Hanging on (by a thread)

Well, how to start...where to begin...

By the grace of God we are still at home and surviving the task of being nurse, doctor, parent, advocate, spouse, sibling, children, employee and friend all at the same time. Hypervigilance can really take a toll on person after awhile. Add sleep deprivation to it and you get a really dangerous mix. Then add fear, frustration and FED UP to that and you've got the recipe to create Amy and Jeff right now. Kinda scary if you really stop and think about it. We are really only hanging on by a thread at this point. Thankfully that thread is attached to a huge web spun by God specifically designed to hold us up. I can only imagine that from afar all our tears would look like early morning dew drops on that web.

Wow, after wiping away some of those tears, back to an update...

Allison is still not doing very well. Lots of crying in the mornings, and lots of suctioning all day. She is sooo tired of the suction machine! So far, in 4 days, we've suctioned the equivalent of two 2 liter bottles from Allison. All of that, she would normally just swallow and digest. But since she can't swallow it due to the swelling around her esophagus, it just builds up in her chest until she coughs it up or we force her to cough it up. Amy and Jeff are in charge of not allowing her to choke on or inhale any of that overnight and during the day until Jeff leaves for work at 2:30 and the nurse gets here approx 1/2 hour later. The nurse stays here until Jeff gets home at around 11pm. As of right now, we have not been approved for any nursing care after Friday. Our main prayer request is that the insurance company approves another 2 weeks of nursing care. The average recovery time for this surgery is 6 weeks. Thats when the swelling will go down enough for Allison to be able to swallow all those secretions. Right now, we are sitting at 3 weeks. If we can get approved for another 2 weeks, we will be a lot closer to full recovery. Our 2nd prayer request is, we are on the lookout for play dates for Keala for next week and the week after. Just a couple of days so she can get out of the house for awhile. She is so eager to learn new things and go new places and she gets bored around our house very easily, especially when our attention is so focused on Allison.

Thank you Lord for making that thread a really strong one. And for maing the web that it's attached to even stronger.