TPN-one week in

 My work station in my room and the white bag of nutrients I get every night for 8 hrs.

On Tuesday,of last week, a lady from my church drove me the 45 mins to the hospital and stayed with me for the day surgery.  After a day with her I'll say she's a new friend.  Being able to connect, talk about our desires for more of God and the Holy Spirit in our lives/families/community and share some of our struggles together, and of course praying together (while I waited to go into surgery) refreshed me.  That coupled with the many prayers on my behalf, I experienced PEACE.  True peace that comes from the Father. 

I came out of surgery to find out that they had attempted to put the port in on the right side but were unable to so they had to put it in on the left.  They had thought they might have nicked my lung but the x-ray proved otherwise, thankfully.  That night I started TPN for the first time.

All the training sessions later I still felt overwhelmed trying to make sure I kept things clean and sterile in order to make sure I don't have any infections, clots, etc.  Thankfully I was able to take some videos during our last training session so on the first night my hubby played the video beside me while I tried to slowly figure it all out.

I am getting much quicker now at hooking up at night and unhooking in the morning.  I have yet to attempt the gripper (needle) change that will happen once a week.  That's too hard to wrap my head around stabbing myself with a needle.  So thankfully this Thursday when I go to get my stitches out they will also change my gripper. 

Many people have asked how I am feeling.  I guess they, along with myself, thought I'd feel really good on TPN.  To be honest it's been pretty brutal.  I have neck and back/shoulder pain (later learned that muscle in the front was cut to insert the port and that stress and tension has affected the muscles in the back ) so sleeping has been difficult.  I experienced nausea, a horrible headache for a number of days, exhaustion from not sleeping well at night.  Normally I was up once or twice a night before TPN.  Now I am up some times almost ever hour and a half or 2 hrs.  The bags under my eyes have gotten bigger and puffier and my capacity to care for myself/home/kids, etc has been minimal.  I am thankful for the few meals that were brought this week and for friends and family who have helped out with the kiddos and rides, etc.  Recent blood work showed my phosphate levels are too high which may be the reason for my weakness.  So now I await more TPN bags that will be delivered without phosphate this time and then I need to get my blood drawn up next week to see if those levels come down.  I wish we lived closer to a larger center to get blood work.  Usually it's a 45 min to an hr drive to a lab that can do this type of blood work for me.  And my nurse informed me that some of her clients feel nauseated on TPN and she hoped I wasn't gonna be one of them.  I can only pray that things will get better from here on out.

When it is easy to see all the negative I am trying to find things to be thankful for.  It's one way I can try to be an example for my kids.  I am trying to teach them to not focus on just the negatives of their days but to list of the positives too.  I am thankful for the caring medical staff team I have.  What a gift!  I am thankful that yesterday was better than the previous week and even though today I am not feeling amazing I am feeling better than when I was at my worst last week.

Thank you to all of you who have been praying for me and my little family.  I am forever grateful for you. 

FACING YOUR GIANTS

This past yr. has not been an easy adjustment for our little family and my kids have not had an easy year trying to transition back into Canadian culture and trying to figure out friendships, etc. This has looked very different for each of them.   I started reading this book by Max Lucado with my son. So when I heard this song on the radio yesterday by Sanctus Real I knew I needed to share it with my him.  It's my prayer that I can be used of the Lord to build into my kids, to disciple them, pour into them, and remind them of their true identity in Jesus.  It is my prayer that they will live spirit-filled lives and that all the hardships they have had to endure will only shape their character and enable the Lord to use it all for His glory and for how He wants to use them and their life stories in the future.

It has not been easy trying to figure out how to take care of myself when I am needing to help my kids work through some heavy stuff in their lives.  But it is what I need to do in this season so that they can work through some of their giants in their life and be able to be more secure in Jesus through it.  Before I had my port put in on Tuesday of last week my son admitted that he was worried I might die.  To try to ease his worries I promised I would write a letter for him (and his dad and sister) to read when I went into the day surgery. When I asked my son what would happen if I did pass away he pointed out a few of the milestones in his life that I would miss.  I assured him that if I died I would be in heaven.  After this last year all the more death is not something I am afraid of.  Yet for my kids, I understand how traumatic it was seeing me so ill and spending so many months in and out of the hospital last yr.  I assured him that He has an amazing dad who would take such good care of them.  Yet after that conversation I feel more of a desire to blog more of my life story, to work on the journal Bibles I started for my kids and to write letters when I get a chance to so that they will have "fingerprints" of mine left behind if one day the Lord finally takes me home.

I heard this song today too.  Oh my dear kids I long for you to know the reckless love that the Father has for you.  He's good no matter how hard life seems to be.  He is faithful and will never never leave nor forsake you.  He loves you so much and wants to kick down the lies you are believing about you or your life circumstances.  He is in pursuit of a relationship with you!

He speaks!

My little girl has a neat little Bible that I read to her at night.  It's about various women in the Bible.  As I read one of the stories to my little girl last night I realized that I needed to take some time to go back over that story on my own because I believed God was speaking to me. 

Here are some quotes from this story that stood out to me: "I'm usually a happy, positive person, but those hard times took the sparkle right out of my eyes.  I felt like I was under a stormy cloud, and I couldn't find much to be happy about."
     "That's when I discovered Ruth's story in the Bible.  Her tale starts off even worse than my summer did.  But she kept on going.  She looked up to God and His people for help.  The more I read, the more I realized: God has a good plan in store, even though we may not see it at the moment."
     "Their lives (Ruth and Naomi) had been full of death and loss, but God brought them to a better place than they could have ever dreamed."  (When I read this I had to stop to reflect.  My life last yr felt like it was full of potential death and much loss...of health, friends, home, etc.  But I know that God has brought us here to Canada, to the little town we now call home.  And I am asking the Lord to open my eyes to be able to see that He has a plan and that this story is not over.  It doesn't end with loss, He's at work and Has a plan for me and my family, even though we can't see it right now).
 
    "Life can be a pretty awesome, beautiful thing."  "But then the hard times come- like death, divorce, broken friendships, or whatever hurts our hearts-and suddenly it's hard to see the beauty.  Everything looks so dark and hopeless.  We start to wonder if God even cares.
     Ruth reminds me that He does.  God's stories in our lives never end on a bad note because He has something incredible planned for every one of His children.  Like Ruth, we just have to keep hoping and trusting in God.  I can't wait to see what He has planned for me-and for you too!  Like little birds, He has us tucked right under His wing, where He loves us, protects us, and helps us grow closer to Him.  Don't worry if you're tired or it's dark right now.  The lights will shine again, and you'll be ready to fly!" 
  "Lord, you are always taking care of me, even when life gets really hard.  Thank you!"