Counting blessings
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At seven o'clock Erin Amundsen collapses on the couch next to her husband, John, after a long day of grocery shopping, wheelchair loading and unloading and administering medications every few hours to her 6-year-old stoke-surviving son, Colby. If she's lucky, tonight is one of the five nights a week that one of the nurses will be staying at her home in order to get up every two hours with Colby. If she isn't lucky, Sister Amundsen has a long sleepless night ahead of her.
Colby was only 2 years old when he contracted E-Coli 0157 poisoning from a nearby mountain stream in early August 2007. Cattle where grazing upstream from where the family went on a picnic; they all got sick after playing in the water. Colby continually got worse until his mother decided she needed to take him to the ER where he had an appendectomy. Unfortunately, the antibiotics they used were not good for E-Coli poisoning and only two days later he was life-flighted to Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City. In addition to experiencing kidney failure, Colby suffered a stroke.
Weeks later, Colby had made enough progress to move to the pediatric neurological rehabilitation wing and later the family was able to go home around Thanksgiving. He has the motor control of a newborn infant with no head or neck support, is incapable of sitting and swallowing is hard for him.
Colby is fully dependent on everyone around him, which is a lot to handle for a mother who has two other children at home including an 8-year-old daughter who has a bipolar condition with ADHD and Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Yet, she continues to count her blessings and be grateful for everything she has. Sister Amundsen said that with every trial that has come in her life she has been able to see the Lord's hand and she knows there is a reason it has been given to her.
"I've seen too many mothers leave the hospital with empty arms and broken hearts to not be grateful for what I have," Sister Amundsen said.
One blessing has been the help given to her by her ward. Soon after Colby came home, his family started looking into options that would help him regain control of his body and build up his muscles. One of these options was to try a hyperbaric oxygen machine, which could give Colby a pressurized oxygen treatment, an experimental treatment mainly used for diabetes patients. To have just one treatment, which includes 40 sessions, cost $10,000 so the family started to save where they could.
In late May, Sister Amundsen was having a small yard sale in an effort to raise funds toward the hyperbaric oxygen treatment for Colby. Ward members and neighbors were helping.
At the yard sale, Phyllis McDowell thought she could organize something that would get the entire community involved to help the family.
"The thought kept coming into my mind that this little yard sale was not going to go very far." She started contacting people she knew, including her own family, neighbors and ward members and then they sent other people to her. As she continued to pray, the more help she received.
What started out as a small prompting, quickly turned into a large community event as people poured in donations, and companies offered up services. The sale was a giant success and things fell into place to help Colby receive the treatment he needed.
Colby was able to start treatment and after just one week of treatment, he stopped screaming and eight weeks of treatment later, he started smiling. The treatments showed drastic improvement but some of the treatments had to be done in Salt Lake City, which meant long car rides, for a short visit. The sisters in her ward quickly volunteered to take care of the two daughters at home.
Sister Amundsen said when she would come home, she would often find dinner already made and waiting for her with her house cleaned. Anita Watts, who was Relief Society president at the time, said the sisters in the ward banded together and just helped where help was needed. She said the sisters would clean the Amundsens' house once a week, tend the girls, cook meals, do laundry and were a big help in the community yard sale that was held. They offered emotional support.
"I am so grateful for all the support and prayers that we have received on our behalf," Sister Amundsen said. "My visiting teachers from Church are such wonderful women with hearts of gold."
Sister Amundsen said the way she gets through the day with a smile is through the inspiration given to her by her own struggling son. She said throughout all the pain and suffering Colby is in constantly, he continues to remain happy. "I look at him smiling up at me and I think, 'If he can be happy and smile, I surely can be happy and smile.'
"He is the light in our lives that reminds us of what the human spirit is capable of. Everyday there are people who defy the odds, who fight when they are told there is no hope. He is a fighter and an inspiration to all of us."
Recently the family has had to undergo yet another trying experience when Brother Amundsen was diagnosed with brain cancer. He had a tumor the size of a baseball in the frontal lobe of his brain removed on May 18. Two weeks after that tumor was removed the family found out he had brain cancer in stage III called Oligodendroglioma. The family is still looking at their options for treatment but Sister Amundsen said what will probably happen is six weeks of radiation treatment, and then chemotherapy in the form of a pill he will take five days a month. The typical lifespan after diagnosis is anywhere from seven to 15 years.
"I think sometimes it's hard to trust in Heavenly Father's plan when you can't see what's going on," Sister Amundsen said. "Knowing what I know now I am so grateful I listened to the promptings I had to have patience that things would work out in the end. Even if I didn't know the plan, I would know that I was being watched over and taken care of."
The family just got a walker for now 6-year-old Colby and his therapist thinks he'll eventually be able to walk again as he continues to practice. Sister Amundsen said the future looks bright as they continue to do therapy treatments, watch Colby's slow but steady improvement and enjoy the time they have together as a family.
"You always hear the prophets and the hymns talk about having a prayer in your heart or to never cease praying," Sister Amundsen said. "I'd never really understood the concept until Colby had his stroke. Praying was something you did at meals, in the morning, before bed kind of a deal. Then I realized what I had been doing for over six months. It was a constant prayer. Every waking minute I was pleading for help or giving thanks for a small miracle, like no kids crying for a full five minutes. I realized that I knew in my heart that I had never been left alone, even on the hardest days."
