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Blindsighted isn’t just a podcast—it’s a lifeline for those walking through the darkest valleys. Hosted by Karen and Todd Hornsby, this raw and unfiltered series invites you into a story marked by unimaginable pain, loss, and suffering.
But this isn’t just about our story. It’s about YOUR story, too.
We’re not here to sugarcoat suffering or offer feel-good inspiration that fades by morning. We’re here to validate the ache, the confusion, and the questions that come when life doesn’t make sense—and when God feels far away.
The name Blindsighted is rooted in the phenomenon of “blindsight”—where people without sight are still drawn to light they cannot see. That’s what faith feels like sometimes. And in our journey, we’ve learned:
- Faith doesn’t make life easy—it makes it possible.
- Trusting God’s plan doesn’t mean understanding it.
- Victory doesn’t mean escaping suffering—it means enduring with strength, honesty, and hope.
Each episode of Blindsighted peels back the layers of our journey through our daughter’s cancer battle, a near-fatal car accident, health diagnoses, and more. We speak candidly about the moments that broke us—and the God who met us there.
If you’re walking through something that feels impossible, we want you to know: you're not alone. There’s light—even if you can’t see it yet.
Join us. Let’s find victory in the midst of suffering, together.
There are seasons in life when you feel like you've already been stretched to your limit. When you think, surely, the worst is over. But then another wave comes. I was carrying the miracle we were told we'd never have, while Todd was thousands of miles away in the middle of a war zone. We held on to the promise that he'd come home for the birth of our baby girl.
Speaker 1:But war doesn't always honor promises, and neither does life. When I gave birth without him by my side, it shattered something within me. But I told myself, She's here. She's healthy. We'll be okay.
Speaker 1:Until two weeks later, I found myself rushing her to the hospital, faced with the horrifying possibility of surgery on our newborn baby. This episode isn't just about a battlefield in Iraq. It's about the battlefield of the heart. The kind of spiritual warfare that creeps in when you're already broken, when you're tired, when you wonder if God sees you at all. But what we discovered in that moment was this, and God may not always spare us from the fire, but He never leaves us to walk through it alone.
Speaker 1:So I know there are so many stories, Todd, that you could share about your experience and your time while you were serving in Baghdad, Iraq. Definitely hard times. And and for every soldier out there, I know there's there's a whole lot of emotions that you all have to manage and deal with, you know, besides the fact of, you know, fighting for your life, fighting for your country, making sure that you're, you know, staying alert to take care of yourself and and the soldiers standing right next to you. There's just so much that I know you all have to deal with being in a foreign country in a middle of a war zone. But there's also, as you know, kind of alluded to already, you know, there's things going on at home that I'm very sure as well that you're you're struggling with, wondering what's happening at home and especially with us because I was at home pregnant with our sweet little girl that we found out was a girl of course before you left.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And as you said, every soldier had a story. Unfortunately, with us being gone for a period of time, there were guys going through divorces, family members passing away, you know, parents from natural causes, grandparents. Some of these young guys breaking up with a girlfriend, which for them, they thought was the end of the world. So life is happening, and you're not able to be there to be a part of it.
Speaker 2:So it makes it 10 times more magnified, because you have no control over it. And same way with us with you being pregnant, and every day is getting closer and closer. So and I desperately want to come home and I don't know if I will get to or not. So I'd start politicking, so to speak early on, like, hey, hey, fellas, or, you know, my superiors, you know, you all know, you know, we're supposed to have our kid May, May sometime in May, and you know how that is. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, Hornsby, we got you at the top of our list. I'm like, okay, whatever I need to do, do we need to try to get the Red Cross involved? Because the Red Cross plays a role in some things.
Speaker 1:That's good to know. Yeah, a lot of people may not know that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Red Cross does a lot of stuff. And that has been twenty something years ago. So I'm not
Speaker 1:Yeah,
Speaker 2:I'm not sure what they do or don't do now. But that was at the forefront of my mind that I desperately wanted to be home. And I understood if I if it maybe if it was the next day or so, at least I was in transit. Because you know, you never know with labor how long it's going to take.
Speaker 1:Flights were twenty four hours, right?
Speaker 2:That was And the I was told when I got closer to time, because they told me yes, Hornsby, we're gonna let you come home. So I immediately told you because we did have communication. It was the first zoom calls. And we had a little computer room set up after we'd been there for months and months and months. That was a priority for guys to be able to maybe speak with their family.
Speaker 2:So we had the little zoom thing and it would freeze up all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think pretty much the whole time we were staring at a frozen picture of the other.
Speaker 2:And you were just hoping it was a photo that that you were the other person was in so you could at least see their face. While you could hear the audio because you could hear the audio.
Speaker 1:The audio was pretty good.
Speaker 2:Pretty good. Yeah. So we had that and we had little phones we could sign up for that we had to pay for. You didn't care. Wanted the time with your family, whether it was the zoom, or the telephone call, whatever.
Speaker 2:So I immediately told you, Oh, yeah, they're gonna let me come home. It's gonna be great. And I get excited, you get excited, everybody gets excited. Oh, yeah, they're gonna let him come home. And they were saying, you know, when you go, you're not gonna get a commercial flight Hornsby, we're gonna drop you off at airport.
Speaker 2:And you are gonna have to put yourself on a plane, get here, get there, get back to The US and from there, I'm like, you ain't got to worry. I'll figure out if I if I have to hijack a plane, you know, The US military transport plane.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:I'll do that. Yeah. I'm thinking, okay, this is going be good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say so. You I was very excited. Again, kind of reiterate, especially for those who have not heard our previous episodes, we were told we couldn't have children. So for us to and now have this child that we were told we weren't gonna have and everything went really well. I was so blessed.
Speaker 1:I was hardly ever sick. So it was super nice. So I did enjoy that. And I was very thankful that they were willing to allow you to come home, of course, when the baby was born because, man, that's just a big deal. You know?
Speaker 2:It's a huge deal.
Speaker 1:It is a big deal to have the one with you that, you know, this is our baby together. And this child, we prayed hard for. We prayed hard for this baby. And I just it makes it so much better when your spouse is with you, to walk this journey with you. How did you find out that I was going into labor?
Speaker 2:So I knew it was getting close to time. And I'm not sure if I spoke with you. It probably was you. I never rarely spoke with any other family member other than you, even though they were all around. I knew that the time was coming.
Speaker 2:So I'm trying to push, hey, what are we doing here? Y'all told me you'll get me to the airport. Well, then I'm told by the first sergeant, I believe, or might be my platoon sergeant, Oh, Hornsby, you're not only gonna go. We're gonna try to work something out for you later to get back. And we'll talk about that in a second.
Speaker 2:But we're not gonna let you go. And that is the only time when I was in Iraq that I lost my mind. It's just full transparency. Cause I told you all I was going to get to come home. And of course I wanted to be there, but I felt like, well, I'm letting them down again.
Speaker 2:I've already let them down so much. This is just one more failure. So I was in my sleeping area, my little area where my cot was and all my equipment was and all of my possessions, That was our little area. And my platoon sergeant told me that, and it was one of my buddies. He was right there beside me, real good guy.
Speaker 2:And I just went off. My platoon sergeant walked away and I just got so mad in that moment. I just started acting like a rebellious little child having a temper tantrum. I started throwing stuff. I started throwing my cot around all my equipment went everywhere.
Speaker 2:I got my Kevlar helmet and slammed it into a wall and put a gaping hole the size, no exaggeration of a bowling ball in there. Thankfully, I kept my wits about me somewhat because we always had our AR fifteens. I had my AR 15 on my back the whole time. Of course, I'm not going go around shooting somebody, but I was irate. How could they do this to me?
Speaker 2:They've told me these things. I've told my family this. And now at the last second that at the midnight hour, I don't get to go home now. Why did you even tell me I would get to go home if you're now you're going you're going to pull the carpet out from under me. So I was so mad.
Speaker 2:And I remember running upstairs to the first Sergeant's office and a long story short, was like, Hey, when do I get to see my wife? And he kind of said, Well, when I get to see mine. That didn't say it well with me, but I knew I was at a place in that moment. I can either accept this and realize that God's in control and this is not how I pictured it. This is not what I was told.
Speaker 2:And as I've said many times, this wasn't fair. But fair implies you get what you deserve and we could go down that road also. So I had to tell myself, okay, we're going to make it through this. This is not what we were hoping or wanting. So I kind of defuse the situation because I didn't want the MPs coming in me getting taken out in handcuffs that would have made it so much worse.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Excuse me. So, and once I kind of calmed down, the first sergeant said, Hornsby, I know. This is terrible. I know you want to be home. I want to tell you yes.
Speaker 2:This is how this is how things are.
Speaker 1:Because, Todd, not to cut you off, because you all are still kind of like early on into this.
Speaker 2:We are.
Speaker 1:Yes. Fight, if you will, with We'd been there about Iraq.
Speaker 2:We'd been there about three months.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So we're not talking about, you know, a year later. Well, we kind of know that from the timeline. But the point is, is you all were still kind of like just basically this war is just getting started.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we we had finally just got to the point that we had running water and decent food. Yeah. So so you're right. I mean, that is asking a lot for me to be able to get back home the logistics so that they didn't even have anything set up to even be able to do that. So no one else was getting to come home either.
Speaker 2:It's not just me or
Speaker 1:It's just bad timing for us.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. 100%.
Speaker 1:It was just terrible timing for us. And it's in that moment where you feel like everything is against you. And no matter how hard you try, it gets worse.
Speaker 2:After I calmed down, the chaplain came to pray with me because my buddy had seen me throw my stuff around and put a big hole in the wall and see me go upstairs at quick pace, almost marching to see the first sergeant. He got ahold of the chaplain and, the chaplain came and spoke with me. I won't get into all that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Don't go into that because that was quite a that is not what a chaplain should do. Let's just leave it there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. No. That that that did not draw me closer to God at all.
Speaker 1:I can't. Anyway.
Speaker 2:But that being said, God was at work. He was helping me to calm my nerves. And I had to call. I'm not sure if I was able to speak with you or
Speaker 1:Yeah. I don't know either. But it is that somehow, someway, I do go into labor. We're, you know, going to the hospital. I knew you weren't going to be there.
Speaker 1:So I wasn't expecting you to walk through the door, you know.
Speaker 2:But there was a little bit of hope. Right?
Speaker 1:It was, of course, there was still a little bit of hope. But I knew just based off of conversations with you that that there was no way that you were coming. I I felt pretty confident that you weren't coming. The whole family knew. So, again, I have an incredible support system.
Speaker 1:My whole family from your side, my side were there to comfort me, try their best to fill in that void that was there with you not being there through these crazy exciting moments. There was a few ladies that were really close friends with me at the time that were there trying their best to capture everything for you that they could so you could feel like you were there once you returned home. I gave birth to our sweet little girl. She was eight pounds, six ounces, twenty and three quarters of an inch long. So she was a very healthy little girl, probably was ready for kindergarten the moment she came out and it felt that way as well.
Speaker 1:You know, just saying, putting that out there. But yeah, our sweet little girl entered the world, Gabrielle Madison Hornsby. So our first phone call, we finally was it Red Cross that got you on the phone? I'm I'm not really sure. But I I was told we're on the phone.
Speaker 1:I'm able to tell you what she looks like and that she looks just like you and all the things.
Speaker 2:That that was amazing. That that first phone call kinda getting to be able to you you described her knowing that you were okay, knowing that everything was alright. Yeah. Thank God for that. That was so much, so much a peace of mind.
Speaker 2:And that was wonderful. And then shortly after we did our little zoom call, and I got to see her and photos, we kind of knew we were kind of savvy with that. We kind of knew that maybe it might freeze up. I think like quickly you had photos, you put a photo up so I could just see the photo. Of course it froze.
Speaker 2:So there was a photo up and it froze and all the guys are in the computer room and we're like, Hey, this is my, this is my new daughter. And they're like, Oh, she's beautiful, man. So that was amazing getting to see her, a photo of her. And I don't know, I know you had her with you. So being able to see her, whether it was like a steel shot or video was amazing.
Speaker 2:She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Yep. I was just over the moon excited. So ready to come home then and just like, oh, okay, well, is going to be alright. You know, God's worked it out.
Speaker 2:Even though I haven't, I wasn't home. Once I get home, I can hopefully smooth this over. And maybe Karen won't divorce me for not being home during the pregnancy or during the birth. So that was a really, really high point of knowing that Gabby was finally born. Our miracle child Yeah.
Speaker 2:Was born. She was good. You were good. It was it was a huge relief.
Speaker 1:Nothing. Yeah. Nothing like we were told. I don't know that we alluded to this, but we were told that even if we did find ourselves pregnant, that we would want to abort the baby. And and we were like, well, gosh, it was just it was a mess what what we were told.
Speaker 2:A lot of bad reports.
Speaker 1:A lot of bad reports. And so for us to give birth to a perfectly healthy child was truly a miracle. So it was wonderful. Yeah. Of course, we've got those few, you know, moments of enjoying her, looking at her, oohing and cooing over her.
Speaker 1:And again, I'm living with mom and dad because you're not there. And it's always nice to obviously have family help when you're a new mom. Unfortunately, and I will say it's a good thing I was with my parents because two weeks to kinda set the stage for this next moment that happened. I'm at home alone with Gabby. I had just finished nursing her.
Speaker 1:Parents are about to walk in the door from running errands. And my parents live in a rural community. Most everything is about a thirty five thirty, thirty five minute drive. K? So I live in a little rural community.
Speaker 1:And about the moment that I'm I just finished nursing Gabby. I threw her throw her up on my shoulder to burp her, and then my mom and dad are walking at that moment. And then as I am burping her, again, she's just two weeks old. I unfortunately, like newborns do, she threw up all over me. And, I mean, it was a lot.
Speaker 1:It was one of those moments as moms that have experienced this and I was like, oh, wow. We're I'm gonna have to change. She's gonna have to change. This is a lot. So I pull Gabby forward.
Speaker 1:And when I pull her forward, all I see is bright red blood everywhere. Wow. All over her face, all over her little stomach, her belly, her clothes. I look down at my shoulder. My whole shoulder is just covered in blood.
Speaker 1:We're not talking about a little bit. It was a lot. It was a whole little bottle worth. Right? You know, it's
Speaker 2:From a two week old child.
Speaker 1:From a two week old child. It I mean, I don't know what English word to use of what you go into and your feelings and your thoughts when you pull your child away and you see they're covered in blood. Oh, it was horrific. I didn't have to say anything to my parents. They were looking at me as they're walking in and they see that I had just leaned her forward and she and I both are covered in blood.
Speaker 1:My mom panics. My dad is, of course, the one that tries his best to keep his cool, but you can see panic all over his face as well. They throw the groceries in their kitchen. And I guess we had the flip phones at this at this time. We call 911 and I tell them, you know, we're in a rural area.
Speaker 1:I'm not waiting for you to get here. I'm getting in the car. You're all you all are gonna have to meet us down the road. And they got that. They understood.
Speaker 1:Told them what we were driving. We're flying down Highway 79. And then we see the ambulance lights. So my dad starts flashing his lights to let them know it's us. We pull over on the side of the road and I get out of the the car, get in the ambulance with them.
Speaker 1:They're, of course, going through all the vital signs, asking me all the questions. I said I'd just literally finished feeding her, and I was just trying to burp her, and here we are. I called another family member that lived in the area who came. And, again, she was she's like a sister to me. She came and the minute they opened the ambulance door, it was just so it was it looked so terrible.
Speaker 1:There was so much blood everywhere. Scared her to death. So we get into the ER and I'm like, this is crazy. This is this is crazy that this is happening. We're told we can't have her.
Speaker 1:And, of course, this is like the enemy to try to immediately attack. I give birth to this healthy little girl. And then here we are two weeks later, the devil couldn't have it any other way than for us to deal now with her being sick.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And her daddy's not even met her yet.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:It was hard. It was so hard. And every family member was trying to comfort me in whatever way that they could.
Speaker 2:So so you go to the first local hospital. Right. To their emergency room.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I go there and they're scratching their heads. They don't know why she spit up so much blood. Like her stomach was completely empty. So while they're getting ready to run tests, which one one was a sonogram, they did a little x-ray.
Speaker 1:They they didn't know what was going on thinking if she's gotta go into surgery, we need to keep her stomach empty. And now at this point, Gabby's hungry again and she's now starting to cry, but they won't let me feed her. She hated pacifiers so nothing was pacifying her at the time. And it was when your child is screaming, and you don't know what's wrong with her. And the doctors are saying, no, you can't feed her.
Speaker 1:It gets stressful real fast.
Speaker 2:And you're a new mom. Not that it would have mattered if you would have had five kids. You still would have been upset. But you had no point in
Speaker 1:reference at
Speaker 2:all. You're a new mom. I'm not there. Yeah. It's just, it's a lot.
Speaker 1:Weight of the world, the weight of the world did feel like it was on me and they, the doctors finally come in and they're like, you can finally start feeding her because after, you know, looking at the x rays and sonograms, we believe that she has what we call peloric stenosis. So peloric stenosis is yeah, the opening that connects your stomach to your small intestines. And it's it's when it start when it's too small.
Speaker 2:Too narrow.
Speaker 1:When too narrow. When the pleuris is too narrow. And this is apparently something that's pretty common in infants. And the only way to correct it is surgery.
Speaker 2:Oh, boy. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And they're like, we're we're just not qualified. Again, we live in somewhat of a rural area and this hospital was not equipped for a two week old baby. Not many are. Sure. So I just fall apart.
Speaker 1:I just start crying. I'm mad. I'm sad. Frustrated. I already have, I guess, postpartum stuff going on.
Speaker 1:To be honest, I I didn't really recognize that or even think about it being postpartum. Maybe it was. I don't know. But I was so upset. I was talking to God and asking him what how could this be a good idea to allow this to happen?
Speaker 1:And everybody in the family just begins to pray and and feels the heaviness with me. They know this is a lot for me at 22 22 24. I think I was 24 at this time. 24 years old, carrying the weight of making decisions for our newborn baby that you've not got a chance to see yet or hold yet or hug yet. And now they're already wanting to cut on her little body.
Speaker 1:It was terrible. We stay in the hospital. We stay in the hospital that night and then they drove us. They asked if we want to take an ambulance, but we just drove ourselves to Pensacola. So when we get to Pensacola, that's when they're like, hey, we, we need to do one more sonogram.
Speaker 1:So it's again, the whole the whole community's praying for us because they feel the weight and the sadness of what this is with you being in Iraq and me doing this by myself, essentially. I wasn't by myself, of course, but there's no one like your spouse being with you. The whole community's praying, and we're just believing God for a healing
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Over Gabby's body.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:We check-in. And when we check-in, shortly after, you know, they're prepared and ready for Gabby when she gets there. And, again, Gabby's been fine. She's been eating fine. Things have been normal.
Speaker 1:But, of course, we've gotta find out why did she just spit up four ounces of blood. Like, they even made sure that I did not leave her clothing or my clothing back home. They wanted us to take them with us so these doctors could see how much of this blood had come up from our little girl. And so we get checked in and immediately they take us to to perform another sonogram. And so we go to the Sonogram Room.
Speaker 1:And again, I was nursing Gabby, but they needed Gabby to drink some sugar water while they were doing the sonogram so they could watch her track. And so I was just scared to death she wasn't even gonna latch on to this this bottle. It's not what she was used to. But she did like a little champ, like she always did. And she did.
Speaker 1:She she drank the sugar water. And then at that moment, that tech looked over at me and said, ma'am, I'm not supposed to do this. But As I sat there in that dimly lit room, just two weeks postpartum, watching the technician's eyes scan the screen, everything in me went still. She paused. Her expression shifted.
Speaker 1:And in that moment, before a single word was spoken, I knew something was coming. I didn't know what she was about to say, but I could feel it deep in my bones. Something could change everything. And right then, I had a choice, to give in to fear or to lean in the kind of faith that God started building in me when I was 19 years old, the day he pulled me from the wreckage and whispered, you're not done yet. That same faith had to rise again, right there, in that uncertainty with my newborn lying beside me.
Speaker 1:Next time on Blind Sided, we'll take you into the very moment we found out what the scan revealed and the miracle that met us there. So if you've ever found yourself waiting in the silence, desperate for an answer, don't miss what's coming next. Be sure to subscribe, share this episode with someone holding on for hope and visit us at blindsightedpodcast.com for more. Until next time, remember, faith isn't forged in comfort. It's proven in the unknown.