Misc.

Lee Anne and I are so overwhelmed by the response and the hope so many communities of people are bringing us. We are blessed.

Isaiah's obituary was in the Oklahoman this morning.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/oklahoman/obituary.aspx?n=isaiah-stone&pid=142908247

The last two days have been incredible and horrible. Incredible that we have been surrounded by love from so many people. Horrible that we planned our son's funeral, made the decision to cremate him, picked out his final resting place and signed his death certificate.

The number of emails and texts and posts have been too numerous to respond to, but we are trying our best to read all of them. Please keep them coming - they provide the inspiration we need hour by hour.

We know that people are curious how Isaiah died. It is a natural human emotion to wonder why. A quick summary is as follows.

The storm on Sunday night was terrible. Lee Anne and I got home to relieve our babysitter about thirty minutes before the hail hit. The boys were both asleep. We made the decision to wake them up (they'd only been down an hour) and take cover. As soon as the hail stopped, Isaiah had a small seizure. He had not had a seizure in over a month because we upped his dose of medicine. The seizure, surprisingly, was over quickly. The doctors assured us that seizures were not harmful to Isaiah and that we just needed to give him the appropriate medicine (a cocktail dose of Valium called Diastat) to stop the seizure. He has had long seizures - his one in late march lasted an hour and twenty minutes and had to be stopped with a medically induced coma and a trip to the ER and then ICU - so we are quick to give the meds. This time was different, he didn't need the med to stop the seizure. Later that night before bed, Lee Anne and I agreed that we needed to call the neurologist and tell her what happened.

After the storm, we started clean up. My best friend and roommate from OU, Tim Heskett, came over and we started covering the skylights that broke, six in total plus three windows. It took several hours and we determined our home was not livable. Tim invited us to stay at his house for the night with his wife Natalie and infant son, CJ. They live about a mile away.

Lee Anne and the boys loaded up for Tim's house. Tim and I followed shortly after. It was decided that we would have a pizza party. Isaiah abandoned baby food about a month ago and loved any sorts of carbs, frankly he loved any kind of food. Cous cous with garbanzo beans were among his recent favorites. Everyone had a great dinner and then we played on the floor in Tim's living room.

Isaiah was so happy. He laughed. He crawled. He was doing great.

Bath time followed. Isaiah loved the bathtub and he was playing like crazy. He would pull the shower lever and then make the most confused face when water began hitting his head. Some of our best laughs were with Isaiah in the bathtub.

Isaiah took a bottle and went to bed. No fever. No ear infection. Medicine taken. He was fine. It was 8:00.

About 10:30, we heard him stirring and went to the door of the room he was sleeping in to check on him. The sounds were normal baby coos and we smiled. He quieted down and went back to bed.

The rest is history. Both us and the Hesketts were up multiple times that night checking the door. Isaiah was sound asleep - he'd been sleeping through the night only in the past month. We were thankful for the rest.

I got up and headed home to get ready for work about 7:15. We were going to get the kids dressed and then grab a quick bite to eat since Tim didn't have tons of food the kids would eat. My cell rang just as I was getting in the shower. Lee Anne shared the godawful news. I was in the car and there in minutes. Isaiah was gone. There was nothing we could do. It was our worst nightmare come true.

There is an autopsy being completed now. We do not know what happened, but we suspect he had a massive seizure in the middle of the night. He had never had a night seizure before - believe me, we spent many nights looking at him to make sure. It was just his time. We are totally confused, but not surprised since we had played out that scene a thousand times. Playing it out and living it are two completely different things and I assure you the latter is much, much worse.

Helping to satisfy the question everyone has, "how did it happen" is the point of this post. Lee Anne wants to make sure people know that this is what happened. She already read a few inaccuracies from blog posts, etc. I have assured her that it is a natural thing to ask when someone dies. We understand.

Thank you for the prayers. Thank you for the outreach. There are not enough tears, but we live in hope of mercy from the powerful and everlasting God.