in, I had this overwhelming fear come over me. Were they going to say that I didn’t take him to the doctor fast enough? Even though he had just been, and he was on medication, did I not act fast enough. Was I going to go to prison for not acting fast enough?  At the time, the fear was so strong along with still dealing with the grief. When I look back now, I can’t believe that I actually let that thought take over my life. The thought was straight from the pit of hell but it was so real to me especially after seeing what happened to that mother. I had never had anxiety in my life and I thought that people that dealt with that were exaggerating  and they should be able to just let it go. You never know until you go through it yourself what it is like. The anxiety, which is fear, just consumed my life. I started having panic attacks, couldn’t sleep, was scared to drive my car. The thoughts would go through my head that I was just going to drive my car over the bridge because I wouldn’t be able to control the wheel. Dread of having no control over my body was a reality just like the air we breathe. Crazy thoughts were taking me over. I went to my doctor and she put me on Xanax for anxiety. I was a mess. I couldn’t function normally without it. I look back now and see that the medicine saved my life at the time. It was a form of PTSD that I was dealing with. The call came from the detective about a month later and he said that the autopsy was undetermined. They had no idea what happened to him and the case was closed. You would think that phone call would end my fear, but no, It had already become so much a part of my soul, regardless of the outcome, it was not going anywhere.

After a couple more months, I went to a church service and the pastor stopped in the middle of his sermon and said that he had a dream and he felt he needed to share it right then. He dreamed that he saw a large crowd of Christians running a race. He saw gold shackles around their legs and he asked God what they were. The shackles in his dream were migraines and anxiety/panic attacks. I was so overwhelmed. He called anyone that was dealing with that to come up front for prayer. I ran up there. It had totally taken over my life and I wanted it gone. That day, it was gone. I was taken up to three xanax a day just to function. It was gone. I was ecstatic! I had my peace back.  So, just like all trials and pain that we go through, I learned valuable lessons. One of those were that anxiety/ fear is real and people are hurting when they are dealing with this. I have so much more compassion and empathy for people . Another was that medicine can help until you make it to the other side. I would have been a basket case and considered mentally unstable without it. It helped me when the lies and fear would come into my mind that were trying to paralyze me and keep me from living a normal life. So for those of you that need the meds and your doctor prescribes them for a time, don’t beat yourself up over it.  Today, I find myself in a totally different trial now that is bringing back anxiety.  Life will never stop throwing you problems. Fear and anxiety will always be knocking on your door. We just have to remember back to what God has already brought us through and know that he has your answer right around the corner.  We just can’t see it yet!  I’ll leave you with what a friend of mine reminded me the other day, that it takes just as much energy to worry as it does to have faith…pick one.  Give it to Him and know that the plan has yet to be revealed and He’s got your back.