I checked my email, “Dad is back in AFib”. I called my mom to find out what was going on. The game plan was to actually try the cardio-version {electric paddles to try and shock the heart back in rhythm} in the hospital later in the day. I talked to my mom around 4:30 and it didn’t work, but they were going to keep him overnight for observation and try some different meds.
My mom calls me around 8pm, “You’re sister is on the way to the emergency room with severe abdominal pain: Do you want to go with me?” Fortunately all the kids were in bed, there was tons of family around, and I walked out the door, fully expecting to be home before midnight. Not so.
My mom and I arrived in the ER around 9pm, to find my sister literally writhing in pain on a gurney, my nephew {who is only 4 weeks old} not happy, and his daddy really worried about the both of them. A little while later they send her in for a CATScan to see if she has appendicitis. We hang around the room waiting.
“We found something rather disconcerting in your CATScan.” Let me just say that is NOT something you want to hear…ever, but especially not at 10:3pm in an emergency room. There was air in my sister’s abdomen, which was causing all of her pain; however, they thought that perhaps her small intestine had been punctured and thus why there was air. Emergency surgery immediately.
4 hours later, at 4:10 am the surgeon comes out to talk to us: “We had to remove a foot of her small intestine. There was a stricture that was causing the intestine to swell and become blocked, leaking gas and waste into the body cavity, we also removed her appendix so that there is no question of appendicitis in the future: My assistant and I believe she has Crohn’s Disease.”
What?!
And just like that…the rain poured down: My father is in AFib, that was non-responsive to shock treatment and my sister had a foot of her intestine removed and may have Crohn’s. And I’ve already been on emotional overload between family visiting, kids that are torqued from our new living arrangements, and just a general chaos.
We were ushered into recovery, where my 21 year old sister lay in a bed, moaning in pain, tubes in her nose, her 4 week old baby cuddled sound asleep against my chest, completely unaware of how his world is about to be rocked. And the rain came down.
I went home. Slept for 2 hours, then proceeded with my day per usual; phone attached to my head talking to my mom, my dad, and every one else trying to figure out just what was going on with every one and keeping everyone else in the loop.
At 7:15, just after the triplets were in bed, my dad called asking me to come help him with my nephew {my mom had gone back to see my sister—the hospital is 45 minutes away}. Out the door I went again. But it was different.
The ride home later that night was different. Instead of fighting the torrents of rain and trying to figure out which way was up and which way was shore…I floated. I rested in the cool evenings setting sun. And there was peace.
In the rain I still couldn’t find the spoken words for prayers or praise, but there was Him and there was hope. Because in the black of that Friday and Saturday there was the hope of Sunday: While Satan may think he’s won the battle, he’s already lost the war. While we awaited the Resurrection morning, the Resurrection had already happened, 2000 years ago, and in that we were free.
~*~*~*~*~*~
As of today, my sister is doing better. She was finally able to sleep on Sunday afternoon, once they got her pain under control. My mom and I have been tag teaming childcare for my nephew. The hardest part for him is that he has been exclusively breastfed, and within hours he went from that, to bottles and formula, because of the medication and dyes they had to use for my sister. He’s a trooper though.
We received confirmation this afternoon that it is NOT Crohn’s Disease, but that they have no idea what is wrong and are sending it out for further testing.
My sister is really struggling with being away from her son, and stuck in the hospital; and her fiance is struggling with having to be at work, my sister being so sick, and not being around his son {while his mother is also very ill in a hospital 3 hours away}.
My dad is not well. The new meds they put him on making him feel absolutely terrible, and he’s also frustrated that the AFib episodes keep happening.
My mom is trying to keep them all together, and has to go back to work on Thursday.
I know your prayers have been flowing, those of you who follow me on Instagram knew last week what was happening; we so appreciate them and we still need so many more.
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