Tuesday morning, Ahavah was laying on her floor saying she was too tired to get up. Her nose had been bleeding. She woke up several times through the night saying her stomach was really hurting her. She finally got up and came down into the kitchen and sat on the stairs holding her stomach saying that it hurt really bad. I called her Cancer and Blood Clinic to talk to her hemoc. I convinced them to let me come in that morning instead of waiting until our appointment Friday. Her platelets dropped to 54,000, which isn't horrible for her at all, but it's lower then what they have been.
The following morning (Wednesday) they called right away in the morning and said her lead levels went back up to a 34 and that they were going to contact her primary right away. Her primary called and said to go into the hospital. She called ahead and set up a plan for Ahavah and what she wanted done.
Now on a side note of this story... and since it's my blog, I can babble all I want... I had only two hours of sleep the night before. Elias had a stuffy nose and a cough and was LITERALLY up every 15 minutes crying. I layed next to him and Hayven on the bottom of the triple bunk beds set up in their bed. Ahavah woke up 2 or 3 times waking me up. Finally I crawled back into bed around 6am and slept until 8:30am. Now I have had fevers on and off since Sunday as well as a stuffy nose and swollen lymph nodes. My son had a seizure a few days prior and that freaked me out so I watched him through the night for the next few nights. So to set the scene: I AM BEAT!
I sent my kids upstairs to get dressed, clean their rooms, and pack a hospital bag. I called Mariah and asked her to come over and sit with my kids while I took Ahavah in. I went to brew some coffee and just fell on my face on the kitchen floor crying out to the Lord!
"GOD! Please! Protect Ahavah's brain, Lord! Protect her little nervous system and her little body. Oh, God! I trust You with all that I am and all that I have. Help my unbelief! Lead me. Strengthen me. I can't handle this without You. Not again! Not now. Please help me to glorify You and show Your majesty through all of this."
Mariah came through the door with a cast iron pot full of homemade soup. She peeled me off the floor and just held me as I stood there shaking in my bath robe. We prayed. I finished making coffee and went upstairs to pack out bags and get dressed.
Ahavah and I stopped by the Natural Food Store to grab some food for the hospital since we can't eat much with our food allergies. I pulled into the parking lot and rested my forehead against the wheel and just lost it again.
"God! Please send someone. Anyone! I don't care who it is, but I need someone who knows you to be in this store that will lay hands on me and pray for me. I am so weak. I can't do this without your strength. Please Lord! I'll ask every employee in here if they know you. I just need prayer."
I walk in the doors and standing right there is a sister from my church with her husband and 5 kids. She saw me, put down her bag, and just held out her arms. I fell into her arms and she prayed with me right there in front of all the customers and store workers. Nice and loud I announced that I was just begin God to have someone be here to pray over me. (I held onto this moment for the remainder of the day and told myself, "She was there. I am right where God wants me right now. She was there!"
So we get to the hospital and no one knows how to handle us. No one knows how to deal with such high lead levels. I directed the doctors to what I wanted done and who to call. Even though my doctor called ahead, the person she talked to had left and no one had any direction. It was frustrating, but God's hand was still in it all.
After
I got my family praying and I was praying. I had the doctors and nurses running around checking if there was a way I could put the medication on her bill instead of picking up at the pharmacy. Nothing was looking promising.
"God, if want her to get on this medication, which I believe You do, then You're going to need to pay for it."
I didn't ask anyone for money. In fact, I asked my sisters and family NOT to tell ANYONE we may need money to cover this medication. I knew that my God would take care of it all. Then I remembered! The hospital had a program that offered one prescription completely covered if you were an "uninnsured patient" as well as a good chunk off your hospital bill. I asked for a financial counselor and we qualified for that program since it had been one year since we used it for Ahavah's last chelation therapy! PRAISE THE LORD FOR HIS PROVISION!!!
SO we're in the pharmacy and I can't even think straight I am so sick and exhausted. We had been waiting for about an hour for them to fill her prescription and get us the discount. As I was talking to the Lord in my head I must have told Him I needed some more encouragement because another sister from my church who is in school for her RN walked right by the pharmacy! I ran out and grabbed her. We hugged and I got to talk with her for about 15 minutes. It was so refreshing to just be able to share with someone what I was going through.
We got home, I asked my sister Alyssa to watch my kids for a half an hour or so and I went up in my room. I locked the door and put worship music on.
"Oh Lord, I just want to worship You!"
I laid on my knees and just poured my heart out to my God. I praised Him and worshiped Him. I was just covered in snot and tears, swollen faced and broken. He held me. I just layed there telling Him how great He is.
Man, the testimony of God's Provision. His Grace. His Love. His Perfect Plan.
How can you not just be so in love with Jesus?!?
How do people get through life without him??
So my husband lets me sleep and takes care of the wake-ups through the night. Thursday morning I am so sick and plan on just resting. I spent the morning breaking up fights between my little brother and son. I sit down and put my feet up ... and the Department of Health calls... They want to inspect the house again. Even though we've passed three inspections, they want to come out... and they want to do it in a few hours. I asked for a few days to rest and clean my house, but they insisted they do it now so they can try to catch maybe a reading level of 30+ somewhere.
So, sicker then a dog I start picking up, sweeping, dusting, cleaning... Praying the whole time,
"Oh Lord, I don't have a clue what you're doing, but man! You have some idea that I am able to bear all this, so let's do it I guess..."
The Department of Health sweeps the house and lets me know the plan on their end of all this.
To put a cherry on the top of this miserable sundae, I made a phone call to ask a question about something to someone, and they said the most rude things to me over the phone about our situation. I tried really hard to brush it off and I admit, I let it distract me for a while, but then I remembered, my God knows what I'm going through, no one else needs to understand. :)
So this treatment that Ahavah's on is really harsh and could cause harm to her liver and other organs. She gets really sick from it (vomiting, loose stools, headaches, nausea, exhaustion). It lowers her already low platelets and affects her white blood cells. If she gets an infection while on this, she could very well need hospitalization. It also could affect her absorption of iron, which isn't good for her anemic-prone body. These are all areas we're praying over.
I am continuously praying over her little brain and nervous system since those are the areas that the lead attacks and we were ensured over time we would see the damage :(. That's almost more then I can bear to think about. But not more then my Jesus can bear and with Him I know I can do all things. His Word tells me so.
_______________________
Another thing I wanted to brag about my God on was in this post I mentioned I had been praying in some things that the Department of Health recommended to help Ahavah recover. God did so much more then just provide for out needs, He blessed us MORE then we could ever, EVER imagine!
I needed a cast iron pot.
It was the last piece of our cookware that the Department of Health asked us to get for her. I prayed in the money and it came!
Alex got off school early on a Monday and asked if I wanted to run to Best Buy with him to get a small computer he needed for school. So we went to Target, got my pot, went to Best Buy, got his computer. Then he says, "Oh look! Guitar Center! Want to go there and look around?"
We looked and he asked which one I liked. I showed him and he said, "Get it! and get a case and a strap and whatever else you need."
"WHAT?!?!?!?" :) :) :)
God provided for all that AND THEN when we got back from Omaha, someone left a gift card to Trader Joe's on our porch which saved us (somehow) two weeks worth of grocery money! That money that we saved is going to the appropiate supplements that Ahavah needs to keep her little body healthy while she's on this medication!
INCREDIBLE!!!
GOD IS GOOD!
He is Faithful!
He has a plan!
Do you trust Him?
Are you purposing to walk through whatever you're facing with Him being glorified as your only mission?
Or are your eyes so much on your own misery that you can't pour into anyone?
I am loud and proud of the work the Lord's doing. Not in a woe is me type of way, but in a LOOK AT WHAT MY GOD HAS DONE!!!! type of way.
Are you?
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