Ocieanna: I'm a wife. I've been married to my husband, Michael, for over 20 years now. We've got four kids. A 15-year-old, 13, 10, and 8. As a family, we love to go for hikes. Our favorite place to hike for sure is Mount Rainier. It's a beautiful, amazing mountain. We can just laugh, and be together. And the fresh air, and the energy, and the exercises is what really brings us together, and makes those moments really special with each other.
I've always loved to write since I was a child. I used to write stories for my friends, and they would laugh, and they would love my stories. Just the response that I got from them as a kid ... their laughing really fed something in me. As I've gotten older, it's become very therapeutic for me. It's also really a blessing because my heart is to share God's love with people. I have such a desire to share that. Sometimes I can write it in my stories, and hopefully God can use that in other people's lives.
My life was so insanely busy. I was homeschooling, and working with the kids, and editing full-time. There just came this one day that I just was so overwhelmed. I just cried out to God. I said, "God, please. I need rest. Please give me rest." Little did I know how He would answer that prayer. After putting the kids to bed, I was laying in bed watching TV with my husband, just enjoying time together. As we're watching TV, I started gasping for air. My hands curled up. My chest arched. My eyes rolled back. He was terrified, and he started yelling my name. My son heard him yelling, but my husband told him, "Go get the phone. We need to call." So, he called 911. The 911 operator told him how to give me CPR, and he started doing chest compressions.
Finally, the paramedics came. He clipped on the defibrillator onto my chest. Machine told them to push the button and they did. They pushed it, but it didn't work. The second time they did the defibrillator, it actually worked. They took me out to the ambulance. The lead paramedic came and told my husband and my son that they shouldn't get their hopes up. That yeah, they got my heart started again, but mom might not be coming home.
At the time of the cardiac arrest, we had been struggling financially for several years. My husband had been laid off from his job, and we were underemployed, and it was a very stressful, hard time for us. The thought of having to pay these huge medical bills was terrifying. When we got the phone call after we paid our portion that the Medi-Share members were sharing 100% of our bill. We were just amazed and elated. I actually wept. When you talk to them, they're just so wonderful. To have somebody call and pray with you from your healthcare plan was remarkable. You expect that area of life to be stressful, and awful, and icky. And Medi-Share is not that way. Medi-Share is supportive, and wonderful, and amazing. You feel like you have a friend on the phone who really cares about you.
We're a family of four kids, and two adults, and things were going to go wrong. But having Medi-Share really gives us peace of mind that even if it does go wrong, the financial stress is something that's going to be taken care of. And it's going to be done in an easy way. It's a blessing to know that other Christians are out there praying for us that don't even know us, but are out there praying and caring for us. I'm going to live every day like this is the most important day. This could be my last day. There could be no tomorrows.
