Another Giant

Ever since Mom’s latest episode, things haven’t been the same. Between her confusion, stomach pain, anxiety, and everything else.. she has severely struggled. This morning the doctors decided that in order to keep her progress moving forward, they would need to bite the bullet and do exploratory abdominal surgery. So, tomorrow around lunch time Mom will have surgery to try to repair whatever is causing this excruciating stomach pain.

All day I have struggled with this news and asked “Why?” over and over. Why are we faced, yet again, with another serious road block? Why have we had literally every complication in the book plus some? Why is my Mom still in the hospital after 20+ weeks? Why? Why? Why? It’s extremely frustrating to me that my poor Mom is going to be undergoing another serious surgery. The fear I feel is indescribable and overwhelming. The thought of sitting in that surgery waiting room again is sickening. I’m exhausted.. our whole family is exhausted. Today, all I’ve wanted to do is wallow in self pity. I’ve wanted to kick a wall or hit someone. I’ve wanted to lock myself in the closet and scream.. and to be honest, I might do that later tonight. I’ve decided that tonight I will allow myself to be mad and frustrated, but tomorrow I will pull up my big girl pants and face the giant that lies ahead of us. The Lord has been so faithful to us through this experience. My heart knows this and I truly believe that He will continue to be faithful and be right beside us tomorrow helping us defeat the giant.

Tonight I ask all my friends to continue to pray for us. Especially tomorrow while Mom’s in surgery. Please pray specifically for Mom and her surgeons. We are believing for an easy surgery and no complications. We are also believing that this bump in the road is just another chapter in Mom’s testimony. Tonight as I go to bed I’m declaring that tomorrow is going to be another day full miracles. Please join me in declaring that. We love you all and will update you as soon as Mom is out of surgery.

Urgent Prayer Request

This morning I woke up to a phone call from Grannie saying I needed to get up to the hospital. Mom was unresponsive and wouldn’t wake up. 

We aren’t sure what’s going on or what happened. All we know is Mom won’t open her eyes or respond to command. She’s asleep and we can’t get her to wake up. They have done a CT scan of her head and it was clear. One thing that’s for sure, is she didn’t have a stroke. The doctors are working together to try and figure out what’s going on. Her bloodwork looks mostly ok except that her kidneys seems to have taken a “hit” and she is anemic. They have given her 2 units of blood and are working to try and kickstart her kidneys again. It seems the current “guess” on what has happened was her kidneys took a hit from a high heart episode and contrast that was given to her for the CT scan three days ago. The kidneys have slowed and aren’t filtering out the toxins in her blood which is what has caused this sleep state she seems to be in. This is just the doctors guess. They aren’t 100% sure this is what the problem is. On top of all of this, she is still having her stomach issues and that hasn’t been resolved. So for now we are being moved back to ICU and they are changing her medicines around to try and help the kidneys do their job. 

Please pray that this is the answer. Please pray that this problem will be fixed quickly and painlessly. We are all scared and so upset. We have come so far and this is very discouraging to us. Please pray that Mom will wake up soon and we can all hear her voice. We will do our best to update you guys as soon as we know more information. Thank you for loving and praying us through this journey. 

All the Proof You Need

It’s been 20 weeks since I’ve received a phone call from my Mom. Twenty weeks since we’ve chit chatted on the phone about things other than how she feels or what the doctors said. This week that changed. Of course, I still asked how she felt, but for most of the conversation we talked about the kids and what was going on at home. This sort of normalcy is something I once took for granted. I never appreciated those pointless phone calls that I would receive a few times a day to discuss things that didn’t even matter... but for the last 20 weeks all I’ve wanted was to look down at my phone and see “Momma” come across it. This week I got that. It might seem silly or small to some but it’s huge to me.

Mom’s recovery is still moving forward. This week they were able to get rid of the wound vac on her leg. It had started closing and that was one of the things keeping us from moving to rehab. We are so pleased with the progress of that wound.

Over the last few weeks Mom had struggled with stomach issues. She went so long without any sort of food or drink by mouth and getting her “stomach” working correctly again has been a struggle ever since they have allowed her to have food by mouth or peg tube. This week the surgeons found a spot in her small bowel that has caused concern. They aren’t really sure exactly what it is or what has caused it. They believe it’s a partial obstruction of the small bowel. Last Sunday they put her on a 7 day fast to see if it would resolve itself. Last night, they did another CT scan and we were told this morning that there was no change. The surgeons are suppose to be meeting this weekend to discuss what they will do about it. In a normal, healthy patient surgery would have already been done, but they didn’t want to have to put mom through that since she’s such a high risk with all she has going on. Unfortunately, the chance of surgery is high and it looks like that might be our only option. Please pray for the team of doctors as they discuss what the best course of action is to resolve this problem. Please pray the Lord will either completely heal Mom or that He will give the doctors the wisdom they need to fix this problem as easily as possible. We can’t handle anymore setbacks.

This week I have been extremely down thinking about how another holiday is coming up and it will be another holiday without Mom home. Never in a million years would I have thought that we wouldn’t have Mom home for Easter. When they scheduled her surgery for December 6, our goal was to get her home for Christmas. Then after her complications, I hoped to have her home for my birthday on January 27th. When that didn’t happen I prayed and begged to have her home for Eleanor’s birth, and now here we are the end of April and she’s still not home. It’s seems the days are just getting longer and just when we think we are moving to rehab something else surfaces to keep us from getting there. It’s so easy to get discouraged. Recently, I have been able to visit more often because Mom is on a floor that allows me to bring the kids in the room. Mom begs and looks forward to these visits. They make this horrible situation a little more bearable for her and i do my best to make them happen at least once a week.

I recently posted a video of Eleanor laying on Mom’s chest and Mom talking to her as if no one else was in the room. If you haven’t seen the video, I’ve attached it to the bottom of this blog. I’ve watched this video probably 100 times and I cry just as hard every time. Back in December, I spent my days sitting on the floor of room 77 of Ochsners ICU sobbing and grieving the loss of my Mom. Grieving the fact that my Mom would never meet my baby girl. Grieving that I would raise my babies without their Lollie who loved them almost more than I did. I grieved for my sisters who would have to get married without their Momma to help them pick out a wedding dress. I couldn’t ever imagine how I would ever be happy again. My Mom is my best friend and a life without her wasn’t imaginable. It’s not a coincidence to me that the Lord gave me this video around Easter this year. It’s a beautiful reminder of the sacrifice He made for us and that without a shadow of doubt HE IS ALIVE. He sent His son to die on the cross for me, for you and for my Mom. He sacrificed His only son so that my Mom could live. So that she could be healed and so that we could all be healed. Healed from sickness and sin. I pray this Easter that if you don’t know Jesus and what He did for you that you find a place of worship this Sunday and let them pour into you the Love that He has to offer. Yes, Jesus was crucified. He was hung on a cross with nail pierced hands and a crown of thorns on his head. He was spit on, laughed at and made to look like scum of the earth. He was laid to rest in a tomb. BUT 3 short days later He rose from the dead, rolled the stone away and joined His Father in heaven. He did all of this for me and you. He is ALIVE, He is NOT dead and what He’s done in my Mom’s life is all the proof you need.