Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Slow times, and and MRI

Dear friends,

The days keep on rolling by, sometimes they seem to melt into one. Madeline has had a peaceful day and a half. She has spent most of her time sleeping which is good, that’s when she burns the least amount of calories and can gain weight. I am glad she has calmed down, the last few days were hard because there wasn’t much we could do to console her. We couldn’t hold her and she couldn’t be breast fed. So they would just give her some drugs and she would calm down. She is now slightly over her birth weight of 2 ½ lbs and back on feeds. She is currently getting 1mL of milk an hour and will increase by 1 mL each 24 hours.

As the immediate worries of her being stable fade to the background doctors continue to look her over and keep coming up with Oh-by-the-ways’s. As in “Oh-by-the-way her optical nerve is small” and “Oh-by-the-way there may be something wrong with her pituitary gland” and “Oh-by-the-way her hips seem like they’re not right”. So far none of this means anything more than it is something they are going to monitor and test. I wonder how many of us would fall outside of the range on things we haven’t been tested for and still are fine.

With all the day to day stuff I had almost forgotten about Madeline’s heart. It still has 3 holes in it, on large ASD (Atrial Septal Defect – hole between the left and right Atriums) and one large and one small VSD (Ventrical Septal Defect – hole between the left and right Ventricles). I know God can make these go away, I have seen it before in my friend Dirk. Please pray that God would make these go away, so Madeline wouldn’t have to undergo heart surgery again.

Trials are a funny thing, they can all be put into perspective. In the Bible, the book of James says: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.” – James 1:2, 3. Consider it PURE JOY, because trials produce perseverance. I certainly understand it when I read that, but sometimes it’s hard to keep up the joy thing. Lisa and I have been a little tired (emotionally) lately.

I chipped a tooth today.

I went to get a haircut. The stylist asked me “How are you doing today?”, I replied, “Oh, so so.”. She said: “My day has been terrible.” Turns out it was a real slow day for her and she hadn’t made much money. She had a picture hanging up of a pretty red headed girl.“Is that your daughter?”, I asked. She acknowledged. “How old is she?” I asked again. “Well she was six and a half in that picture but died shortly after.” We didn’t talk much after that. I am grateful that my girls are doing fine.

Tonight Madeline has another MRI. They are going to be looking at her head and brain and optical nerves. They are looking at a bunch of different things in this study. We won’t have any results for a few days. I am not sure what to pray for, pray that the MRI goes well. Pray that Madeline tolerates everything nicely. Pray for good results on the MRI (whatever that needs to be).

Grace,
Shanker & Lisa.

1 comment:

  1. Last night I was up at 2 and did some major praying for Madeline Grace. I sure hope she's doing ok. When our grandson was in the hospital a year and a half ago, there were so many ups and downs. He had a brain tumor and then a brain clot, and was in for a month, but is, thank the Lord, completely well now. Every single prayer was felt. The thing that really impressed me was how precious every life is in God's sight. Madeline has her very own angel, always in contact with Him ----
    God bless you all. Julie Ashton/Regina's aunt/Goffs' friend!!!

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