Last Thursday

(If you were counting on a quick skim, it's probably best to save this

one for a day when you can read.  It's long, but it's all significant.)

I wake in the morning at 4:30.

Shoot.  I'm late.

G's doctor appointment is at 8:00.  Rush hour.  Rain.  Got to hurry.

God whispers.  Calls me.

Yes.  I'm in the habit of spending time with him in the morning.  I respond.

Quick prayer.  I still have something from yesterday on my mind: Walk humbly with your God.  I've been so upset lately with babysitter struggles - how to find enough coverage so I can work; how to empower / encourage / ensure that G is kept still while I'm away.  I repent of my worries (again).  Help me to walk humbly with You.

And now...  He whispers again.

Yes.  I open my "31 Days of Praise" book.

"How I praise You that I need not strive toward a possible victory, but can live from a position of victory already won - that He who is in me (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is greater than he who is in the world... that although Satan is powerful, he cannot prevail against the blood of the Lamb and the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Thank You that Satan must retreat before that Name and before Your Word, the living an powerful sword of the Spirit, and that in the end he will be cast down into everlasting defeat and shame."

Truth!  Fabulous!  I'm so glad I slowed down to read & praise.

I get up.  Whisper again.

Really?  I have to get ready.

Yes.

The traffic... rain... appointment...

Yes.

I open my bible.  Today's words are electric.

First in Philippians where a jailed Paul chooses to rejoice because "The Lord brought me here."  Paul encourages "Don't be intimidated by your enemies.  This will be a sign to them that they are going to be destroyed, but that you are going to be saved, even by God himself."

And in Isaiah, where the Lord says: "I will save your children."

I will remember this.  I understand that You wanted to tell me this.  I know You are equipping me.  I don't know why but I thank You.

I rush.

We get to the appointment exactly at 8:00.

The doctor examines G's eye.  She is serious today.  She says, "I am disappointed.  The retina is still detached."

This is after The Surgery.  The Surgery that had to work, and it hasn't worked.  We will give it one more week and see if it looks better next Thursday.  It must look better.  G has to stay still.  The threat of blindness looms.

G remains clueless.

I am heavy.

Still, my heart holds the promises.  In faith, I cling to Truth.

The Lord brought me here.

I will hold this living & powerful Word before me.

God will save my children.

I will live from a position of victory already won. 

And I will keep trying to figure out how to walk humbly with my God....

A replacement photo

Friends have expressed concern over the pitiful photos I last posted.  Fear not, full energy has returned!  We're having pretty serious problems with the eye, though.  I have stories to tell... as soon as I get a minute.  I'll try to write tomorrow.  Thanks for praying for this wild child.

Look out!

Personality is returning.

We saw the doctor yesterday.  She was surprised over how swollen G's eye is, but said there is no sign of infection. 

It's hard for her to get much of a look with Muhammad Ali swinging and doing his full-body-writhing technique.

For home eye drops, I've been pressing the babysitters into restraint service.  At night, my sweet neighbor has come over to hold his arms down.  She also helps the situation by gently encouraging him (and me). 

A funny eye drop moment...

G fights the drops with everything he's got.  As mentioned, he fully utilizes his body.  Once he's wrangled up, he tries for emotion:

"Mama, you sitting on me!  It hurts."

"Well, son, I'm trying not to hurt you.  When you sit still, then it won't hurt."

When emotion doesn't win, he tries the stall tactics:

"Mama.  Wait!  First, before, you count."

"Ok buddy.  What do you want me to count to?"

"...um... One."

Who knew that his lack of counting skills would come in so handy?

Update

Doctor said the eye looks as good as possible.  It's swollen up as big as a golf ball.  G refuses to open either eye.

Yesterday & today, he's done this

and this

this

and this

Sleeping.

No eating.

NO opening an eye.

He has one big activity... FIGHTING his eye drops.

I have two hands.
One is required for separating his eye lids.
The other is required for squeezing in the drops.

The other is required for containing his flailing feet & legs.
Two others are required for containing his flailing arms & hands.
Another is required for controlling his writhing torso.
And one is required for steadying his thrashing head.

You do the math.

It's not pretty.

Luckily, eye drops are only required four times per day.  Riiiiight.

That's been lots of fun.  Running a close second in the Fun Games is my search for a babysitter.  Because the regular sitter's children have lice.  Seriously.

So I'm home.  I'm out of vacation time.  I'm doing a mad eye drop battle every few hours.

But the eye is looking good.  And that is good news.

Post-Op

It's pretty late and we have to be out early to get back to the hospital.  Just a quick update, mostly to thank everyone for the prayers & support.

- Surgery was delayed by 2 hours... challenging, especially after G received his "loopy juice."

- As soon as I saw G's doctor, I started in with my list of questions (2 pages) (typed).  It felt good to get some answers.

- During the Q & A, when asking about the likelihood of blindness, the doctor said "I'm not giving up on his eye yet."

- The above statement caused Joseph & I great uneasiness all afternoon.

- Surgery took longer than expected.  Increase "great uneasiness" factor.

- After surgery, the doctor was all smiles and said it went "GREAT."  When asked about the previous quote, she said that she probably shouldn't have phrased it that way.  Balloon of anxiety bursts. 

- G is not out of the woods.  We just have to wait & watch & keep him still & be faithful with the patching & eye drops (which he fights against) & hope & pray....

- G's macula was still attached!  Doctor attributed that to the lasers that she was able to (miraculously) put in.  I attribute that to your prayers & God's wonderful kindness.  The attached macula improves his chances at good future vision.

- G now has a scleral buckle in his eye. 

- He is expected to feel like he got punched in the eye.  He was equally starving & exhausted when we got home.

I'm off to get some sleep too.

Thanks again,
Heidi

Surgery

"Mama, my brudah come to surgery with me?"

Joseph is joining us, which will be all around helpful.

The Eye and A Heap of Anxiety

People keep asking how we're really doing.

G is ok, as far as I know.  He's rebelling a bit over the restrictions on his movement, as we try to preserve his eye until surgery.

I'm thinking a lot about that verse from 1 Peter 5:

"Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you."

I'm finding myself anxious often.  I am scared that G will end up blind. 

I worry that Ms. Leslie's dog will jolt G.  I worry that Ms. Leslie's daughter & G will sneak onto bikes and have a little crash.  Wait - those aren't worries - those have really happened.  I worry that the little crashes a normal boy has will cause this boy to lose his sight.

I worry that I should stay home with G.  I worry that I have such a tiny amount of "allowed vacation time" remaining from my work.  I worry that I should replace Ms. Leslie with another dog-less, child-less lady who will guard over G every second.  And I know that all the guards in the world could not keep this boy still.

I worry that he'll go blind and I'll forever regret that I didn't hire all the guards in the world.

I worry that the surgery is not until Monday and G may have fully detached his retina by Monday and it will be too late to save his sight.  I worry that I'm getting a sore throat, and G will catch it, and then he won't be able to have the surgery on Monday.  I worry that, if not from me, G will catch a cold from someone else.

I worry and I catch myself worrying and I pray.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

This morning as I prayed, God gave me this verse from Ephesians 3:

"Now glory be to God!  By his mighty power at work within us,

he is able to accomplish infinitely more

than we would ever dare to ask or hope!"

I'll try to stick with that today.

5-year-old Happiness

The past few days weeks months have been so busy that I've missed blogging about lots of important things.

For example, what do you think caused a smile like this?

Did you guess ...

A BIRTHDAY BICYCLE?!?!

Or EVEN BETTER... A SPIDER MAN BIRTHDAY BICYCLE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously does not get any better than that!

Smell

I have mentioned that G likes to smell me?

I decided to learn more about smell.  I've been slowly getting through Bonnie Blodgett's book Remembering Smell.  Fascinating!

Have you ever considered which of your senses you'd give up if you had to lose one?  Bonnie writes that most people, without thinking, would choose to give up their sense of smell.  Through an accident, Bonnie did lose her sense of smell, and she describes what a tremendous tragedy that is.  I had no idea how smell-dependent humans are.

Here are some interesting excerpts from the book:

"The long, thin olfactory bulb connects directly to the amygdala and the septum, which are parts of the limbic system, the structure that controls our most emotional and instinctive behaviors....  Unlike images and sounds, one pathway for odors goes directly to the brain's emotion and memory centers without being filtered by the circuits involved in higher intelligence."  (pg 26)

"Unlike smell, the other senses take a direct route to the high brain.  They don't pick up input from memory and emotion first, as smells do."  (pg 45)

Here Bonnie is quoting smell experts:
"The neurological interconnection between the sense of smell (olfaction) and emotion is uniquely intimate.  The areas of the brain that process smell and emotion are as intertwined and codependent as any two regions in the brain could possibly be." 
"[The sense of smell] is very sensitive, learns quickly, and forgets nothing, but it has no judgment about what ought to be remembered and what might be forgotten... It ensures the identification of odors vital to the individual's physical and psychological well-being." pg 69

What happened to Bonnie is that her accident damaged the inside of her nose... resulting in her brain concocting fake smells - horrible, foul smells - 24/7 for weeks.  After that, she totally lost all ability to smell.  She couldn't cook the simplest meal.  Once she almost burned down her house because she couldn't smell something burning.  She wrote that people who experience loss of smell typically gain weight because their bodies keep giving impulses to eat until they feel satiated (which, without smell, they never do).  How about that... feeling full doesn't come from having a full stomach!

In her book, Bonnie explores research on people who experience phantom pain (like the nonstop foul smells she endured).  She writes about a soldier who lost his right leg and began suffering pains that felt like electic shocks.  No treatments could stop the pain.  Finally the soldier participated in a study where he "viewed a mirror in which he saw a reflected image of his intact limb....  His pain was gone after just a few sessions.  Neuroscientists now know where his pains were coming from.  They were concocted from living memories and delivered via the nerve endings in the leg stump.  When the brain tried to move the absent limb, the result was an abnormal neural pattern experienced as searing pain.  But why are phantom feelings so nasty?  Is it because the senses - touch and smell, among others - are the first line of defense against the outside world?  The default response to a sense's absence is negative (sharp pains, foul smells) because no other logical explanation is available." pg 54

The soldier's brain had to be tricked into believing everything was ok before it would stop producing the pains.  Bonnie's brain also had to be tricked before it would stop producing the incessant foul smells.

There you have it.  I'm halfway through the book.  Don't ask why I felt it necessary to share all of this with you.  All I can say is that I think it's interesting.  Maybe you did too.

Morning Reflection

(School Nurse is holding firm.  G is NOT allowed in school until she receives word from his eye doctor.  But I had this post ready to go from last week, so here it is...)


The weather is getting colder.

I'm driving G to school - looking at the houses that have added on garages - wondering again how much it'd cost to buy one.

We get to school drop off.

I slip G out of the car.  Backpack on.  The teacher is already holding hands with one boy.  She takes G's hand in her other hand.

Quick kiss.  I love you.  Turn around.

G calls: "Mama!  I wanna wave you!"

The teacher pauses and watches as G waves & blows kisses.

The moment freezes.  The cost of G's adoption floats into my mind.  I'm overcome.

Thank you God that I don't have a garage.

Thank you God for this precious son.

The Eye, The Eye, Again With The Eye

Photo from September

It is hard to keep this boy still.

After work, as soon as I pick him up, he RUNS to the car and starts pulling pulling pulling on the door handle (head banging) to open it.  Immediately I'm on alert behind him: "Walk please!  Slow down!  Slow & calm!  Slow & calm!"

Mercy.

Because I really wanted to be with G on Monday before he came out of the anesthesia, the hospital staff let me back immediately.  That meant I got to hold G through his whole "wailing screaming thrashing with tubes attached everywhere phase."  I appreciate that the staff allowed that.  I believe G heard & smelled me as he came out, and that helped him.

The bad part was that the head doctor came to see me then.  I was very occupied, trying to contain G.  I was not thinking "what questions should I ask?"  By the time we got to recovery, she was gone. 

I've been asking to speak with her since.  The hospital sent me another doctor who said things like "That's a great question.  You really should ask Dr. ___."  I called her office again this morning.  Finally I got a call back after 5pm today.... from a technician.... who said things like "That's a great question.  I'll let Dr. ____ know."  I'm waiting.

In the mean time, I've fielded FOUR calls (plus emails) from G's school nurse.  This woman is IMPORTANT.  She will receive her answers now!  Or else!  Perhaps I do not understand that she is responsible for keeping G safe, and I will need to cooperate... by having G's doctor call her.

That might be funny. 

Except that School Nurse has decreed that G is not allowed back in school until she has spoken to Dr. ____.  And a note from Dr. ____ is not good enough.  And School Nurse cannot provide her questions so that the doctor can address them.  School Nurse must have a conversation with Dr. ____ that fully addresses all of her concerns.  And School Nurse clearly told Dr.____'s staff - and had them read the message back to her - that School Nurse had to be called back before 3pm.  Here's the email she sent to me & the teacher at 3:07pm...

Ladies, I have NOT received a call back from the doctor for G, so he may NOT attend school tomorrow. I will let you know as soon as I speak with the physician. Thank you,


Now Dr. ____ will have to call tomorrow after 10:30 because School Nurse is going to be busy doing BMIs with the fourth graders.

Power trip, much?

Fortunately, I was able to line up a babysitter for this morning. 

I don't even have enough vacation time from work left to get me through the rest of this year's surgery/recovery/appointments.  It will be interesting to see how God provides in this whole "no school" saga, eh?

One more eye fact for my thousands of fascinated readers (hi mom)....  Dr. ____'s office scheduler called me today.  They are moving G's surgery up from the four week time frame to happen in less than two weeks.  I'm relieved about that.  Wish I knew more about the reasoning.  Maybe Dr. _____ was just nodding to anesthesiology yesterday, but is going to do what she needs to do?

Now, what we need to do is get G healthy!

...and talk to Dr. ____...

...and deal with School Nurse...

...and...and...and...

Eye Update

G's procedure yielded a surprise.

His retina is detaching.

Apparently, it is too far gone to be resolved with lasers.  The doctor wants to put in a scleral buckle.  I think that's a kind of ring that holds the eye together.  I'll have to do some research.

The problem is G's cold.  The scleral buckle requires 3 hours of anesthesia, which the anesthesiologist will not approve until G is healthy for some time.  The surgery is scheduled in four weeks.

In the mean time, G is supposed to be slow & calm... two words that I always use to describe G.  ahem.

I'm sure that this is going to stress out the new (busy mom) babysitter.  But I don't think I have any other option but to ask her to try keeping G slow & calm.  For four weeks.

Me - I've already yelled at G.  I want him to understand that he HAS to stop jumping around.  And of course, he can't.

We could use a whole infusion of peace around here.

The Eye

Tonight we're preparing for another hospital visit.  G has a procedure on his eye scheduled tomorrow.  It's not a major procedure.... his doctor wants to get a good look at the eye, and possibly cut a band that has been growing in it.  However, it does mean general anesthesia, which is major.  Also, G has been fighting a cold for a couple of weeks.  His pediatrician has cleared him for the procedure, but I have been warned that the anesthesiologist may still reject him.  I'd sure like if the procedure could go smoothly as planned.  Tomorrow will tell.

In the mean time, we're working on our super powers.

Naming the fish

Uncle Jim gave G some money for his birthday.

Given the great success of our butterflies, I decided that a fish / simple fish bowl would be the perfect use of the birthday money.

Six dollars for the fish.  THIRTY-NINE DOLLARS for the fish's gear.  But my bitterness is not part of this story.

I asked G what he was going to name his fish.

"Abcdefg."

Awesome.  The betta fish named Abcdefg.

The next morning G ran straight to the fish bowl.  I asked, "How is Abcdefg doing today?"

He looked exasperated.  "Mom, his name not Abcdefg."

"Oh, I'm sorry.  What IS his name."

"G."

"His name can't be G.  Your name is G."

"Wewllllll... iz LITTLE G."

There you have it.  Our household has expanded to include a $45 fish named Little G.