September 19, 4:00 p.m.
My body and mind are weary. I'm so happy that others are there with us to encourage and help us stand through this. It's been a long day that felt like weeks already. I didn't want to speak my fears in fear they would come true. I knew that enough negitive had been spoke over you in the first few hours that I wanted to block this out and not allow another word to be said in your room that was slightly negative. This became my mission and before this journey was over with there wouldn't be a nurse, doctor, chaplin, friend or family member that wouldn't follow this rule. Some had to learn the hard way simular to the way you & I had to learn things in our life too.
Since I knew you could hear us, my rule was that you would only hear positive things said. We don't know why God chooses to heal some and take others home with Him but I feel that you had a say in this decision. I just needed a sign from you that you were fighting. I needed this to light my fire to also fight.
Whenever a nurse would come in and adjust some machine I would ask what it was and why it was being used, what results were they looking for. It was time to educate myself on your recovery. The one machine to the left of you showed us your blood pressure which held steady at 96/ 68, your oxygen level was at 100%, your heart beats per minute were at 90, your breaths per minute were 14 but something was odd about the number because it kept changing. Every hour the resporator techs would come in and hook up to their computer to check all your oxegen levels. There were numbers and graphs that went over our head. This machine was to the right of you. Rick always seemed to be standing to your right near your resporator that breathed for you. I always stayed to your left so I could get as close to you as I could without all the tubes & wires. I basically climbed into your bed.
It's was around 4:00 pm when one of the resporator techs came in to do their checkup. They never asked us to step out and were always very aware of us being there. They would answer any question we ask but what I liked about them the most was the way they answered. They educated us as if they understood we needed something to grasp hold of, something to show us a progress or decline, hope.
Rick ask the tech what the 14 stood for on your resporator and the machine that was over my head. We thought they might be connected since they showed the same numbers. The actual respirator machine we learned was the numbers we wanted to follow. It gave an accurate level to your breaths taken, your oxygen level and everything that was sustaining your life right then. The tech explained that he had you set up to take 14 breaths per minute. Rick ask what the next set of numbers were that stayed around 18. The tech said that was the amount of breaths the machine took PLUS the breaths you were taking on your own.
Did you hear that??? You were taking breaths on your own!!!! The hair on mine & Rick's arms were standing on end. Rick asked again about you breathing on your own as if we might have misunderstood. He confirmed once again that you were indeed breathing on your own. He showed us how to watch the graph on your resporator, the lines would climb for the breath then dip down when you exhaled. The gragh lines were black but you could see gray shades at the beginning of every breath. The tech explained that the grey coloring on the graph was all you initiating the breaths but you weren't breathing stong enough just yet so the machine was finsishing them for you. Rick quickly asked if this was a brain funtion to breath on your own. Yes, this was a brain function which means the first doctor was wrong, you were not brain dead!!
We are glowing. You were breathing. This was a praise God moment.
This was that 1% hope I needed to strengthen my faith to stand with you in this fight. This was a message from you telling me that you were not giving up, that you were fighting your way back to us. I was not going to give up on you. I promised you right then that I would stand strong in faith with you. I was not going to hold my breath in fear any more.
I finally exhaled.
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