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Little Girl Finally Breathing on Own After 'Fluke' Fall Left Her with Traumatic Brain Injury

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On Aug. 22, Lindsay and Dugan Sherbondy experienced a parent’s worst nightmare: Their beloved 7-year-old daughter Eva suffered an injury that led to severe brain damage.

According to CBN, Eva fell from a golf cart. Lindsay described her daughter’s accident as a “fluke,” and the popular Christian blogger turned to Instagram to post her sad news.

“It’s so hard for me to write this, because somehow sharing this with you — my many friends that I both have and haven’t met — makes this even more real,” Lindsay posted on Aug. 23. “Yesterday, our sweet sweet seven and a half year old baby girl Eva (pronounced Ava) Love suffered a traumatic brain injury from a weird, totally fluke, very short fall.”

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Today was a very difficult day. There are no big changes with Eva, but the conversations the doctors are now having with us feel like I’m taking punch after punch until I can barely stand. Fair warning, I’m gonna get pretty raw here. Medically, the doctors are gently saying they essentially believe there’s a good chance Eva will be in a vegetative state for the rest of her life, or close to it. All her movements, they’re saying, are reflexive, not intentional, and the best we could hope for would be some eventual movement of her eyes and limbs…after a year of rehabilitation. They even looked us in the eyes and asked, based on their prediction of her future quality of life, if we’d like to keep her on life-support or not. I’ve never felt this kind of anger before. I’m angry at the doctors for having such worst-case-scenario mindsets, I’m angry at myself for feeling so hopeless and clueless and inadequate, but mostly I’m angry at God. He made Eva so full of life and joy and crazy and fun, why would He allow this freak accident to happen, only to keep her alive…but unable to talk, see, or move? I would much more have preferred for Him to have taken her to wholeness and life with Him the moment she hit her head, rather than keep her body alive but eliminate her spark. What the heck, God? I’ve never felt more like I need to sob and also smash everything I can touch than I do today. I’m out of prayers. I feel like I’ve been praying non-stop for 2 weeks straight and am running on fumes. I mean, Jesus simply spoke healing and life and authority over sickness and death once and people were healed or rose from the dead. Why is God taking so long in answering my prayers? I know and have absolute faith that God is bigger than Eva’s injury, than the atoms in her brain and skull, bigger than brain scans and doctors’ opinions, bigger than the breathing tube still in her throat. I have zero doubt that God could shock this hospital and the world with His power through Eva’s healing…but why isn’t He? And if He’s not going to, why keep Eva around for so long, only to let me (and tens of thousands of others) down? (continued in comments)

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“She went into emergency brain surgery and she is, in the surgeon’s words, in critical condition. Her numbers are stable, but everyone keeps reminding us the next 72 hours are critical and are making no promises as to the outcome.”

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“Eva’s name means ‘Life + Love’ and we are boldly proclaiming that over the rest of her long, healthy life!!!” Lindsay continued. “Will you please lift up Eva and her care team in your prayers?! I am more scared than I have ever been, but I know I worship a God who is in the business of miracles, who hears us, who is the Ultimate Physician, and that is what we will cling to!!!!”

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It’s so hard for me to write this, because somehow sharing this with you — my many friends that I both have and haven’t met — makes this even more real. Yesterday, our sweet sweet seven and a half year old baby girl Eva (pronounced Ava) Love suffered a traumatic brain injury from a weird, totally fluke, very short fall. She went into emergency brain surgery and she is, in the surgeon’s words, in critical condition. Her numbers are stable, but everyone keeps reminding us the next 72 hours are critical and are making no promises as to the outcome. ➕➕➕BUT GOD➕➕➕. I’m asking you to join us in trusting God for FULL and complete healing, in Jesus Holy and Healing Name. Eva’s name means “Life + Love” and we are boldly proclaiming that over the rest of her long, healthy life!!! ???????? Will you please lift up Eva and her care team in your prayers?! I am more scared than I have ever been, but I know I worship a God who is in the business of miracles, who hears us, who is the Ultimate Physician, and that is what we will cling to!!!! I am so grateful to have this community to entrust this huge and important prayer to. Thank you, friends. To God be the Glory!!!!!! ???????? (p.s. @dugansherbondy will probably give more updates than I. If you see LL posts on my feed these next weeks, that’s @joymneal holding down the fort for me. Please know I am grateful for every single prayer and comment and person you can share this with!!!)

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The family asked for prayers and support as they slogged through the next several days, never knowing what the next day would hold. After surgery, Eva was put into a sedated coma for seven days, according to her Caring Bridge page.

“At 10 am this morning, thousands of you joined us in prayer and petitioning and begging God for breadcrumbs and mercy and miracles, and at 10:30 am — amongst an astonished audience of really smart people — we were shocked and amazed to see Eva breathing successfully without her breathing tube!” Lindsay posted in an update on Sept. 6.

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Eva’s breathing tube came out just after 10am and she did great! Much better than what some of the medical staff anticipated! She breathed strongly and even swallowed right away! One of our nurses (after listening to her lungs) said: “She sounds better than when she did with the tube in.” #praisehands And we get to see her whole beautiful face! It’s been over over 4 hours, which is the point the medical team said would be important to see if she was still doing well, which she is! As I sat and watched the teams love my girl and remove her breathing tube, I felt led to read Genesis 2:7 when God breathed the “breath of life” into His first created child, Adam. Through a footnote, I read this beautiful description: “This is the tender account of how man took his first breath, aided entirely by the Creator, who shared His own breath with him. God literally taught man how to breath.” Today, we watched as Eva’s Heavenly Father shared His breath with her. Short of her waking up fully healed, this was the best outcome we could have hoped for. Thank you all of you around the world who prayed for her at the same time! We absolutely sensed every single prayer and felt spiritually so supported, like we were being held up as we watched our daughter take her first solo breathes in over 2 weeks. So apparently God’s answer to our prayers for Eva: “Wait.” It isn’t my favorite answer, but still an answer with a lot of hope. Every moment of hope between moments of despair pushes me to another faith-filled prayer of full healing for Eva. Right now, I genuinely feel that God is moving and healing Eva completely. I know He has heard my prayers. So I’m now simply speaking to Eva directly. Much like Jesus to Jairus’ daughter, He didn’t pray to God for her, He spoke to her as He said “talitha koum.” So I am now constantly speaking to Eva to “get up.” I wish I didn’t have to wait but as I do, I know that God is strengthening my faith and the faith of thousands of His children around the world. Thank you for your constant, amazing prayers! #EvasArmy ***GoFundMe note: We’re sorry for the gofundme site being down, but it’s back up and running!

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They were far from out of the woods, and updates on little Eva’s condition have been filled with faith and hope that she will be back to her old self, and continued requests for prayers from the faithful.

“She can breathe great, she just needs to keep up the strength and muscle memory to cough and swallow,” Lindsay continued. “But so far, her numbers look great and I am praising my Father in Heaven for making Himself known to me today.”

A GoFundMe page set up for the family has already received over $120,000 toward the girl’s medical bills.

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One of the very first things Eva’s neurosurgeon said to us the first night we were there was that we needed to take things one day at a time. Man, that was amazing advice. At any given moment, this whole process would have been violently overwhelming if we tried to deal with everything all at once. Every scan, report, medication, decision, procedure, and update would have quickly been too much to handle. We’ve especially had to be careful and not letting our minds wander too far into the future of “what if’s”, which would quickly swallow me up into despair and freeze me in apathy. Almost every hour I’ve had to constantly remind myself to stop, take a deep breath, pray, and just deal with the next step/decision/day/moment as it comes. Jesus was on to something when He said: “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” – Matthew 6:34 Eva continues to rest. Every neuro-storm I’m believing is Jesus healing her brain. Every posturing-movement I’m believing is Jesus strengthening her muscles. Every increased temperature or heart rate I’m believing is Jesus ramping her body up to wake up 100% and whole. In the waiting, it’s such a joy to watch Eva blink her eyes or move her lips (especially after I sneak in a kiss). My favorite thing she does is when she takes a deep breath and lets out a sigh and I hear her hum. It’s such a small, squeaky sound but it’s the first time I get to hear my baby girl’s voice in over two weeks. And I can’t wait to hear her say, “Hi abba!” so soon. I’ve received so many wonderful messages from people who have had visions or dreams about Eva waking up completely healed and they are beyond encouraging. I hold on to each one as confirmation of God’s healing we are believing in and praying for. I also want to be like: “Did you happen to catch a date or time in your vision/dream…? Even just what month it was???” Praying and praising with you all. #EvasArmy #OnToTheNextOne

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“I want this undeniable miraculous healing to happen for a lot of reasons,” Dugan, Eva’s father, wrote on Sept. 8. “I want my little girl back, I want to see God’s power, I want to celebrate with the thousands of people praying for her worldwide, I want to go sleep in my own bed every night, and much more.”

“But one reason I’m impatiently anticipating God doing this miracle is because I can’t wait to preach the gospel to all the wonderful staff of medical professionals! Every single one of them have been absolutely amazing at loving Eva and I know without a doubt that God is moving in and through them in amazing ways to continue healing Eva.”

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