By The Grace

These last few days we have been so encouraged by Mom’s “progress”. We are pretty sure her stomach pains and symptoms were coming from something in her colon. We never really got a definite answer, but we are thankful because her pain has subsided and her heart rate has slowed. Mom has also been fever free for over 72 hours. Praise God. This is the longest she has gone without fever in the last two weeks.

Sunday night, when I got to the hospital, it was the first time in 4 weeks that I felt like “old mom” was there. It felt like I was standing by and talking to Mom “before LVAD”. It was the first time in 4 weeks that I felt like we had turned a corner. A small corner, but a corner.

Mom is 100% breathing on her own now. She still has the trach but it is not hooked up to the ventilator. She’s on something called a “trach collar” which basically just blows a little oxygen. Please continue to pray for Mom’s kidneys. She is still on continuous dialysis. We still have hope that the  Lord will completely heal them and allow Mom to make a full recovery.

Mom’s left hand had some serious sores from when the blood clots were thrown to it. For a while, we were concerned if her hand would recover from them or if the tissue was dead. The last few days, we have been shocked by its  appearance. Each day it look better and better. We feel pretty sure that her hand will recover.

Rehab has started full force for Mom. Physical Therapy comes daily and they are sitting her up in the bed and moving her around a lot to try and build her muscle strength back up. It’s extremely tiring for her but she is knocking it out of the park. Yesterday, she was only able to sit up for about three minutes. Today, she sat up for ten.  Praise God!  Each day she’s getting a little bit stronger. We are thankful for these small victories.

Mom’s demeanor is very down. She’s sad, mad, frustrated... she has so many different emotions about all that has happened. Please pray for her spirit. Pray that the Lord will give her peace and the emotional strength to make it through this battle. She keeps mouthing to us “This is awful”.. “How will I ever do this”.. we agree it’s awful and have often wondered how we will get through this. The only answer I have for her is “By the Grace of God”. Only by His Grace will any of us survive this trial. He’s gotten her this far and I have faith he’s going to get her to the finish line.