He Hears Your Cries

Our Women's Bible Study discussed how helpful it is to remind ourselves of what God has done in our lives to remember his faithfulness to us and his love for us.  I have found this to be so helpful in my walk with Christ.  In college my roommate and I had a poster on the back of our door that we wrote answers to prayer on throughout the year to remind us of His faithfulness during a crazy time in our lives (I was student teaching with a not so hot mentor teacher and she was in her first year teaching).  I began this blog with the same idea, to remember all that God has done in our life. 

Today I'm getting ready to walk out of the hospital after about 2 and a half days of sitting here holding my little boy.  Monday night Timothy felt hot so I checked his temperature and it was 100.6 under the arm so I knew it was probably higher than what it was reading.  I called our pediatrician's office and they said to bring him into the emergency room.  My prayer the entire drive was protection for Timothy, one because taking him to a hospital freaks me out but also because I knew that kids under 2 months shouldn't have fevers.  Dr. Valente was wonderful.  He was gentle and patient when explaining the tests that needed to be done and the reasons why.  He tried hard not to alarm me while being honest...although the thought of a spinal tap on my 7 week old was alarming.  Every possible test was done to rule anything else out before doing a spinal tap and then he called our normal pediatrician, Dr. Plotnick, and she reassured me that it had to be done.  As a side note, she was on vacation and I'm sure we woke her up or at least messed up her relaxing morning!  By far she's the best doctor I've met and is worth the 35-40 min drive to get to her!  We survived this ordeal and then it was time to sit and wait for the results, however, because Timothy was obviously not looking well we had to stay instead of go home and wait.

It turned out that there were some white blood cells in the spinal fluid so we ended up in the hospital until all the cultures came back 48 hours later.  While I can't say I love being in the hospital, I appreciated the excellent level of care we've received at Greater Baltimore Medical Center.  Every nurse we've had was kind and worked with our schedules, such as working to pair taking vitals with either giving antibiotics or nursing so we're not constantly waking him.  I don't know that I've ever heard "can I get you anything" more frequently than over the past two days (except for after giving birth at Special Beginnings Birth Center).  The nurses and doctors have taken the time to answer my questions and did not make me feel dumb for asking them. 

I also was looking at the hospital from the standpoint of being there with a diabetic (if Marian ever has to come) and I appreciated that the meals come with a list of the carbohydrates behind each menu item and on the menu the carbohydrate amounts are listed behind it.  Plenty of healthy options are available. 

I will say this hospital stay has also been far different from the one we had 10 months ago with Marian.  I pretty much spent the past two days holding my little baby.  Once the iv was in there were not more shots, no entertaining a 3 year old in limited space, no having an incredible amount of information shoved at you while you're still processing the fact that your daughter's life and your own will NEVER be the same.  Just peacefully sitting in a quiet room holding my baby boy.  I'm grateful for the peace only God could give.  This peace allowed me to be grateful instead of frantic; to enjoy instead of fret. 

God was faithful in hearing my prayer and those of our friends and family.  He protected Timothy, our little boy had wonderful care and viral meningitis was a much better diagnosis than bacterial meningitis.  He was comfortable because his Mommy was able to stay with him thanks to family and friends that chipped in to meet Mark and the girls needs while I was away.  If we had a poster in our house with reminders of God's answers to prayer this week we'd have many things to write.

¹⁸ Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you;
therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.
For the Lord is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!

¹⁹ People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. ²⁰ Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. ²¹ Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

Isaiah 30:18-20  (NIV)

 

(Timothy has been out of the hospital a week already, but I wrote this while I was there it just took me a while to edit this post)

Blood Sugar Highs are Scary

I've read frequently and experienced the fears of having a 3 year old with low blood sugar but every once and a while I am reminded of the fears (and slightly absurd comedy) of high blood sugars as well. For example tonight's dinner.  We got home from BJs and I finished making the veggies for dinner and we sat down.  I forgot to check her blood sugar initially as this pregnant momma was HUNGRY.  All of a sudden Marian started pouring her water bottle onto the floor, this was no accident.  As began to clean it up (my first mistake, she should have cleaned it up), she grabs at my hair and pulls hard!  So she was disciplined for both.  We went on with dinner.  Less than a minutes later she looks at me after I told her to "Please continue eating" and dumps her entire plate onto the floor.  I then proceeded to check her blood sugar...325.  Okay so she's high this explains some of these behaviors.  I gave her a correction shot amid a fit and sent her to her room to calm down reading quietly for a few minutes.  I've learned fighting a battle with a child with high blood sugar is a losing battle.  She calmly came out a few minutes later and was ready to deal with life again.  We cleaned up the mess and dealt with her plate throwing and how to handle a situation without throwing food items (or any other item for that matter).  At the time I went from thinking "what are you doing I know you've been trained better than this" to "is this some kind of joke."  The irrationalities of a 3 year old combined with high blood sugar is scary and slightly amusing to think about the absurdity of her responses. 

It's always such a humbling experience to realize that one, I probably could have avoided many of these problems tonight by remembering to check her blood sugar before dinner instead of after it had begun.  Two seeing how completely out of control she can become when she has high blood sugar scares me for as she gets older and the choice isn't to throw a plate but drive irresponsibly or something.  A good reminder tonight to persevere in prayer for not just today but the future of my children!