Part 3

Part 2 is an interesting story about how God moved us to Tennessee. But while it may be interesting, it is not really relevent to the rest of the story. Other than to say that God made sure that we just happened to be in the right place - at the right time - talking to just the right people. So, skip to part three......

Part Three:

William survived the initial surgery but it was only the first of many. He was hooked up 24hrs per day to TPN (Total Peripheral Nutrition) and Lipids (intravenous Fats) to keep him alive. He was in tremendous pain. He should have been miserable but he didn’t know it. He smiled and laughed a lot. He won the hearts of his Nurses, who renamed him, Matthew (God’s Gift)

The director of the adoption agency did not forget his promise. He and his wife went and spent 2 months at Shand’s Hospital in Tampa, Florida learning how to care for the baby.

Shands had a revolutionary new program where children with Matthew’s condition (known as short gut syndrome) were given little transistorized IV pumps which they could carry in a little back pack. This allowed them to leave the hospital for short periods of time, and try to live as normal of a life as possible. 3 Months and several surgeries later Matthew was finally ready to leave the Hospital.

He went home with Larry & Nancy Carroll, the directors of Christian Family Services.
Larry and Nancy loved Matthew and they took tremendous care of him, but they knew that they were not the ones to adopt him. They began praying along with their church family (The Crossroads Church of Christ in Gainesville) for God to find a forever family for Matthew.

The Bible talks about Peter having the courage to step out of the boat and walk on the water. Well, as far as Lynetta and I were concerned, it wasn’t courage – we didn’t actually step out of the boat, we sort of fell out of the boat. Looking back now it was more like we were pushed out.

We just happened to be in the right State, the right Town, and the right Church, on just the right Sunday to hear from a couple who had just returned from Gainesville. They were there adopting their daughter. While there, they meet this beautiful little boy who needed a forever family – and the rest was history. Against all odds Matthew came to Tennessee.

The next 3 years were a blur. We spent more time in Vanderbilt then we spent at home. Matthew's 2 new older sisters, Kari and Andrea, were crazy about him and took tremendous care of him, but I know that it was very hard on them. We were never home.

We spent all of the holidays at the hospital. I remember one Thanksgivings in particular: We were all at the hospital, eating the same old cafeteria food. We should have been miserable. I would have usually complained and felt sorry for myself. But, I remember us all being happy and being truly thankful that we were all just able to be together.

The Nurses at Vandy learned to love Matthew as well. One of his favorite nurses lovingly nick named him POOP HEAD. She said he could fill up a wagon quicker than anyone she had ever seen. (He'll kill me for that one)


Matthew’s condition remained critical. He struggled with fevers and infections and life threatening sepsis. His hospital chart far out weighed him. Each time we ended up back in Vanderbilt we feared that this hospital stay would be his last.

Matthew lost several room mates and friends
There was Josh the little 6 year old who loved to share Matthew’s pop tarts. He died of a brain infection
There was Dalton, a beautiful happy little 9 mos old that died of the exact condition Matthew had.
There was Mandy an unbelievably sweet little 3 year old girl with the same problem as Matthew, who died on the way to the Mayo Clinic where she was going to have a life saving transplant.

Finally when Matthew was 3 years old his Doctors came to us and told us we had a very serious decision to make. It was obvious that Matthew could not live much longer in the condition he was in. His only chance for survival was a new yet untested procedure in which his short distended small bowel was cut into pieces and manipulated to form a more normal shaped intestine. The trouble was it was an all or nothing gamble, either it worked or it didn’t. Failure meant certain death. So we prayed like we had never prayed before

As we were waiting in the Matthew's room on the day of the surgery, Matthew started laughing and talking with someone who wasn’t there. He told us there were beautiful butterflies flying around the ceiling by his bed. The Nurses said it was hallucinations caused by the sedation medication they had just given him. Perhaps it was. Lynetta and I knew that they were not butterflies. We knew they were angels. But we didn’t know if they were there to protect him or take him home.

The hardest thing we have ever had to do in our lives was hand that baby over to the surgeons not knowing if we would ever see him alive again. So we wept, and we prayed, and we left him in the hands of God.