Today is the Day That Our Lives changed Forever

So dramatic! So true! This day, Dec 8, 15 years ago, my 6 week old son was rushed to the hospital...blue and  limp.  Two days before this, I was in the emergency room because I could not stop coughing.  I was coughing and coughing..but wasn't sick..I felt well, was eating and exercising, except I would get these uncontrollable bouts of coughing and couldn't stop. I would be nursing my son and all of a sudden start coughing all over him. The xrays in the ER were unremarkable. I think they gave me OTC cough syrup and sent me home.  The baby was different.  He would start coughing in this high pitched weird sounding way and then would be breathless and turn the most unnatural shade of blue you can imagine!  Something was really wrong. I went in the ambulance with him and got a bed beside him.  I was working steadily as an ICU nurse then and was all over the treatments, respiratory care, monitors etc... For ten days, I kept him at my side in the hospital.  He slept with me and even took a shower with me.  I did not leave him out of my sight for one second...monitors and all....he was sick!  He was losing weight and energy.  I was sick with grief.  My mom had given us a check for $5000 the day I went to the ER...it was an early Christmas gift.  How wonderful!   We could get that piano, a sofa etc...we spent that money before we even got it!  Then this hospitalization..who cared one little tiny bit about money!  Suddenly, very suddenly, our perspective about the whole world changed radically.  Grandma had to come and stay with the 4 other kids so my husband could work and spend time in the hospital, and girlfriends came out of the woodwork to help!   They prepared meals, took my kids back and forth to all kinds of practices and rehearsals, one girlfriend even decorated the outside for Christmas. Talk about perspective! Wow! We never even appreciated these relationships. We never even considered their value.  But we were so afraid.  One of my girlfriends sent some prayers to the hospital, prayers to Our Blessed Mother.  Prayers for healing, prayers that ask for Her intercession, as our Mother in heaven..  At this point in our lives we were Catholic yes, but not really. I began praying those prayers. Mostly out of desperation, not faith.  My only hope really...10 days we were in the hospital.  I prayed more those 10 days than I prayed my whole life before that. It was me and the baby all day long, plus all the techs every 2 hours giving breathing treatments, the doctors rounding..but mostly it was just me and my baby and the prayer cards.  I had a chance to think, pray, reflect and realize..how many people ever get that chance?!  I knew I would be forever thankful to Grandma and my friends no matter what the outcome.  I realized the effort and concern, maybe for the first time in my life and I knew no matter what I was a changed person.  And for the better...we ended up being transferred to an tertiary care hospital .  A woman I was an acquaintance with called our house and asked my husband if we wanted to put an image of the Virgin Mary in our baby's crib.  She said she would bring it over.  We thought, what have we got to lose?  Ok.  My husband calls me at the hospital and said this image is not just a tiny holy card..it is like a shrine..will that be ok?  So we put the gigantic image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in our 6 week's old crib.   He stopped coughing, stopped tuning blue ... we went home the next day. You can draw any conclusion you want.  Right now we have a healthy, handsome, smart 15 year old son who we believe was saved because of the intercession of our Blessed Mother of Jesus.  And we are thankful and grateful ..and our lives are changed for the better..because now, we believe.  And BTW, today is The Feast of the Immaculate Conception..a Holy day for Catholics ..in honor of Mary's Immaculate Conception.  There are no coincidences...