As I shared last week in Walking Zombies, those first days and weeks when we finally brought our twin boys home from the hospital were tough. We had no idea what we were doing and we were learning on the fly and we were TIRED – SO TIRED. We were just starting to settle into a little routine with the help of family and friends. We were “managing.”
Then my mom left to be with her mom who required heart surgery. I was taking it one day at a time but already missed my mom’s daily visit where she’d just show up and help with anything that was needed.
And then it was Wednesday. And Daniel spiked a fever…
From my journal:
“I was surviving the week without my mom…That night I went up to sleep for a couple hours after dinner and Derek took the 8pm feeding. About midnight he came upstairs to get me to help with the boys’ next feeding and to pump. Daniel was in his swing sleeping, but whimpering. When I went to pick him up he was burning up to the touch. I took his temp and it registered 103 degrees. Derek and I both panicked and I called the doctor’s answering service. When the on call doctor called, he said to take him immediately to the ER.”
When we arrived at the hospital they began a battery of tests because of his age (7 weeks). They took lots of blood and did a spinal tap. It was AWFUL. At 3am he was admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Derek and I slept for about an hour in the single bed in the room. When we awoke we learned our boy had a bacterial infection in his blood. Fortunately, it had not crossed over into his spinal fluid. They had started him on antibiotics.
We were scared and emotional but grateful for the great facility and the hospital doctors who were there to care for our baby 24/7. We were worried about David at home. The doctors couldn’t explain how Daniel got this but they didn’t believe that David would also get it.
Until he did. For a week Derek and I had been going back and forth to be with our boys between the hospital and home. (Oh yah, Derek had just started a new job. I can’t even begin to recall how that was going). We were both at the house one evening. We had fed David and I was getting ready to go back to spend the night at the hospital. Then I noticed David felt warm. Derek thought I was being paranoid. I wish I was, but I wasn’t. It was real.
Without hesitation we loaded him into the car and took him to the ER. I had one baby upstairs in the PICU and another in the ER. To say I was fragile was an understatement. The hospital pediatrician caring for Daniel came down. He agreed to start with the blood work since the spinal tap was so awful. Quick results showed David had the same infection. They started him on antibiotics and then the spinal tap was inevitable.
They transferred him upstairs to be in the same room in the PICU with Daniel. The four of us were now back together again – in intensive care with two very sick babies. We were a wreck. I felt like I had been teetering on the edge with one boy in the hospital. I was pretty certain I’d fall off now that both were there. Then the doctor showed up in our room. Sadly, the spinal tap revealed David did have bacteria in his spinal fluid. My now 8-week old preemie had bacterial spinal meningitis. The doctor explained that both the disease and the treatment could cause my son to lose his hearing. I remember asking him if that was the worst that could happen. He told me very solemnly, “No, he could die.”
Those following days and weeks were a blur. What I do remember vividly was a room full of family and friends and our pastor there leading us all in prayer. I kept reflecting back on the promise of God that he would take us from barrenness to birthing (The Time of Singing Has Come) and He had done that. I recall pleading with God “You brought us from barrenness to birthing as you promised, but you did not bring these boys into this world for them to die at two months old. That CANNOT be the plan.”
Our church family was giving us strength. People were signing up on a calendar in the church lobby so that every single day someone was fasting and praying on our behalf. We felt those prayers. They were answered.
Daniel was discharged after about 10 days. David was in for a couple more weeks. Before he could be discharged they had to do a hearing test on him. We had specifically prayed that his hearing would be perfect and not negatively affected by the medication or the meningitis. In fact, test results revealed his hearing to be PERFECT. Not only that, to this day my boy has supernatural hearing. In fact, he has always been sensitive to noises in ways that never affected his brothers.
David was finally discharged and we brought him home. We were thrilled to be together again, AT HOME. It was only for a few hours. Later that night we had to take David to my parents for the night because the next morning Daniel had to have surgery to repair an inguinal hernia. I kid you not.
From my journal following Daniel’s surgery:
“A number of nurses commented on how calm Derek and I were and that we were the most relaxed parents they’d ever seen with kids in surgery. After all that we had been through with the delivery (Getting Real with God: His Perspective) and what we had been through for 3 weeks in the PICU, we weren’t so freaked out about medical ‘stuff’ and we knew Daniel really needed the surgery because he was in a lot of discomfort… We also knew that God was caring for him and that we had all fought too hard for anything to happen to him. No reason to be stressed out when you trust in the Lord.”
As I reflect on this season, I’m exhausted just retelling it. Before kids, the words “the joy of the Lord will be your strength,” were prophesied over us. There is no other way to explain living through such a raw emotional time and coming through it in relative peace. I’m so grateful for our friends and family, including our church family, who also helped carry us through that season and who have continued to do so in the thirteen years since. Our prayer muscles were built up in that season. God knew we would need them as we raised our boys.
Recent Comments