September 24, 2007
This year has been a difficult year for me. I have never faced so many trials and the feeling of utter despair. I lost my sister in August of this last year and it has been one of the most difficult things I have ever had to face. Everyone has some amount of depression at times in their life. I look for something good in whatever I am going through and never be negative. But I have had so much depression that I was at the point of feeling I needed to seek professional help. In reality this would not work for me... I know myself well enough that I know I could not voice my feelings to a stranger and talk freely about what I am feeling.
Then this last week my Mom had a MRI done to see what is going on with her. One of the results came back that she has Dementia. I have not been able to stop crying. I was having feelings like I did not want to be here anymore. I just wanted the pain to stop. I didn't feel like I had got past the trauma of my sister's death and then this. That I had these feelings scared me. I talked with my husband and he was the voice of wisdom I needed to hear to get me back on track. He made me realize that I had not done anything that made all this dump on my doorstep. That God loved me and all I needed to do was trust him. I think the hardest thing for me to bear is fearing that my Mom would suffer. He reminded me that God does not put more on us than we can bear and that included my Mom. He would not let her suffer more than she could bear. All I had to do was trust in Him. It was like the weight lifted. I know God is able to heal her. There is nothing known to man to make her better but God can. I am on this journey with my Mom and I will continue to add to this. Because I know God is working in her life and in mine too.
October 5, 2007
Some days I miss holding a conversation with my Mom. I try to visit her at least every other day. The medication they have her on makes her want to sleep a lot. Every now and then she looks up and sees me and smiles. She knows who I am. But her voice is very weak , sometimes a whisper. There are times when she will start to tell me something and does not finish her thought. It breaks my heart to see her like this when my Mom has always been so full of life. It is very hard to watch her without crying in front of her. This is very difficult for my Dad too. He is in a labor of love and takes care of her 24/7 ...he would not have it any other way. I know in my heart God is able to do far beyond our imagination or what we can even understand. I never stop having faith that God will heal if it is his will for my Mother. My trust in him is complete and I take each day as it comes. I hold all this in my heart because I do not want to talk to anyone about it. God knows my heart and how I feel without saying a word. I write some of it here to release my feelings and to document what God is doing in her life.
October 12, 2007
Mom has not been eating very well. Dad thinks she might have an allergy to the Dementia medicine because her tongue is swollen. So he is not going to give it to her today and see how she reacts. Yesterday I got sick with the flu and have not felt like doing anything. So it makes it worse not being able to see my Mom first hand. I do not want to make her sick by being around her if I could pass this on to her. Satan is a tormentor so he puts all the worse case scenario thoughts in my head of what can happen and I can not rest. I rebuke him in the Name of Jesus. I have faith that God is watching over my Mom and I trust him for healing. I will never give up. I know there is nothing God can't do or heal.
October 13, 2007
My Dad was in a panic today. He called me and said Mom was not swallowing anything. He could not get her to take her medicine, eat or drink and she was not responding to him. I have been sick with the flu bug for the last three days but I was not running a fever so I planned on going today. I got off the phone with my Dad and cried out to God to help her be responsive and eat. When I finished I went to my promise box (a box filled with cards with God's promises in scripture on them) and I pulled out this scripture. (prayed for God to give me a scripture before I pulled it out... I always do that!)
"If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it." John 14:14 I went away with strength and faith that God had given me a promise.
When I got there Mom was not responsive to me either. I did not give up though. Satan tries to get us to respond with emotions and it is hard to have faith when you rely only on what you see. That is not faith! Dad's vehicle is broken down and Ken is working 14 hour days so it will not be fixed till Ken's weekend so I took Dad to get what he needed at the store. While we were at the store I picked up things for him to get Mom that I thought she might eat (pudding , Jell-O etc...) When we got back I fed her some pudding and put her medicine in it because he could not get her to take it because she was not swallowing. She took it fine. Thanking the Lord all the long because her meds were down. Then before I left I got her to eat 2 more cups of Jell-O and spoon fed her Propel water. She was responding now. She whispered something to my Dad. Which tickled my Dad. Before we left we did what we always do... anointed her with oil and prayed for her. Thanking God for making her responsive and eating. We asked for healing of her mind and thanked him for her eating and being more responsive tomorrow. "If you ask anything in my name..." Standing on the promises.
October 14,2007
I went to Mom and Dad's today to check on my Mom. My Dad and I washed her hair and blowed it dry because tomorrow is her birthday. We also thought it might make her more alert before I tried to feed her something since Dad could not get her to eat or get her medicine down her. After my attempts with no success I had a feeling she needed to go to the hospital. I called Ken to see what he thought and he said when I told him what was going on he voiced what I already knew so we got things together to call the ambulance. After the ambulance left with Mom we headed out and got there just shortly before they did. They have now changed things so that a family member can not go back until the ER staff get the patient settled. It was taking a long time (about 1 1/2 hours to be exact) By the time we got back there we figured out why. After they had gotten her in the ER she went into cardiac arrest. They had to do CPR and brought her back. When we went in she was on a respirator and had tubes all over the place. They could not get a vein to put in an IV except in her head. Of all the times they have had to put in an IV she has never had one there before. Mom has tiny rolling veins and it is hard to stick her when she completely hydrated and it is a nightmare if she is dehydrated. We know that it was God working through events and people to get her there with the timing of her being in the ER when she went into cardiac arrest. If she had been a home we believe she would be gone now. She was dehydrated and the ER doctor felt that was what had sent her into cardiac arrest. They were not slowing pumping them in they were putting them in quickly. The doctor I talked to was telling me it was very grim. The only thing I know is I did not feel panic I felt God there. I trust him and what he can do more than doctors. God gives us doctors but they do not know it all and they can only do so much in the end it is up to God. The only thing I can say is I felt peace that it would all be ok. Satan tries to torment us with thoughts of doubt but you have to stand strong and trust him. By the time Mom was admitted to the ICU unit it was her birthday.
October 15, 2007 Happy Birthday Mom!
Today is Mom's birthday and she is ICU. I did not get much sleep after I got home at about 3:00 am. I was not stressing ...just could not sleep. I guess because I knew there were things to be done. I went to the hospital about 11:00 am today. The central line they had put in last night was put at the top of Mom's leg and they do not like it there so they tried putting in a pick line in her arm. The had to reposition it a couple times because the first time it showed in the X ray it was not right. Mom's electrolytes were all out of sink so she was low on potassium, magnesium among a few others. This is always a issue for her with having the fistula and her primary care doctor should pay more attention to this. (very frustrating!) They are giving her steroids and a slow insulin drip. She is not diabetic but the steroids cause her blood sugars to be higher. She is also on a blood pressure medicine to raise her blood pressure. Last night in the ER her blood pressure (by the time I got back to see her ) was 77/63 range. Today they are 101/70 range. She is still on the respirator and they are giving her a meds to keep her under with being on the machine. They are still pumping in fluids. I seen about 4 different IV machines and there were bags piggy backing on each other. I had to come home to drop the girls to a church function as soon as I pick them up I will be going back up. More later.
October 16, 2007
Last night when I got home from the hospital I took a shower and after getting in my bed clothes laid across the bed wet hair and all. I was so exhausted I dosed off. I woke up a couple times during the night and looked at the clock to see what time it was. And just said a prayer to thank God for taking care of my Mom and then I could go back to sleep. First rest I have had in awhile since all this began. I went to the hospital today and stayed till after 10:00 pm. Today Mom opened her eyes for the first time since she went in the hospital. She is not focusing yet... the nurse said she wouldn't with the medication she is on right now. She frowned when they stuck her to check her glucose level ( She has not even been responding to pain for the last 5 days so that was an improvement.) Her blood pressure was as high as 134/89 so she is pulling her blood pressure up on her own so they are slowing backing off on her blood pressure medicine to bring it up. Her kidney's are functioning well and her lungs are clear. Thank the Lord for that! When I came home this evening my husband was cooking dinner, Kendra had cleaned the kitchen and Kari had done some laundry. It was so nice to come home and not have to worry about that! Thank you family! :)
October 17, 2007
Today they were having trouble keeping my Mom's blood pressure up. It's low was 74/59. When I got there they had been trying to back her off on the meds for this because they did not want her to be come dependant on it. So after two very low readings after I got there they put on the meds again. After a few times of the readings still staying low they would come in and bump it up again. They did this over a 3 hour period. During this time my Dad and I had prayer that her blood pressure would come up and stabilize on its own. At about 5:00 pm or so I noticed Mom had opened her eyes so I said "Dad, Mom's eyes are open!" We both jumped up and Dad went to once side of her bed and I went to the other. I reached my hand under the sheet to hold her hand and I felt her hand was clammy so I pulled the sheet up to see and under her hand where the central line was in her leg the pad was soaking wet. Apparently the nurse who had put on the blood pressure IV had put it on crooked and it had leaked out all on her and the bed. The first reading after they fixed it her blood pressure was now showing improvement. They only had to keep it on for a couple readings because she was pulling it up on her own after that. (the readings were getting higher) At one point it had got to 140/79 ish. I also talked to the Respiratory Tech and he had said she had been on assisted breathing and was now doing more of it on her own today. So they were slowly backing off on the respirator too. Good news! We are thankful to God for the improvements today and for those coming tomorrow.
October 20, 2007
Today my Dad called me early this morning to tell me that when they were taking out the central line in her leg they tore the vein. Not quite sure how they accomplished this. Apparently they tore it about 1/2 to 1 inch. Carelessness on someone's part no less. But I tried not to get angry that would not solve anything and I knew God was on watch. But Satan will use every means to torment us I just can't let him in. The hospital staff was afraid that they would have to take her down to surgery to fix the tear, But they were able to put a machine on her to pressurize the area and the bleeding finally stopped. When I got there there was still blood all over the bed and on her. They said they could not even move her to clean her up yet. They could not raise her head or anything till they were sure the bleeding had stopped. Dad said the blood was shooting everywhere. He said they let him stay in the room while they were working on her and he got all shaky seeing all that happen to her. About an hour after I got there they said they were going to try and clean her up and hope it did not start bleeding again. Dad and I prayed for her that it would not start bleeding again. We left the room so they could clean her up and then about 20 minutes went back to see her. Thank the Lord she had not started bleeding again. Her nurse said the area would have to be tended to gently or it could start bleeding again. They had to give her two pints of plasma too. I went home because Ken was at work and they girls were doing their school. The girls and I are fixing to go back up here soon.
October 21, 2007
I was up practically all night coughing. When I did get up I felt horrible. As I laid there in bed I said "Lord, I can not afford to be sick" I have too many things to do too many depending on me. I asked God to heal me . I thanked him for healing of the cough that felt like every muscle in my back was being stretched every time I coughed, healing of the headaches, stomach sickness and all other sickness I felt. I thanked him for the energy that he would replace the lack of energy I felt. Not sure how long it took but it seemed like only minutes and I felt energy so I was up and on the move and I did not feel bad anymore. Still had some cough but that was the devil trying to tell me I was not healed. I got my shower and went to the hospital.
As for my Mom when I got there they were giving her blood (2 pints) They were not giving her any meds that I know of to raise the blood pressure. And her blood pressure was 120's/79 so that was looking good. Other than that there was no change. The nurse told us that they were going to do a CT scan tomorrow to see why she was not waking up. Dad and I and my niece prayed for the scan to be normal and for her to wake up. We know God says that if we ask in faith in Jesus name he will do it and we know God does not lie. We thank God for improvements that are coming.
October 22, 2007
They did the CT scan today and the results were back by the time I got there. But no one could read them so I guess we will hear the results tomorrow when her doctor comes in. Her hands are swollen from the fluids they are putting in but it is not bad. They tested her sugar because the white fluid they feed her through the veins with has a lot of dextrose (Sugar) in it so they have to test it every hour. It had been running in the 150 range. The tech who took it said it was 450 ish. Jeff her male nurse said before he gave her insulin he was going to test it again because she had been running in the 150 range all day and that did not sound right. Good thing... when he retested it was 159. Between 6:00 and 8:00 you can not visit her so I ran home for the sole intention of getting a bottle of oil to use to pray for Mom. (James 5:13) And I forgot it again. So I called my niece and had her bring some up and we all 3 laid hands on her and prayed. Just trusting and waiting on the Lord ...in his time for his time is perfect.
October 23, 1007
The Doctor came in and talked to my Dad about the CT Scan. He said it looked like Mom had some brain damage. My Dad told the doctor he was not accepting his answer as the final say. God has the final say. The doctor ordered another type of scan. Even if Mom has some brain damage is there anything too hard for God? Absolutely not! Can God heal this? Yes he can and that is what we have asked for. The bible tells us ALL things are possible to him that believeth. We must make our requests know to God and ask in faith unwavering. We have asked in faith and now it is up to God to heal.
October 24, 2007
Today is Ken's birthday and I purposely did not tell him what the doctor had said when I came home from the hospital last night so that he would not have an unpleasant day. He loves my Mom and worries about her. He sort of cornered me when I came home and he asked me about Mom. I avoided answering the question and he did not ask anymore that night. I felt bad because I never keep anything from him. Today when I told him I was going up to the hospital he said he wanted to go and I felt I had to tell him and did. We both agreed that God can do anything and we had faith in what he was going to do. After we visited Mom we took Ken out to eat for his birthday and then I went back up to the hospital. Tonight Mom's urine was looking darker and the nurse said she had proteins in her urine because her kidney's were not functioning well. Dad and I had prayer for her kidney's to start functioning and thanked God that they would. No news on the new scan today.
October 25, 2007
When I went up to the hospital today Dad told me that the doctor who had came in the other day and told him that he felt Mom had suffered some kind of brain damage and ordered another scan came back into today. He did not tell Dad what the results of the second scan were. But he did say that her body was working very slow and that it would take some time. He did say that this was in her favor. He also said that she was doing the majority of the breathing on her own and could be taken off the respirator but he did not want to rush it and wanted to wait a few more days till she started responding more. Her kidneys were working better and they were giving her Lasix to take some of the swelling down. They also took her off the white milky stuff (food) for a 24 hour period because this has sodium and can cause swelling too. Praise the Lord! Thank you Jesus for the improvements today and those coming in the days and weeks to come.
The other day when I was in my Mom's room and I was standing by her running my hand through her hair because this seems to be relaxing to her. I was listening to a religious show on the TV (Mom always likes to watch them so we keep it on so she can hear them) There was a lady talking about how we ask for healing and sometimes people tend to ask for things but are afraid to tell anyone. They sometimes think that well what if God does not heal? How will that look on God. She said we should not worry about God's reputation. We ask in faith and the next step is up to God. He does not need for us to worry about his reputation he can take care of that himself. I thought this was worth sharing.
October 27, 2007
They told Dad today that they did not think Mom could do the breathing completely on her own. They are talking about doing a tracheotomy. I pray they do not have to do this. When I got up to the hospital the respiratory staff had turned off her respirator. She still had the tubes down to her lungs and she was getting oxygen and pressure support but she was doing the rhythm of breathing on her own. They had it this way until I went home last night. (So for at least 9 hours she was doing it on her own.) Praise God! She was also holding her own on her insulin. Normal readings with being on the white milky food they are feeding her through the veins with. One day at a time and one step at a time.
Another thing... I have never been so tired and exhausted. I do not say this to complain but to tell how God has given me strength everyday. When I feel tired I have prayed Lord give me strength and energy to do what I need to do today. I am looking for a miracle today and I am putting my trust in you. And he always does it! The devil can work on us even by making us so tired and feeling sick and it all plays in to how our attitude of how we react to things. I am strong only through the Lord!
October 28, 2007
Mom came off the respirator today. She is doing the breathing on her own. Praise God! Dad and I prayed that she will continue to hold her own and the respirator will not have to be put back on and that there will be healing in her mind and she will start responding to us. It is in the Lord's hands and we have faith he will do as he promises in Jesus name.
October 29, 2007
Shortly after I got to the hospital today my Mom sounded like she needed to have her airway suctioned out. After they did this her breathing level kept dropping. Normal is in the 90's to 100 and she was staying around the 85 range. They took the oxygen that was a nose piece and replaced it with a face mask. That did not help so they went to the Bipap (face mask with forced air) That also did not help. Her oxygen level was hitting 82 range now and her blood pressure kept rising. In the end they had to put her back on the respirator. What a blow by Satan to create discouragement if we allowed him to. On the human side of things yes it would be easy to get discouraged but we have faith in God and he has already beat Satan and Satan will not pull us down. We have faith that this is only a stumbling block created by the devil. God is our strength and we hold on to his promises. We put our trust solely in him.
October 30, 2007
I will try to update as much as I can tonight but I am so tired I may not get it all. It may have to be added later. Mom is holding her own on the respirator. They had her at 100% oxygen yesterday when I left and today it was at 50%. Come to find out the reason she had to be put back on the respirator was one of her lungs was not functioning properly. They did not say Pnemonia but her lungs had mucus in them and this was making her unable to keep up especially since they had her laying on the side that they lung was not working. The doctor keeps talking about doing the tracheotomy when she is better but we have prayed for her lungs to be healed and we rebuke this procedure in the name of Jesus Christ. The doctor said she would need to go to a home for this to be taken care of and my Dad came unglued. He said she is not going to any home while he is living. I told him not to get worked up the doctor does not have the final say he does. He takes better care of her than any nursing home could ever do. Anyway we anointed her with oil and prayed the prayer of faith that this procedure will not be necessary. We claim it in the name of Jesus! I would ask you to agree with us to for this if you will. They had to give her two more pints of blood today. The fluid seemed like it was coming off of her yesterday but today it was back on. I think with the blood they were giving more sodium clear liquid with the blood. I can not think of what it is called right now. Too tired... I am off to get some rest.