Having said that, this past week has been an emotional rollercoaster for my little family. Last Thursday Chris came and got Livi from school. She was complaining to her teacher that her ear hurt and thankfully Chris has Thursdays and Fridays off. Turns out, Livi had strep throat and a bad ear infection. The ear infection was making her miserable - moaning, crying, etc. She stayed home with Chris on Friday and had an okay day. On Sat (Valentine's Day) we woke up and I noticed there was blood in her ear. It was fresh so I called the doctor right away and they got her in. The dr said it looked like her ear drum was ready to rupture (which apparently sounds worse than it really is) and he changed her medicine since the first one didn't seem to make much of a difference in two days. We went home and I started her on the medicine. Then that night she said, "Look, Mama! I have dots on my legs." It was a rash that was like pin pricks - not a typical reaction to medicines. The doctor told me to watch it and, since he was the doctor on call, to call him the next afternoon (Sunday) so he could decide if he wanted to see her. The next morning she wasn't any better and she had a few little spots in her mouth so I just took her in. (This makes 3 times in 4 days! Ugh!) The doctor did some blood work and everything looked perfect except her blood platelets - the part of the blood that clots it. They were so low they were undetectable! The doctor sent her to the ER where we stayed over night and they gave her some medicine to boost them. Well, we came home from the hospital Monday afternoon and she was just kind of out of sorts. A trip to the hospital would do that to a kid, right? But then she started throwing up Tuesday morning at 3am. So it was back to the doctor. They suspected that she was getting sick because of a bug that she caught either in the doctor office or the ER or it was still from the strep and ear infection that had yet to be completely treated. They gave her some medicine for nausea and that solved that problem. They also took some more blood :o( to check her platelets (which in the hospital were under 10K). Tuesday they were up to 76K. Then Chris took her in for another blood test yesterday and they had jumped to 333K! So, I think she's on the road to recovery, finally, but it was very, very scary for a while.
Many of my friends have been on an emotional rollercoaster these past few weeks also. PRAYER REQUESTS AND UPDATES: First, good news: Kristin Miller pulled through her heart surgery with flying colors and is home recovering! Yay! And our little friend, Nicholas Griveas, premie of Jennie and Garth is also home and getting big. Jennie and Garth gave me permission to post a picture of this sweet baby boy so you'd all know who you've been praying for. So here's sweet baby Nicholas:
I bet he has a set of lungs on him! :o) Please continue to pray for Kristin and Nicholas, that they grow stronger and stronger everyday. Also pray for new parents, Jennie and Garth. Please pray for Dave Coleman who will undergo surgery for prostate cancer Monday at the Cleveland Clinic. Dave is a wonderful man, loving dad and now grandfather and a solid husband to his wife, Toni. Dave and Toni are strong Christians and believe very deeply in the power of prayer. So, let's lift Dave up to the Lord. Pray for complete healing and supernatural strength. Pray for a comfort and peace that can only come from the Lord. My very dear friend Patty Smith is still going through chemo. I spoke with her and her wonderful step-daughter this evening. She had a chemo treatment yesterday and is very sick and tired today and will be for much of the week. Her MRIs are coming back good, but her bloodwork, from what I understand, is still not where the doctors want it. Please, please, lift my dear friend Patty up in prayer this week as she battles the sickness from her chemo and the uncertainty of what exactly is going on inside her body. Pray for a strength and healing to come upon her in such a way that it can only be a work of the Lord. That is my prayer. I want my friend healed! And I believe that the Lord can do just that! My friend from my writers' group, Esther Gross, just brought her husband, Fred, home from the hospital about the same time that we brought Livi home, but he was in the hospital for 16 days! He had a minor surgery that turned into a major ordeal, if I understand it all corectly - a TRUE rollercoaster. He'd get better and then have a relapse and then get better and back and forth. He lost a lot of weight and has a bad cough from where tubes had to be down his throat. He's on the road to recovery, but it's looking like it's gonna be a tough one. Please pray for Fred Gross, for strength and healing day by day. And pray for my friend Esther, his sweet wife and caregiver. Lastly, for right now (and I'm sure there are some updates that I'm forgetting - so sorry!) it is with a very, very heavy heart that I have to tell you that our little friend Diesel Rhodes has received his angel wings. His daddy put it better than I could on his Caring Bridge web page. This is what he said: ". . . Now this is where it gets difficult. The MVP of our team is by far Diesel. We could not have asked for a better son. He worked his butt off. He overcame the odds more then once and surprised us everyday. He just kept going and really was the main inspiration for us to be able to keep going. He has done so much more. He has brought people to God that have strayed away for a long time. He has brought family closer then we have ever been. He has brought a community together in prayer, worship and fund raising. He has done more in 4 months then most people could imagine to do in a lifetime. We came here to fight and that is exactly what we did. We received a clean MRI report last Thursday and everyone was on cloud 9. And for him to catch RSV and for this to take him out means that he was an angel and his work had been done. God needed him back. As far as how we are feeling or how we are holding up, we are trying to stay positive and we are sticking together big time. We are on a mission to get packed and home to Bakersfield ASAP. We are tying some loose ends and are trying to get home by Saturday night at the latest. As far as Diesel, St. Jude and a funeral home here take care of his body and arrange a flight to Bakersfield. We have already contacted a funeral home in Bakersfield that will pick him up and we will meet with to discuss his arrangements. We are planning on his services being next Saturday the 28th. That will give us time to get home, time to get things taken care of and also family to make arrangements to attend. We love everyone!!!!! Thanks again for all the support!!!!" Tears streamed down my face as I read this trying to imagine and knowing there's no way possible that I could what Tanya and Nate must be feeling. What grief must be washing over them! Yet they seem to have a much, much better attitude than I know I ever could! Please pray mightily for Tanya and Nate in the days to come as they travel back to Bakersfield and prepare to bury their son. Pray for them in the weeks and months ahead as the world will keep on spinning and time will keep moving on but they may feel like they want it all to stop. Pray that in the midst of loneliness they'll experience a comfort they've never known before.
There's so much about life that I don't understand. But one thing I do know is that a better life awaits all those who believe in the Lord. That's a promise that I cling to throughout this roller coaster ride!
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