We're Home

     I just heard Megan and Melody drive up.  I'm waiting for them to find me in what we fondly call "the sideyard," where I weedeated the overgrown natural area yesterday so that we could hang up our hammocks and have a bonfire tonight.  We're missing four of the kids, but that's all right because two have been almost 30 miles out to sea with Dad today.  One has stayed back at the beach house to relax with Mom on this Mother's Day.  And the other spent the night here.
     Timothy and McKala came last night and helped us make fajitas and homemade salsa.  She said she was so dizzy at church this morning that she didn't stand for prayer.


     That was Sunday. This is Friday. I brought Melody back to Wake Forest Baptist Hospital on Tuesday after she could barely comprehend and particularly not see her classwork. Last fall, she was finally diagnosed after four years of headaches different doctors pondered were caused by bite alignment, hair heaviness, or hormones, with Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension. That means for her the "bottle neck" in the veins which leave her brain let spinal fluid build up in her head, so much so that her optic nerves swell and cause her to lose vision, never mind the chronic headaches she suffers.
     Tuesday was her breaking point. She said there was no way she could do EOGs in that condition, much less study for them. Her right vessel is dominant, so it's the one they went through, her Femoral Artery in the inner thigh, to carry stents into by catheter.
     No holes in the skull for a shunt, no shaved head, no complications, right? During the exploratory catheterization the night before the surgery, Fentanyl was administered too quickly and she all but stopped breathing on the table. She was awake and saw the doctor tear off his scrubs, start grabbing equipment, barking out orders, and having people called in "Stat!" THAT is why I call for prayer in times like these. Yes, what Melody has could be something worse; it's a condition, not a disease. BUT as Satan would have it, uncomplicated procedures become complicated.
     I've been reading in Ecclesiates these last days. It says, "Things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath. This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all ..." (Ecc. 9:2-3). This is easy for me to quote. But I'm not the one suffering. Just know that calamity is never a reason to denounce Christ. Our reaction to and through it is what proves who we are and are not in Christ.
     Yesterday was bad. We were set to leave but were on the tail end of the meds. They had taken her off the IV meds and there were no orders to give her anything else before we left. That's when the pain became unmanaged, and it took four hours to get orders to put the IV back in. Then, in the wee hours the night nurse decided Melody was "sleeping soundly," and she let all her medicine lapse. When Melody woke up, she was crying out loud. I can't say that I've seen her do that more than one time in the last four years. They got her meds going, but it was too late. It took almost two hours before they got it back under control, finally with morphine.
     This morning is round two of trying to leave. She's off the IVs again. They've switched her oral meds to stronger/different ones. Another neurosurgeon came in this morning and said that the pain stems from the fact that the nerves are not in the brain, but they are in the covering of the brain, the dura, which is exactly where they've placed stents a centimeter in diameter. Imagine a large foreign object exerting pressure on the fibers, trying to expand itself between your brain and skull.
     They can't say when the pain will subside. They can't say how long the stent will last. They don't know why this phenomenon happens. Seems to me that it's an anatomy defect. All I know is that this is feeding her passion for medicine. AND that prayer is always needed. Because although, some of the people on staff here at Brenner Children's Hospital are the best of the best, they still are human and do err. It's a big reason I pray so heartily for McKala. Yes, her babies are "safe," but she still has an active case of walking pneumonia, mycoplasma that is a particularly sinister and hard to kill bacteria, which the infectious disease doctor wants untreated. The "dizziness" at church I mentioned earlier is because her pulse is racing. The stress on her body is keeping her heart meds that she takes for POTS (a condition she's seen for at Duke and is likely caused by the four walking pneumonia infections she's had since she was 14) from working effectively. Her heart is in overdrive trying to "call up" the blood from her lower extremities because her nervous system does not do its job.
      As I was telling Pastor Dale, who so apparently loves the Lord, when he came here to see us, it seems that Satan has realized that he cannot have the hearts of my children, so he will "try" their bodies to discourage them. I am not devastated over the physical state, not that I wasn't in great distress last night and could've just kicked myself that I didn't set my own alarm for her meds. What would be despairing though is to know that any one of them denied Christ in the end or lived their faith laxidazically, which is the same. While we are waiting for that end, we are tested, put to the fire. I pray that it pushes each of us to crave His Word and to seek Him fervently in unceasing prayer, not always in requests but in praise, that we might trust and obey. There really is "no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey," similar to what Soloman had to say after all his getting of wisdom then folly,"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man." (Ecc. 12:13).

      It's Friday night, and we're home.  They finally found the right cocktail of oral medicine to keep Melody's pain at a reasonable level.  It'll just be Melody, Mike, and me for the weekend, since Megan has taken Madalynn to Georgia for their twin cousins' birthdays and graduations, where they'll also meet up with Miranda, Michael, and Macklynn on the way back from Florida. Madalynn and I didn't exactly get the week we'd planned together.  But we did get to swim at Aunt Cindy's pool and go to that bakery she's always asking me about.  Mike colored with her AND did some major cleaning for me.  (He said if his shoulder's gonna hurt either way, he might as well do something.)  And she got to spend two days with our friends, the Heacock's, while I was at the hospital.   
     I just love the kids all being back in North Carolina, Megan at work, Michael at school, and McKala married.  They went from somewhat of a disconnect to doing things together regularly.  Some of the things I was afraid Macklynn and Madalynn would miss out on, even the travel, are suddenly upon them. 
    It got started up in December when Michael and Melody convinced Megan it was a good idea to buy a timeshare weekend while they were in Bass Pro Shop.  So, on Michael's spring break, when he could've been "other places," he went with Megan, McKala, and Melody to Charleston. 
     During Melody's spring break, she stayed at McKala and Timothy's house for two days, tie dying shirts, buying ducks for his grandmother, and going to a free Triple A ballgame put on by Duke Energy, where Timothy is gainfully employed as a lineman.  They kindly invited Macklynn, so Melody drove all the way home to get him.  The next two days Melody spent with Megan playing softball, hiking, cooking, and going to the gym.  Melody was invited to do a lot of unseemly things, and she chose to stay on the up and up, with family. 
     That's the deal.  And although, they sometimes get a little too loose, crass, or blunt with each other; they are forever bound together.  They've spent their childhood days playing, learning, and working and their teenage years volunteering all over the east coast, training, and even working together sometimes.  They hold each other accountable.  They are built in counsel and chaperones to each other.  They don't have to find a place to "hang out," where things might go south.  They don't have peer pressure, because they didn't grow up with it.  Community really does start at home. 
     So does teamwork, just like the shower we put on for McKala.  Melody baked another incredible lemon blueberry cake that was six layers.  Miranda and Megan bought decorations.  And Miranda pulled them together to make a first class affair.  Megan bought games, but the conversations were so lively that we didn't need them.  So, they're tucked away for the next time.  Madalynn was so elated to be asked to go with the "big girls" to get a manicure before the shower.  She's learned the value of saving her money to get to do big girl things. 
     There's an annual local music festival, and we all got to go because Miranda volunteered two whole days with the fire department parking cars.  The tickets would've been many hundreds of dollars. Then, a couple of weekends ago, after Michael, Miranda, Melody, and Megan rode in her new Jeep to Mount Airy, McKala and Timothy came to spend the night with us.  I pulled off some homemade pizza, and we all watched a movie. 
     Last week after work, Megan and Miranda put in an AC compressor in Miranda's car.  A couple of days later, Megan and Mike put one in my van.  Megan didn't go on the fishing trip this year, so when the three left, she went to the movies with Timothy and McKala.  I love first of all that Mom and Dad invite them and that Miranda was willing to take Macklynn on the getaway she's so been looking forward to. And I love that the boys are there together. 
     There is a seven year gap between them.  And Michael's been away at school and working when he's at home.  He managed though to take Macklynn to the lake to try out the boat.  He also took and stayed with Macklynn for the free Y summer camp day.  Above all, he took him to his favorite trout stream up the mountain, which is normally a solemn place he has for himself Sunday afternoons, near Dr. Miller's place.  Michael's either interned with or worked for him for four years now.  He got to do a large animal call last week, and they rode together with Megan to have lunch.  I like how they know each other's "others."  There is a weaving together that only God can do. 
     Melody's good friend, Kaylee, came bearing gifts to the hospital and you can bet that big sister was there this week, too.  Megan was a second mother to Melody.  "Megan" was even Melody's first word.  I was on the phone with my friend, Amy, and we both heard it.
     So, here I am at 11:25 pm scratching my arms from the poison ivy I got myself into weedeating.  Melody is resting, thoroughly medicated with 2 Percocet and 800 mg of Motrin intermittently. I can hear the videos Mike is watching in bed.  We don't normally go to bed separately, so I'd better head on in there.  Our oldest is headed south with the youngest, and the second will be headed north with the boys tomorrow, forever giving me something to pray over and about, but mostly to give praise for.  My life is better than I ever imagined it might be.  I'm so profoundly thankful that in our ignorance, simplicity, and youth, we were still able to understand and appreciate the command of fruitfulness and are here together to see what continues to grow from it ...and to hear those fishing stories when they get home.