A Frowning Providence…

Sometimes life brings us frowning providences.  Those ordeals God brings us through to make us more like Him, to cause us to trust only Him because there is nothing else to trust in, and make us realize that He is our only hope.  Our frowning providence started two weeks ago tomorrow.  I very nearly could have lost my husband.  When I think about the circumstances of two weeks ago, my head spins.  I weep for the grace God showered on us by sparing Andy’s life, and for working things out as He did.

Andy spent ten LONG days in the hospital, and finally came home this past Wednesday.  We’ve spent the past couple days tackling Mt. Laundry, Mt. Trash, Mt. Dirt, and Mt. Dishes that piled up because I was too tired when I got home from the hospital each night to wash them. We’ve also been caring for our precious patient, and thanking God that he is here to be cared for.

Andy will be recovering at home, and can’t return to work until after he sees his doctor on February 20th.

I’ll be back soon to tell you the story, but I’m still trying to process it all, and think clearly again.  We are exhausted…simply exhausted.  It was a long 2 weeks for all of us.  Graciously, ladies from our church have signed up to bring meals for a couple weeks while I care for Andy, and a couple of friends have offered to come over and help me clean/organize our house.  I am grateful…

I would appreciate your prayers.  Andy is weak, tired, sore, and has a few weeks of recovery ahead of him.  His body suffered quite a trauma, and it could have been so so much worse…

My sweet Love when he was so very sick…

I’ll be back to tell you what happened once our home is back in order, and we have caught up on our sleep.  Please keep Andy in your prayers as he recovers over the next couple weeks…

Orange Banner…

I just wanted to comment about my new blog header.  I chose the color orange for my blog title because it is the color of the ribbon for Leukemia.

My dear friend Allana was diagnosed with Leukemia just three weeks ago.  Allana gave birth to a “miracle baby” on December 16th after years of heartbreaking miscarriages and one stillborn son named Josiah.  God finally gave her the desire of her heart a month ago, in the birth of her daughter Nisa.  Just weeks later she went to the hospital with what she thought were flu symptoms.  It turns out that she has a very aggressive form of Leukemia.  Allana has been in the hospital ever since. 

A very aggressive form of chemotherapy was started last week, and though doctors are able to keep the most difficult side effects at bay, she is still experiencing some.  The others will eventually come. She is very sick, very tired, and very weak.  But she saves the best moments of her day to hold Nisa Faith, her darling newborn daughter.  Allana’s husband Sam and the baby are able to stay at the hospital with her, but she is allowed no other visitors at this time due to her compromised immune system.  She is only able to skype with her other children at home, who miss their mommy terribly.

Please join me in praying for Allana.  My blog will stay “orange” as I join my friend in the fight of her life.  My Facebook cover photo and profile photo are also dedicated to this fight at this time.

I love you Allana, I’m praying for you!  Fight like a girl!

Here she sleeps cuddling her sweet Nisa…so beautiful…

Please please pray…

Hello friends, this is my dear friend Allana.  Allana was diagnosed with leukemia this week.  She just gave birth to her sweet miracle baby, Nisa Faith, on December 16th.  After years of infertility, several miscarriages, and at least one stillbirth, God finally gave her the desire of her heart…another baby. 

Allana is in the fight for her life, and I would greatly appreciate it if you would join me in bathing her in prayer.  She has suffered so much since I’ve known her, and her faith has never wavered.  She is so strong, and is totally trusting God right now.

Allana starts chemotherapy tomorrow morning, and this will be such a rough road.  The hospital she is in has given her a private room on the oncology floor, and her husband and baby are allowed to stay there with her.

Sam and Allana run a ministry full-time, and have 5 other children at home.  Many have come along side to help with the ministry, and with the kids, and any financial burdens that may arise.  Please pray that God will provide every need for Sam and Allana, and most of all that God would grant complete healing to Allana’s body, and she will win this battle she is in against cancer.

I will keep you posted as I get updates.  Thank you so much for your prayers!

Prayer Week…

This was prayer week at our church.  I miss the prayer weeks gone by where we would gather for a “Concert of Prayer”.  I would either play softly under the prayers, or just get to sit there and participate.  At the end of the week we used to have a prayer vigil that went until just before midnight.  At 11:30 we would gather to have the Lord’s Supper together…I loved it so much.

Our church has moved prayer week to the first week in January, which didn’t work out for us to really participate with our church family.  There was no Concert of Prayer this week, and no vigil on Friday night :(.  So most of our participation was just as a family at home.

Our Pastor suggested the book, “A Praying Life” by Paul Miller to use as a companion this week.  I had started reading the book months ago, but got distracted. This week I have really tried to read it in earnest, and not get distracted. That has not been a problem.  I can hardly put it down.  My favorite quote in the book so far has been this one: “If you are not praying, then you are quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all you need in life. You'll always be a little too tired, a little too busy. But if, like Jesus, you realize you can't do it on your own, then no matter how busy, no matter how tired you are, you will find the time to pray.”

I have been convicted in the past about my prayer life, and really want to embrace it this year and move it from being the “spare tire”  of my life to the “steering wheel”.  I want it to be what precedes ANYTHING I do in my life. Jesus never did anything without the Father, that’s why the crucifixion was so painful for Him…God had to turn His face away.  I don’t want to do anything without Him either.  I want to be in constant communication with Him, so I don’t go about any little thing in my day without Him being in it with me.

I have also been convicted about the time I spend in the Word.  I have always wanted to read through the Bible, but the plans that are out there seemed to have an overwhelming amount of reading per day, and I have great struggles with keeping my mind focused on ANY reading…let alone tons of it.  A friend of mine posted a link to a reading program through the Gospel Coalition, and it’s a 2 year read through the Bible program.  I started it January 1st, and it is  going well.  It gives me 2 catch up days a month, but so far I have not needed them. It’s not a great deal of reading a day, so it allows me to really contemplate what I have read, and meditate on it.

I can always tell when God is IN something.  In the first week of reading, I have found many verses that I’ve thought would minister to someone and I’ve either shared them on my Facebook, or with someone personally.  Not only is God teaching me as I read, but He’s ministering to others through what I’m reading as well. I love that.

I’ll probably be sharing posts as the reading progresses, as well as how our lives unfold in 2012.  The year is off to a good start here at PTS Academy.  We are grateful to God for the many ways He has, and continues, to bless us…

A Very Different Week…

Last weekend I noticed that I was having a hard time hearing out of my left ear.  I have had to go to my doctor on occasion and have her flush it out when the wax has built up for some reason, so I figured that was what was going on here.  Monday was a holiday, so my doctor was not in.  I went to my sister’s house that day, and noticed that my ear was feeling increasingly more “stuffed up”.  I went on Facebook that night and some friends suggested some home remedies.  I tried the solution of peroxide with water, and let it sit in my ear for a few minutes before letting it drain out.  Nothing helped.  It seemed to plug back up in just a few seconds. 

Wednesday morning I woke up with terrible pain in my ear.  I had never had that before.  I suspected an ear infection, so I called my husband and asked if he would take me to Urgent Care when he got home.  We went right after work, and only had to wait for them to prepare a chart for me.  I explained what was happening to the doctor, and she looked in my ear.  She saw wax, and that was pretty much blocking her view from anything else.  She said she would put drops in my ears, and then the nurse would flush it out for me. She would check it after that to see if I had an infection. All of this took place over about 30 minutes.  The flushing out hurt, but it also seemed to bring relief.  I remember the moment that the nurse seemed to break through whatever was blocking my hearing.  But when she showed me the little basin of what she got, it didn’t look like times past when I had had this procedure done.  My ear still hurt.  When the doctor came back in, she accidentally looked in the wrong ear, and we all got a chuckle out of that.  When she looked in my left ear (for 2 seconds), she told me I had an infection, wrote me a script for oral meds and drops and sent me home. End of story?  Uh, not by a long shot.

The next morning I woke up, my ear was completely plugged again, and the pain was like nothing I have ever felt in my life.  It had me in tears several times throughout the day.  My husband called my doctor, and she told me to come right in.  Andy was still at work, so I had to drive to the office feeling like that, and my head practically resting on my shoulder because the pressure helped a bit.

When my doctor went to look in my ear after I described the last few days to her,  she could not even get her instrument into the ear canal.  It was not wax, it was completely swollen shut.  In fact, my whole face and cheek surrounding it were swollen.  She was VERY concerned, as was I.  Because I don’t have a spleen and ANY infection can be very serious for me, and I am also diabetic,  she thought it best to send me to the ER.   I agreed.

We left for the ER as soon as my husband was able to join us.  I sat in triage for nearly 90 minutes in EXCRUCIATING pain, fighting back tears it hurt so bad.  I was finally taken to a room, and I could hold the tears no longer.  The doctor came in as I was wiping my eyes.  He said this didn’t look good if ear pain was causing me to cry.  He took the same instrument my doctor had checked my ear with.  He barely put it up to my ear and said,  “You’re not going anywhere…we’re keeping you, and I’m going to have a specialist look at this”.

I was immediately started on an IV, which in and of itself would normally send me into an anxious fit…I didn’t give a rip.  I just wanted her to get that thing in there, because I knew it meant GOOD pain meds were soon to follow.  I have had both Vicodin and Dilotid before, and they stop any pain I have had, and wipe me right out.  They gave me Dilotid first, and though it made me more comfortable, it didn’t take away the pain :(.  That told me I was in serious trouble. 

The nurse ran some blood tests to check my kidney function for a CT scan, and to check my white blood count.  It came back very high which means a serious infection.  Next the doctor came in with a tiny tube called a “wick”.  He needed to insert that in my ear to “open it up” to be able to get drops in.  Yeah, right.  This would hurt… I could not bite my lip or clench my teeth, because it hurt my ear too much (I had not been able to eat or drink anything all day). This was a very painful procedure, but it enabled the doctor to put 5 glorious numbing drops into my ear.  Again, it didn’t take away the pain, just soothed it a bit.

Next I went for a CT scan.  I warned the tech of my fear of the contrast because it made me nauseous each time, and I didn’t like the closeness of the machine.  She said she would be with me most of the time, explained the whole procedure in detail to me, so I was able to relax.  It was over before I knew it.

I was taken to a room on the ER Observation unit,and there I stayed until Friday night.  The CT scan came back showing that I have Mastoiditis, which is an infection of the mastoid bone, or temporal bone of the skull behind the ear.  It usually is the result of an ear infection gone bad, but not having a spleen probably greatly contributed.  This is a very serious infection any way you slice it because it can lead to more serious infections like meningitis, or inner ear infections.  I was immediately put on IV antibiotics, an anti-inflammatory medication to take the swelling down, and dilotid every 4 hours, and the numbing drops.  Needless to say,  I stayed in my bed the whole time I was there.  No tv,no phone, no lights.  I just slept when the pain didn’t keep me awake.

The ENT was unable to make a consult at the hospital, so I will be going to his office on Monday.  They sent me home Friday night with oral antibiotics, a script for Vicodin for the pain, those numbing drops, and 600mg of Ibuprofen to try to take this swelling down.  That is the reason I have no hearing, or very little in my left ear right now.

I have very little pain for a couple hours until the meds wear off, and then I’m miserable until I can take the next dose.  One of my nurses fashioned a wonderful little heating pad for me yesterday, and I kept that pressed against my ear and face most of the time.  When the heat wore off, I just kept it there for the pressure.  My husband took a picture of the patient using it… I know, bed hair! :) I didn’t care, believe me…

 
I am home now, resting in my own bed, taking the meds prescribed for me, and praying for some relief soon.  I’m praying that God will protect me from the side effects of this condition, and that no further infections will develop.  If my symptoms worsen at any time, I am to go right back to the hospital.  Otherwise, I will see the ear specialist on Monday and see where we go from there.  We leave for vacation a week from Monday, so I’m hoping I’ll be better by then.  In worst case scenarios, that bone has to be surgically removed because of the damage to it, or the risk of further dangerous infections.  I’m praying it will not come to that.  I’m praying that my feeble immune system will be able to kick this infection’s tail, and get rid of it.  I don’t really want to go through a major neck surgery right now. :(

I’ll keep you posted as I can.  It’s painful to sit up for too long right now, so I’m pretty much just keeping up with Facebook and emails on my iPhone because I can lie down.  I have a  hard time getting on my blog on there… If there is an update and I’m unable to write it,  perhaps I’ll have a friend do a guest post for me.

I hope we’re able to get relief, healing, and solutions soon.  I also hope they can give me some preventative measures to keep this from happening again, as it seems  I may be prone to it now with a weakened immune system…I’ll let you know how it goes…