Nov 26, 2021
My Brother.
And his crossed eyes — a premonition.
It was shortly after my niece was born and the last incident in 1988.My feelings, for lack of a better word were becoming more vivid and intensifying.
It was a Friday evening and I had a late night reading and went to bed very tired. I had a very vivid dream in detail that terrified me.
I was in my Brother's truck and he was driving. We were stopped at a stop sign on the corner of Chestnut and Van Ness on our way to Fisherman's Wharf which is only a few blocks away.
The light turned green and we proceeded to make a left turn onto Van Ness when suddenly a huge crash. Next I found myself trying to catch my breath but I was stuck underneath the truck and could feel the air from the cars whizzing by me. I turned to look at my Brother and he was not moving, facing me with his eyes crossed.
Now remember the crossed eyes as you continue reading.
I woke up in a panicked state and was sweating like a pig. I knew something was going to happen to my Brother. I thought it was going to be a truck accident.
I called their home and explained the dream to my sister in-law who proceeded to laugh and responded with "oh, “Jojo you're crazy." I pleaded with her not to let him drive anywhere that day. She told me he's not going anywhere because he's working in their yard all day long.
We hung up and I called my Mom and told her about it. She listened and said "oh, it's just a bad dream." We hung up but I could not dismiss this feeling it was just too strong and the anxiety from it took center stage for me all day.
I went to bed, it was Saturday night and when I’d go to bed I'd leave my phone on for emergencies. It was a landline, no cell phones back then. My parents left theirs on as well but would only answer if they got the code. The code was ring three times, hang up and call back and keep doing that if it was an emergency.
About midnight my phone started ringing off the hook. I answered and it was my sister in-law in a complete panicked state screaming that my Brother was critical in emergency at the hospital and that she couldn’t get a hold of my parents. She didn’t have the phone code. I didn’t even ask what happened but called my parents, gave them our phone code and my Mom answered to which I told her what my sister in-law had relayed to me and we needed to drive up there ASAP! They live in the East Bay but with hardly any traffic on the roads we arrived in no time.
We go into emergency and my sister in-law is in the waiting room frantic and crying. She explained to us that my Brother was working in the yard all day, he came in for dinner then relaxed in his chair for a night of television. My sister in-law was talking to him from the other room and he didn't respond. She went into the living room and found him awake but not responding and with his eyes noticeably crossed. She thought he was joking around because his eyes were crossed but found that he couldn't move or talk. She called 911, they rushed him into emergency. She then looked at me angrily and kept yelling "you knew! You knew!” I dismissed her anger as I knew she was out of her mind with worry as we all were.
Long story short, he spent a total of two weeks in that hospital ICU then when he was stable he was transferred to San Francisco where their hospital is located for further testing and underwent a treatment called plasmapheresis which is basically taking the blood plasma from his body and treating it with saline and doing a sort of recycling and transferring the blood plasma back into his body.
At one point during these procedures the doctor informed us he was not responding the way they wanted him to during all of this and said we should prepare ourselves because he only had a 50/50 chance of living through it.
We were devastated and I have to admit that I never prayed so hard and so much in my life.
He finally got through the procedures and ended up spending two months in the hospital where it was determined that he had contracted encephalitis from a tick bite. He was then moved to St. Mary’s hospital who is well known for treating people who had accidents and needed rehab. The 49er quarterback Joe Montana was treated there for his back injury.
My brother spent another month there in rehab learning to walk, talk and feed himself. I took my two week vacation from work in order to get to the hospital each afternoon and feed him his lunch and then over to my Mom’s to help care for my niece who was still an infant at that time while my sister in-law spent her evenings at the hospital. We worked in shifts until he came home. Then he needed outpatient care to correct (uncross his eyes). He is fine today but that premonition I had which came true completely terrified me. It is something I never wanted to experience again, but have.
You may enjoy my last story in my premonitions series by reading here.
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