God alone is Sovereign

1 Chronicles 29:11

Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all.

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Thursday, November 22, 2012

The Rest of the Story

Sory about the lack of blog posts recently.  I know you all want to know how we ended up from having tachicardia to lots of drainage to home so quickly.  As far as I'm concerned it is nothing short of the Divine hand of the Lord intervening!

So, as you already know Friday AG had one chest tube removed.  The other two chest tubes were still draining.  Friday night those two chest tubes stopped draining.  Amazing!

Saturday morning AG ate fat for the first time.  This is significant because chylothorax will not present until fat is eaten.  So, Saturday morning AG ate a scrambled egg and a peice of bacon.  Around noon Saturday Dr. Bradley and the attending physician came in and said they wanted to pull the remaining two chest tubes.  I explained that AG had just eaten fat for the first time that morning and I was concerned about chylothorax.  After some discussion, the agreed to leave the chest tubes in for another 24 hours to see what happened.  Things stayed status quo for the remainder of Saturday.  Sunday morning came and there was still no chest tube drainage from the remaining two tubes and nothing which appeared to be chylothorax.  Around noon Dr. Bradley and the attending physician came back in and said it was time for the chest tube pulls and then if the chest xray after the pulls looked good then they would discharge us that very day.  It was a whirlwind!  (Let me stop here for a moment and say that AG had chylothorax her first two surgeries and everyone expected her to have it this third surgery as well - I know so many of you were praying about that and the Lord protected her from the cylothorax with not a sign of it at all)!

The two remaining chest tube pulls were brutal.  She remembered from Friday since they don't put them to sleep to do it.  I was in the room with her holding her down and trying to comfort her during the pull.  Brutal is the only word I have to describe this.  After the two chest tube pulls then the nurses came in to remove the IJ line from her neck.  An IJ is kind of like an IV, but it goes into the jugular in the neck and it is sutured in so that you won't lose it.   It's bigger than an IV but the concept is the same.  You can administer IV medication through it and you can also do blood pulls through it so that she doesn't have to be stuck everytime they need labs.  It's handy in that way, but it is brutal to remove.  So again, there I was holding her down and still so that they could remove the sutures from her neck and pull the IJ.  My poor poor baby had been through so much.  It was painful to watch her pain and fear in light of so much being done to her.

After those removal there was just one last thing that had to be removed, it was the IV in her hand.  That went pretty quickly and mostly painlessly - at least compared to everthing else.

She still had about 25 stickers and badages on her chest which they wanted to remove and I said just leave them.  I'll remove them once home - I thought she had been through enough.

The chest x-ray people showed up next for a 2 view chest xray.  We had to wait about 3 hours after that was done to have it read and finally hear back from the doctor that we had the all clear to leave.  After signing and reviewing discharge paper work we were free to go.

While all of the medical stuff was going on Sunday,  Brian and Miss Lauren and Zachary were back at the townhouse frantically washing sheets and cleaning up in preparation for our departure.  They called me about 4:30 and told me they were finished and at about 5:00 AG and I got discharged so the timing worked out great.  They drove to the hospital and picked us up and we got on the road about 5:30 pm.

Brian drove the car and Miss Lauren and I drove the van with the kids.  AG did not do well on the car ride home.  She cried and was very uncomfortable until she finally fell asleep.  It was a welcomed thing for everyone!  Once home that night she was very fussy and disoriented, but by about midnight I think she finally figured out where we were and that we were home.  She settled down and slept for the night.  I slept on the floor in her room that night and it was terrific. to be home again!  I do want to stop and mention here that when we walked in our dorr at home after 2 weeks of being gone my house was spotless and clean.  A dear friend from Church had come over Sunday afternoon and cleaned my entire house, made a huge welcome home banner and another dear friend had brought some moeny for take-out since we hadn't stopped for dinner that night.  They thought of everything!  I hadn't cleaned before I left so what a blessing to come home to srubbed toilets and bathtubs and floors!!!!!!  I know all the Moms reading this will appreciate what an awesome gif tthis is!

We spent the entire dayMonday unpacking and removing stickers and bandages from AG's chest.  The bandage removal was terrible, she writhed and screamed upon each bandage removal.  We were able to remove all the bandages except one - we just couldn't go on.

Tuesday morning we headed to Dr. R's office.  She was very scared and other than him asking us to remove the last remaining bandage and then listening to her heart he didn't do much.  He prescribed a one time does of adivan for us to give her next Tuesday and asked us to come back next week so he could remove the stitches and do a chest xray and echo.  Next week will be a big appointment.

Since we've been home AG has started walking again although she is still unsteady on her feet.  She lost 3 pounds while in the hospital so she is still weak.  She has begun eating again and she is pooping regularly again.  She is still fussy, but you can tell she is starting to feel better every day.
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Our Church has been fantastic about bringing us meals since we have been home so we haven't had to go to the store for anything other than bread and milk.  It has been such a blessing to not have to think about cooking and meal planning in the midst of all of this.

Brian has been actively searching for a puppy for AG.  She hasn't forgotten about it and asks about her dog everyday.

AG is still not sleeping great at night, but I think it's just going to take her some time.  She has been through so much.  The Lord has been so gracious and merciful to Anna Grace and our family during this whole journey - He has met and supplied for every want and need we have had and we are grateful.  He has healed AG's body in a miraculous way and amazed and astounded us all.  He has held us and comfortaed us and sustained us during those two scary days when AG was having tachicardia and no one was sure why.  He kept us awake and functioning during days with no significant sleep to speak of.  The Lord has placed people in our path during just the right time to minister to us - a big shout out here to Crossbridge ministiries - who I can not imagine thraveling this journey without.  It is a hard journey, but we are not overcome.

Please continue to pray for no infection.  Although we are home she is still fragile and I certainly do not want to have to take her back to the hospital.  Please pray that things look good on Tuesday and that the Lord will remove the fear she has and that she will again begin to feel safe and secure.

We have much to be thankful for today.  We are certainly thankful for all of your prayers, friendship and encouragement!  May the Lord be Glorfied through our story!

1 comment:

Jennifer said...

To God be the Glory! Great things He has done!!!
Wow. So grateful for His blessings along this journey!
Love your guts!
Jenn