Henry made it past Christmas, but may be in patient for the start of the new year. Monday we took Henry in for labs, and asked to see a Doctor because for the last few days he was having a really hard time breathing, and pain. We assumed it was his back so we asked to have x-rays done of his back and lungs. The Doc looked at the x-rays and said everything look the same, his heart looked a bit bigger but was probably due to the position he was in. We went home, I went for a run and when I was half a mile from home Dad called and said the Doctor wanted us to come back in for imaging of his heart. The wonderful Doctor didn't feel right about the heart thing so he sent us in for an echo cardiogram. What they found was lots of fluid around his heart. We all have a sack around our heart and every day we produce a certain amount of fluid in that sack and every day it gets reabsorbed. For some reason, still unknown, Henry's wasn't being reabsorbed. So we went into the ICU and had an emergency heart procedure to stick a tube into the sack around his heart to drain the fluid.
This morning at 2am they removed the tube, and he's doing better, we'll do another echo this afternoon to make sure the fluid isn't increasing again. Not all of the fluid was drained but they feel that the fluid left will be taken care of when they figure out why it happened and treat it. One possibility is infection, though they feel that's probably unlikely because he has no other symptoms of infection. Second possibility is a common side effect of too many transfusions. The third possibility is LCH in the heart. Scary I know.
Sunday we went to church and heard a wonderful talk about Christ and the many roles we see him in and what they each teach us. She read from Luke 24, when Christ walked with two apostles on the road to Emmaus. Their eyes were unable to recognize him, and they explained to this stranger about Christ and "we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel" and Christ says to them "O fools and slow of heart to believe." These verses really hit me, and then the woman giving the talk said, we are so quick to curse the darkness, to curse the trials, the unknown and yet Christ is always there walking with us. I was blessed with a great chastisement and my eyes were opened to my lack of faith in Christ. I was then blessed with a peace and a greater testimony that the Lord has a plan for each of us, and if we will trust in him and seek His will, we will be blessed. And so when all this happened on Monday I was at peace, not cursing the darkness, not cursing the unknown. I was more able to accept what was happening and focus on Henry and what he needed and to celebrate the miracle of the atonement and the knowledge of the fullness of the gospel, eternal families and the power of the priesthood.
Henry has already endured so much and he has been blessed with great strength. We are still waiting to find out what all this means and we'll keep you all in formed but I'm trying not to loose hope or faith in the promises we receive from the Lord.
You're amazing Lisa. Thanks for the update. I hope Henry gets feeling better and they figure out what went wrong. I know you guys have been blessed tons, but you are also blessing others! Thanks for the uplifting thoughts. We'll keep Henry in our prayers.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it interesting that we get what we need (like a talk we feel tells us what we need to hear) when we need it. If we only keep our hearts open to the spirit, you sure do that, and what a great example to me to do the same. Thanks for the lesson. Still keeping you in our prayers, love ya TCB
ReplyDeleteLisa, I love you!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for always adding your testimony. I know it helps strengthen your faith but you strengthen so many others as well. miss you.