Wednesday, May 5, 2010

No MRI on Wow Wednesday

Chrissie will not have her MRI today because our great nurse, Steven, realized that she has metal leads from the pacemaker in her heart, which can't go through the MRI machine!  Dr. Kupferschmid has been out of town, and he'll be back tonight, so he may choose to remove the leads sometime tomorrow.  Chrissie hasn't needed the pacemaker in about a week, so I'm thinking they'll probably remove the leads and do her MRI tomorrow instead.

This morning Chrissie's sats dropped, but we think we discovered the cause.  The nurse was commenting on the drop in her sats, and I was watching Chrissie's face when all of a sudden there was a bunch of blood running out of her breathing tube!  The nurse responded swiftly and quickly suctioned her and got all of the blood out of the tube and her chest.  After that, her sats came back up.  We are thinking that her lungs were possibly irritated by the amount of pressure being blown in by the ventilator (which they decreased) or the blood may have been a result of Chrissie's mouth being accidentally "jabbed" as she bit down on her breathing tube moments before the incident (while she was being suctioned prior to the blood incident), and the nurse had to stick a plastic probe into Chrissie's mouth to pry open her mouth as she had a death grip on the tube.  (She even bit through the nurse's glove!)  So now everything is back to "normal" in here...whew!  The nurse complimented me on how calm I was through that ordeal, and I commented back that seeing that occur is nothing in comparison to all we've seen happen to Chrissie over the past 2 weeks!  Plus, my God always sustains me through the drama.  So thankful for God's consistent presence with me and in this room.  I truly don't know how anyone would make it through something like this without Him close by.  He is my Life Saver!

They are beginning to transition Chrissie from her IV drip "drugs" to oral drugs (which are administered through her feeding tube right now).  They know that Chrissie will go through major drug withdrawals since she's been on so many narcotics, but their hope is that if they introduce the oral meds that help with the symptoms of drug withdrawals now, before Chrissie is completely off of the IV pain meds, that she may have less drug withdrawal symptoms.  Please be praying for this because we've been told that drug withdrawal can be excrutiating.  I think of meth or crack addicts that I've seen documentaries about who go through withdrawals with vomiting, sweating, panicking, screaming, crying, shaking, convulsing, etc., and I pray our princess doesn't have to go through anything that extreme. 

As we've seen time and time again, when God's people have lifted Chrissie up to His throne, He has so graciously answered our petitions.  So, I ask you to lift Chrissie up to Him petitioning Him for an easy transition from IV pain meds to oral pain meds without the horrible withdrawals that many experience.

I've been blessed this morning with several visitors who I had never met until today.  They've followed our blog, and they were at the hospital for relatives having procedures.  They lavished me with food and gifts!  See, God is always making sure my needs are MORE than met!!!  A little girl here in San Antonio reads our blog every night instead of having a story read to her at bedtime!  She is praying for Chrissie and praising God every step of the way.  This little girl woke up extra early this morning to make me breakfast tacos (as well as a sandwich and chips and teas and she even sent some bath soaps and lotions and she made Chrissie a sweet bow for her hair!), and she sent it all with her mom to the hospital early this morning (before I was even awake!).  WOW!  It is Wow Wednesday, but I didn't realize just how He planned to WOW us!  God is so good to surround us with so many sweet friends who are lifting Chrissie up and supporting our family in so many ways.

Thank you everyone for your prayers and support!  We are grateful!!!