Healing

Mary Graham has been getting a little better each day, in fact, today was her best day since she has been out of the hospital. And we are beginning to feel a little bit normal again too :) She is still on clyndimiacin for the month, and is taking it like a champ. Every nurse and doctor told us it was horrible to taste, but she sucks it down three times a day like candy...this is really a huge blessing. Her appetite hasn't been great, but it seems to be improving a little, and these antibiotics can really mess up your stomach, so that probably has something to do with it. We pray that her appetite increases, as she needs to be strong and have enough skin to cover the rods on her back.

We spoke with Dr. Campbell and were able to get his insight into the broken ribs and infection. He says her veptr rods are still secure, and he believes her broken ribs will be a slow healing process. Her ribs are thin and delicate and this can happen in children with veptrs, especially since her spine is so rigid. But he is pleased that the device has done as well as it has so far. Also, if the ribs do not heal properly, he said it can be easily moved further down to another rib. As far as the infection goes, we will remain on the antibiotics, hoping and praying that this will knock out this infection. However, it is common that these bacteria love any "hardware" in the body and often can be hard to totally get rid of.

Many things to be thankful for.....MG is feeling better and still having some pain, but that's improving too, she is tolerating medicines, we aren't having to rush up to Philly to have a surgery and Dr. Campbell feels hopeful that she will heal and we can continue on the veptr journey. The veptrs are the best thing for her right now to stabilize her spine and give her room for her lungs to develop. Also, we are thankful for each of you praying for her. Please continue to pray for her healing and pain and her growth and development to progress.

I have been thinking so much lately about healing and I was reminded of a poem a friend sent me years ago when Lucy, our now 5 year old, was a very sick baby. The words are so good. It is so hard to watch MG go through so much, so many surgeries, procedures, illness and pain and I want her to be healed so quickly. But God has continued to remind me that He is not finished. Healing takes time. I become impatient and want things to go my way, but He teaches me so much more in this slow healing time. Not just the immediate healing of her ribs and infection, but to see that the healing is much bigger than that. And really, so much of Mary Graham's life ahead is unknown to us and these "surprise" hospitalizations help me to surrender her over again to Him. And I rest in the fact that he made her "wonderfully" and knows her body well, even when it seems so complicated to us and often even the doctors treating her, so what can we do but trust Him. Like the line below says, "accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete. Above all, trust in the slow work of God."

We remain thankful for today and that God is working in her and in us through this trial.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
     to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
     to something unknown,
         something new.
Yet it is the law of all progress that is made
     by passing through some stages of instability
         and that may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
Let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Do not try to force them on
     as though you could be today what time
         -- that is to say, grace --
     and circumstances
        acting on your own good will
     will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new Spirit
     gradually forming in you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing
     that his hand is leading you,
     and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
         in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God,
     our loving vine-dresser.

Amen.