Footprints

We all have times in our lives when we are weighed down by our troubles. You know the times...when you begin to feel like Job, then you read Job again and realize that things are not quite that bad...Fall/winter 2003 was such a time for me...but as always, our heavenly Father came through in a big way!

In March of 2003, my 78-year-old father had been diagnosed with lung cancer. He was not a smoker, so we were a bit surprised. He had surgery to remove the affected lobe, and underwent radiation and chemotherapy. He had seemed to be recovering over the summer, but as fall arrived, Daddy began to struggle with congestive heart failure. He started on a series of in and out hospital visits. At the end of October, he and Mom drove to Houston to see his heart specialist at Methodist. After numerous tests/body scans, they discovered a small tumor on his brain. While disappointing, we had great hope for his treatment, and he made plans to visit the Cancer Center near his home as soon as he was released.

Meanwhile, here in the DFW area, my son had been getting sick on and off since September. Once again, he was down with a head and chest cold, but seemed to be on the mend. In fact, he had just seen his doctor on Monday. His doctor had listened to his chest and heard nothing that concerned him. However, on Tuesday, November 3rd, his condition deteriorated throughout the day. I spoke with nurses several times during the day who said that he was probably fine...just keep an eye on him. That evening, he spiked a temperature of 104.2 and he was having difficulty breathing. I remember the rhythm...breathe, cough, cry, breathe, cough, cry. It was crazy...he had been running around playing the day before and that morning, too! I brought him to the urgent care center. They took him straight to the back and did a chest x-ray. They were going to run some more tests, but after looking at the x-ray, they came and told me that they had called the “Teddy Bear Transport” for him. I had no idea what that was, so they explained that was the name for the ambulance that takes kids to Cook Children’s Hospital. I broke...in shock, I guess, and everything became a series of blurs and painfully clear pictures. I made a tearful call to my husband and watched helplessly as EMT arrived and they placed an I.V. in his little 2-year old arm and taped his arm to a piece of wood to keep it immobilized. Everything seemed so surreal. They placed a pulse-ox monitor on his finger and showed me that his oxygen level was eighty-something...apparently normal is more like 99. I heard through the fog that his entire right lung had appeared on the x-ray as a white cloud. My boy had pneumonia, and he had a pretty bad case of it.

More blurs passed as we were loaded into the ambulance. I know they gave my son a choice of two teddy bears to have in the ambulance...hence the name “Teddy Bear Transport”. I remember that he chose a white polar bear that was very soft and he held it on his chest. I remember thinking how strange it was to be riding in an ambulance...so surreal. We were taken into the emergency room...more blurs...at some point my husband arrived after asking a neighbor to stay with our daughter at home. Finally, sometime after midnight, we were admitted to a room. Still more blurs...but one memory stands out. I remember sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, holding my boy and rocking gently back and forth, trying to soothe him. He was still doing the breathe, cough, cry rhythm. The doctor had been in and explained that his lung was filled with fluid. It could be one large pocket of fluid or many small ones. He had scheduled a procedure for the next morning. They were going to insert a needle through his ribs in his back and try to remove the fluid. If the fluid was in one large pocket, this procedure would relieve the pressure and make it easier for him to breathe. If not, they would have to do surgery and insert a tube into his lungs to drain the fluid. As I sat helplessly on the bed, I saw this doctor outside our door at the nurse’s station. He was looking at my son and talking with the nurses saying, look at him, poor thing, every breath is such a struggle for him. I may have cried then, can’t remember...and although I know I must have been praying all this time, this is the first time I remember praying. It was nothing eloquent...just simply, Father, help him, help my baby breathe.

I prayed through the night and into the next morning. At some point during the night, as I lay in the hospital bed next to my sick son, I released him to God. God finally convinced me that my son belonged to Him before he ever belonged to me. He convinced me that He loves him more than I ever could...that’s hard for a mom to realize about her kids. He convinced me to release my son into His arms, so that He could care for him. He convinced me to trust Him as I had never trusted Him before...trusting Him not for my own life, but for my son’s life. It was a long night with very little sleep...but peace flooded through me by morning.

It’s funny how some parts are so clear and some are so blurred. Very clearly, I remember that the needle procedure was scheduled for 11:30. I remember the procedure also. My husband was there with me, comforting our son as I held him and they inserted that needle into his back. They removed 6 oz of fluid...6 oz from his little 2-year old lungs! It was unbelievable, but God came through in a mighty way. Most of the fluid had been in this one pocket, and the relief for my son was almost immediate. His breathing was much better...no more breathe, cough, cry! It seems we had cleared a major hurdle.

Things began to settle into an abnormal routine...because nothing is really normal when you are staying in a hospital with your child. We had chest x-rays and sonograms almost daily, along with other miscellaneous tests. My two sisters alternated bringing me lunch and keeping me up to date on my father, who was going to be released after that weekend. Then, the bottom fell out of my world. Over the weekend, my father coded. Although he had a DNR (do not resuscitate) order, they did. After further body scans, they discovered that his lungs were “riddled” with cancer. It was putting too much pressure on his heart for him to handle. They didn’t expect him to make it more than a couple more days. My sisters left for Houston, and with them went my prayers...see, I had prayed about what I should do. I had even had a friend offer to come up and stay with my son or watch my daughter so that I could go to Houston to see my dad, but I refused. After praying through the night, I knew that my place was right there, next to my son. It was one of the hardest decisions that I ever made, but God saw me through it and gave me great peace about it.

My new support group became my friends who visited in the hospital, bringing gifts for my son and snacks and bible verses for me. My son was not contagious so we “played” in the playroom with friends who came to visit and with his sister. I say “played” because my son was so sick that he couldn’t play. We wheeled him around in a wagon lined with pillows, dragging his I.V., which was distributing the antibiotics and fluid, along with us. He would watch while everyone else played. Also, the hospital staff was aware of what was going on, and they were wonderful and supportive. My husband visited daily, bringing fresh clothes and my daughter to see my son and me. However, my greatest support and encouragement through this time was my heavenly Father. I was constantly reminded of that Footprints poem, and I knew with all certainty that He was carrying me through this. My friends would say that they couldn’t understand how I was still standing under all the stress, and I would tell them...I wasn’t standing at all, I was being carried through it. As difficult as the situation was, my spiritual life was growing by leaps and bounds, and God was answering prayers daily.

At first, Daddy was in ICU and I couldn’t even call him. I received regular updates from my sisters and my mom. My whole family had gathered to say good-bye. My prayer was that I would at least get to talk with my father again. Daddy was a fighter, and he held on much longer than anyone thought. The doctors were amazed. We all believed that he was holding on to make sure my son was okay! A few days turned into a week and Daddy was moved into hospice...where there was a phone! I got to talk with my Dad one day out in the hall. He sounded weak, but very much like himself. He seemed peaceful and ready. We said our goodbyes...I don’t really remember that much of the conversation, except that it was short, and it meant everything to me just to hear his voice one more time. I went straight to my Bible after that, reading the verses that my friend had given me.

My son continued to improve and we knew he would soon be released. Then, around 5:30 am on November 17th, I got the call from one sister that my father had passed away, and my other sister showed up at the hospital to make sure I was okay. My son was released from the hospital that very same day...twelve days after we had been admitted. Daddy had hung on as long as he could to make sure my son was okay. It was truly a gift from God. Now I would be able to at least attend the funeral in Louisiana, which had been one of my many prayers...one of the many prayers my heavenly Father had so graciously granted me during this time.

God carried me through the funeral, and through an emergency room visit in Louisiana with my son the night before the funeral. In fact, he even put my cousin, a respiratory therapist, in the E.R. that night when I brought my son in. God was all around me, giving me the strength that I didn’t have on my own. I had never in my life felt His presence so very close to me than I did during this time. If He had never been real to me before, He was very real to me now. I saw multiple answered prayers on a daily basis. I saw His angels in the people around me who brought me comfort and hope. I felt His strong arms holding me close, bringing me all the comfort and strength I needed. He never departed from me, and He never “dropped” me. He was faithful, as He always is. He continued to carry me for a long time...in fact it was months before I finally began to see my own footprints once again walking next to His...but that’s yet another story of His faithfulness, for another time...