“You made it”

Last night for the first time in three weeks I got to see Mom. It was for a short period but it was much needed. I showed her pictures of the kids and we talked all about Eleanor. Yes, you read that right we TALKED. Yesterday, Mom had her trach removed. It’s GONE! No more trach ever again. “Trach care and speaking valve” are now phrases of the past and I couldn’t be more overwhelmed with joy. When they told us they were going to have to put Mom on a trach, I cried and cried. For some reason I thought it would be a permanent thing that would keep us from hearing her voice ever again. Boy was I wrong. Last night when we were talking, if I would have closed my eyes it would have been just as if we were sitting at home. It was so normal and so easy. My heart needed it and I know hers did too.

Mom’s progress has been amazing. It blows us away daily to see what she’s accomplishing. We still have a few small hurdles to overcome and I would like to ask you to pray specifically for these things. I have found during this journey with Mom that when we go to the Lord with specific and detailed request our prayers are answered specifically. Mom has a spot on her left leg that is still trying to heal and  has a wound vac on it. Please pray that the Lord will hurry along the healing of that wound. She can’t be fitted for a prosthetic until it’s healed. Mom is also struggling with appetite and nausea. She needs to be able to eat in order to gain her strength back to participate in therapy. Mom has to be able to participate in three hours of therapy a day to be moved to rehab. This won’t happen without good nutrition giving her the strength she needs to make it through each therapy session. Please pray for her appetite and for continued strength.

Now that we are off of dialysis and the trach is gone, the light at the end of the tunnel is brighter than it has been in 4 months. We are on day 106 in the ICU. It has been such a long journey. Last night when I was up at the hospital I took a picture of this note written by Sophie on Mom’s pillow case. Back when Mom was very very ill a sweet friend of my grandparents made this pillowcase for friends  and family to sign and write a word of encouragement on. This was Sophie’s note:

“You made it”

Only by the Grace of God did she and any of us make it. With every step we took the Lord gave us a renewed strength to survive each moment of each day. Many of nights I would lay awake in the Brent House and pray that God would give me the strength to take my next breathe. The overwhelming sense of grief I felt during those beginning days is a feeling I will never forget and something that has forever changed me. Our family will never be the same. You don’t go through something like this and ever go back to the way things were before. BUT, we made it. I’ve learned through this whole experience that there is NOTHING that you can’t survive if you have Jesus. He will carry you through each battle and every heartache and you too can “Make it”. I pray today that if you are in a situation where you feel like “I’m not going to make it”, that you surrender that situation to the Lord. With Him, we can make it through anything.  My Mom and our family survived and although the road ahead is still long and Mom’s battle with heart failure is not over, we made it. We have so much to look forward to and so many memories to make. Thank you all for loving our family through these hard times. Thank you for the food, the donations, the hugs, the sweet messages and everything else so many of you did to get us to where we are today. We are blessed. I have a list a mile long of thank you notes to write and I can’t wait to personally thank each one of you for all you have done. Please continue to pray for our family as we start to prepare Mom to be moved to rehab. I would like to guess that we have a few more weeks at Ochsner before that happens, but no one really knows. We love you all so much and covet every prayer and hug that you give us. We made it guys... we made it!