Monday Memorial Day May 26, 2008 1:17 am

Monday morning already. Time is flying by. We are now on our thirteenth week in this wonderful hospital. It seems like yesterday. Now you know I'm not telling the truth. I am beginning to wonder if we ever lived anywhere else. Just kidding. How could I forget our beautiful home.

So as most of you can imagine, if you have spent any time in the hospital, that by now Will is getting a little stir crazy and having a lot of depression. Everybody is trying to find ways to help him out with this. He still can't seem to trust his lungs to work the way they should. After all the 'failed' tries, it's no wonder. So when he does these t-trials his head is really telling him that he might not be able to breathe. Sometimes it brings on an anxiety attack. These are terrible to go through for him.

I prayed and prayed last night that somehow he will be able to feel good about the trials and know that nothing bad will happen to him. This morning he was on the trial again and the doctors wanted him to go for 3 1/2 hours this time. After only about 15 minutes Will wanted off. He said he couldn't breathe. His face was turning red and he seemed like he was gasping. All his numbers were good though and the nurses told him the drs. wanted him to struggle through it and stay on the trial. I asked them to step outside so I could talk to Will alone. I got down and my knees next to his bed, held his hand and prayed for the peace and comfort only God can give. I said the prayer out loud so Will was praying with me. I asked that Will would only just give it over to God. We prayed for a few minutes and then said Amen. Within a few minutes his face was the right color, he was vomiting or gagging, and his heart rate returned to normal.

Now the reason I wanted to share this with you was when we finished the 3 1/2 hours, he had had no more problems and he was doing just fine. I again went down on my knees next to Will's bed and thanked the good Lord for helping Will through this, and I felt a need to share with people this story. It's not just for Will this works, it's for everyone out there. We all need to remember that all God wants is for us to lay all our troubles at his feet. It doesn't matter if it's big or small. We need to trust in our God to pick up these troubles (no matter what kind of troubles) and take them away.

Sometimes we find our emotional traumas to be more devastinging than our physical symptoms. God understands that, he can support us and all we need to do is relax and allow the presence of God to come over and surround us. How awesome is that??

In illness we may recognize for the first time how helpless we really are. Serious illness brings us face to face with long, dark nights when we are alone with our fears. When we reach the point that we finally know the darkness is passing, and we are aware that we are no longer alone but surrounded by God's presence--it is the most amazing feeling of peace. I have reached that point many times through this journey and so has Will. We trust and firmly believe God is with us in this room all the time, not just through the bad times. What a fantastic feeling and through trust and faith we can go through ANYTHING. But, and this is a big but, we need to give the glory to God. We need to make sure that we share our God's love for us and that's why I decided to do this sermon 101. Now the BIG lesson-serious illness or pain causes us to find value in things we have previously taken for granted (like our home, friends and family) ----including our faith. We come to realize that NOTHING is as important as our relationship with God. This illness has affected our life and there is no question in my mind that our family would not have the realtionship with our God without going down this road.

So now on to Will, if you're still reading this blog (which I hope you are). Normally I wouldn't have put all my personal revelations here but I was compelled to after watching again how much God is using Will to show people His love for us.
So Will had a great day, really. He was on two t-trials for over 3 1/2 hours. He walked further in the hall than he had before and he's now sleeping deeply. When he walked in the hall, the herd of doctors were still making their rounds. When Will passed them, they all applauded. Then the nurses followed Will back to his room, like a little parade, and clapped when he sat back down in his bed. Now that's encouragment of the first kind. They are wonderful people here and it's going to be sad to say goodbye. But hopefully we will be doing that soon. Tomorrow Will is going downstairs and getting a "big boy" xray. That's Dr. Cahill's term, not mine (She's such a character!) It's a regular xray where they get the front and sides of the lungs, instead of the ones that Will's been doing just laying in bed. This should tell us better how his lungs are looking. They have gotten about 3 liters of fluid off him in the last two days. They think they have another three to go. But it's coming off. He has legs again (where before he had tree trunks :0). He's off all antibiotics and things are looking better. We just need to work through this depression, and we will.

This is going to be a great week, I feel it. I hope that every one of you has a great week too.
God bless and thank you for your prayers. They are our strength.

P.S. The young man next to us is still alive. He seems to be doing better, thanks to all your prayers and the wonderful care he's given. But he still hasn't had any company. I hope his family is somewhere and they get the word to come here and be with him. He looks so young to be here in the adult wing. In the meantime, we will stand for him in our prayers. Thank you.