Update on Mandie (Pt. 2)
January 24, 2011
Through all the events that have taken place over the last 6 months, I have journaled often and tried as best I can to write down the events, emotions, and ways God has shown Himself faithful. I’ve done this for a couple reasons: first, it’s cathartic for me. God has used these journals to help heal my soul, but secondly, to document the story and faithfulness of God, b/c this storm has been great and terrifying, but our God has continually been greater! I have been and continue to be encouraged by others to openly and broadly share a more full explanation of the storm that our gracious God has brought us through. I wrote the majority of the following update Wednesday, July 28th, the day following Mandie’s second brain surgery, and it only covers the events leading up to her second surgery through being discharged from NICU. My hope is that in the days to come to write a couple more updates that share the aftermath of this storm, and many of the challenges, fears and ways that our great God has provided and encouraged us as we watch Him heal our hearts and souls.
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July 28, 2010
I’m sitting in 3T, watching my wife rest in bed, on what we pray is the remnants of a terrible, terrible storm. So let me update everyone on the latest news regarding Mandie, what the future “may” hold and a couple of things God continues to teach us. The last update was Saturday, July 24, and the plan was that we would be discharged Monday and do 30 days of steroids in hopes that the graft would play nicely with Mandie’s body. I left Saturday afternoon to go home and spend the night with the kids and try to add a little “normalcy” to their lives. The plan was that my mom would stay with her Saturday night, and I would take the kids and go to church on Sunday, then head back to the hospital. Sunday, the kids and I went church, ate lunch with friends and headed up to the hospital. Sunday afternoon I walked into her room and immediately could tell things were not well, her eyes were screaming “I’m scared” and “I’m hurting and tired.” They had begun cutting her steroids earlier in hopes that she could go home on a lower dose of medication. When I saw her, we started paging the nurse and asked her to page the doctor to see if we could increase her dosage of Decadron. He doubled her dosage, and she was back on Delaudid and Norco; as well as the Decadron. While I was at church, the on call Neurosurgeon had come by and Mandie shared that she did not want to feel like this for 4 weeks, and that if this was the way that she was going to feel we wanted Dr. Michael to consider going ahead with the surgery. Two craniotomies in six weeks...it seems surreal typing that. With the increase in medication we were able to get her pain under control, and now it was a waiting game, again. Waiting to visit with Dr. Michael to see if he would be willing to forego the steroid regiment and simply proceed with going back in and removing the graft and replacing it with a graft of her own tissue.
Waiting, or patience, is something that we have gotten really good at recently. God is teaching us a lot about waiting. Gracie, my 7 year old called me on Sunday night and said, “Daddy, I know why God sent the brain tumor!” “Why’s that, sweetheart?” I replied, and she said “To teach us patience.” Indeed, patience is one of the many things we are taking out of this, and I don’t mean patience in the sense of driving in traffic, though I could definetly use some of that, but I mean a deeper, much more foundational type of waiting. When you wait, I have learned that there is a point where you have to abandon your will to someone else’s schedule and agenda. When we were laying in the ER, when we were waiting for nurses to respond to calls, when we were waiting for pain meds to bring much needed relief, we were waiting, we were abandoning our self to someone. That is easily one of the scariest feelings in the world, because you have to trust that they will take care of you and not abuse that trust.
On Monday, July 26th, we waited, and waited, and waited for this big meeting with our neurosurgeon. Why is it that the big meetings always are last on the agenda? Waiting for doctors in the hospital is much like waiting for Santa, you sure hope he is coming, but you’re just not real sure when he will arrive. At 6:00pm, Dr. Michael came in, we met for about 20 minutes and decided Mandie would need 1 more MRI, just to rule out any other tumors that might be causing this, and that if that scan came back clear, then we would schedule surgery for Tuesday afternoon. Over the course of the last 6 weeks, Mandie has had 4 MRIs, 8 CT scans and would soon have her second brain surgery. We were back to waiting, waiting for the MRI to be scheduled, waiting for it to be read, waiting for the final call on the looming surgery. As we began to process the fact that Mandie was headed back into such a difficult surgery, I began to realize and pray that God would let us “wait well.” What I mean by that is that if waiting is abandoning yourself to someone’s agenda or schedule, then God would you allow us to abandon ourself, our schedules, our agendas to You, trust You enough to allow You to heal Mandie when You would see fit, not me. Would I trust Him enough, and believe that He loved my precious bride so much more than I ever could, and because of that love I could take my hands off this situation, wait on Him, believe He has not forgotten us or her pain and misery.
In a tremendous act of grace, they were actually able to get the MRI done Monday night and we were moving toward surgery. The chaos of the events that laid ahead was at times overwhelming. That night I remember visiting with our night nurse, as they wheeled Mandie out for the MRI, as we were trying to get our arms around all that we were in for the next day. She checked Dr. Michael’s surgery schedule and was able to tell me the surgery was going to be most likely around noon and that the surgery was going to take approximately 5-6 hours. I will never forget the slow motion, swirling emotions of her telling me it was going to take “5-6 hours,” I felt like I had just been in a car accident. That was longer than last time, how could that be, and the gravity of her surgery sat on my chest like an elephant. I said “really, that long,” and she said “yes, he has her down for a crainiotomy....” ending the procedure with a string of medical terms that I actually at this point understood. Oh, the many things I have learned on this journey that I wish I did not know. I wish I didn’t know what it looked like to kiss your wife goodbye as they take her to surgery and to say “see you in 5 hours,” knowing you may really never see her again, to walk out of your wife’s hospital room surrounded by other patients, all with DNR (do not resusitate) stickers on their doors, to be the youngest on the neuro floor by more than 20 years. I remember just wanting to crumble and sit and cry.
Mandie was in the MRI, I was reeling from the stress and weight of the road that laid ahead of us and as was customary, I put my headphones on and went for a walk. That night there was a song that came to mind that we sing at church, “Like a Lion,” that I have loved, but there was one line in the song that night that stuck out to me, that became my prayer and would carry me through the next 24 hours.
“Let Heaven roar, and fire fall, come shake the ground with the sound of revival.”
The image that God brought to my mind was that of a Lion standing a top a cliff roaring over everyone, everything else below. As the image came to my mind and I began to unpack it, I began to realize that was exactly what I was wanting. God would you come and roar, would you make Yourself known in this situation in such a way that would make everything and everyone else stop and pay attention; God would you roar and take control of a situation that seemed out of control and chaotic; would you roar, would you get involved in a tangible way and be the help we needed, would you come to our aid, would you roar! Would You be big, tough, protective, powerful and loud, because we could not, the truth is we never were.
While I was out I received a text from our Elders saying they were on their way, God was roaring...God was calming his child, exerting His authority and bringing help. That night three men I love dearly sat and waited with me while my precious bride laid in an MRI line, waiting. Two hours later she rolled back into our room, our Elders and I laid hands on Mandie and began to pray. Praying that God would continue to sustain us, that He would guide the doctors and nurses, that He would rescue, deliver and save that which is so precious to me, that Heaven would roar! I clung to that song, as I laid in bed that night trying to go to sleep and remembering what it was like the “last time,” the last time my bride had brain surgery, to try to sleep knowing they were wheeling her into surgery that next morning.
We have always believed this was an incredible storm that God was allowing us to walk and that as with all storms, with all seasons, they come to an end. I woke up that next morning with that on my mind and began to pray over Mandie, that this surgery will mark the end of a season of tremendous suffering and begin a season of healing, physically and emotionally. About 10:00am, we got the call they were coming to take us to pre-op. Nothing prepares you for the moment, “they’re coming.” Time slows down, floods of emotions overwhelm, words grow sparse and clarity becomes very, very real. At that moment, I clung to two things: the cross and my bride. Her family and I prayed over her one last time, trusting her into Christ’s arms and letting her go. We rolled into Pre-Op, both of us nervous, exhausted from the journey and ready for this storm to pass, and Mandie looks at me and says, “Okay, no more sadness.” Only my wife, only her faith, only her strength, only the depth of character, faith and strength does my wife look at me, facing her second craniotomy in 6 weeks, and say “no more sadness.” I laughed and said “okay,” and so we laughed, we told stupid jokes, recalled funny memories, took silly pictures with her in a blue surgical cap and laughed so hard we thought we were going to get in trouble! Finally, nearly an hour in Pre-Op, the Neuro OR nurse came for us, I kissed my bride’s head and said “I’ll see you in 5 hours,” and for the second time her bed turned left into the Neuro OR, and I turned right to head back to 3T.
She and I were actually in great spirits, I remember thinking, “Man, I feel pretty okay.” I truly believe this was nothing more than the gift of faith that Christ gave in response to all of those praying. I actually left with my dad and Pace, a friend who has been a constant through this storm to go get some coffee, take a walk and stay occupied. While we were walking back, I got a text from a friend in Austin who suddenly “had a meeting in Dallas,” and was going to stop by; and, another text from one of my oldest friends who was heading down from Norman, both rearranging their day simply to be present in the midst of this storm...a visual reminder of the spiritual reality, that we never stand alone in the midst of these storms. When we returned from coffee, there was a waiting room full of people for Mandie...waiting, praying, laughing. Heaven was roaring!
We sat for 4 hours around a table in an opening at the end of the hall of 3T, laughing, telling stories, staying busy. We actually got in trouble for having “too much fun,” a couple of times. It wasn’t that we were out joy riding while Mandie was in surgery, but the realization, confidence and great hope that we had, believing that my precious bride was in Christ’s arms, and His arms are so much more secure than mine. Make no mistake, I wasn’t all put together and fine; it got to be about 4:30, and they hadn’t called to update me, she was supposed to be out by now, and I began to get antsy. I got up with the intent to go pack up our room so i would be ready for the move into ICU, and as I walked into the room, I was overwhelmed by fear and anxiety. I called the Surgical Coordinator for an update and to see what was happening and how she was doing, but she never called back. My anxiety began to grow, “It’s already past time,” “What’s going on?” “Why did they not call me back?” “Is she okay?” “What if something has happened?” “What if she didn’t make it?” I began to be overwhelmed by this thought of what if she didn’t make it, how does this go down, is this why they aren’t calling me back. Right as I began to get panicky, Christie, Dr. Michael’s P.A. walked in and said “She did great!” I just instinctually hugged her and began to laugh, “That is great!” She told me that Mandie was in ICU, and that I could go see her.
I walked down 3T and into the ICU wing and into her room to see my precious bride, alive. She was alive and awake, but this surgery was harder on her. The first surgery, the battle to recover, the swelling of her brain, the “infection” her body was fighting had all taken it’s toll on her. When our eyes met, she looked exhausted and in pain, her face noticably swollen, her body bruised from weeks of IVs, central line running out of her neck, but my wife, my bride was alive. The first hour of her recovery was very tough, tremendous pain and waiting for her body to respond to the pain killers. It took the better part of 2 hours for her pain to come under control. Still in pain, but not uncontrollable, overwhelming pain. About 6:30, the nurses asked me to leave for shift change, which meant I had to find something else to do for the next hour and a half. About that time Vanhorn and Cochell walked in, God’s timing was perfect, and Heaven was continuing to roar. Two of the easiest people for me to be around just walked in. We went and grabbed dinner, laughed, caught up and talked of God’s grace on us all. I don’t think I can understate the power of someone’s presence in the midst of such a storm.
From our Elders, to Pace, to Vanhorn & Cochell, to Stephanie, the college girl who put her life on hold to help take care of our kids and even threw our 7 year old a birthday party b/c we couldn’t, to all those who came by the hospital b/c they cared, I have never been so overwhelmed by the presence of God’s people. I have never so fully understood why we are not to do this life alone. God was again very large, very great in the midst of this storm, reminding me we are not alone. This is easily the BIGGEST lesson I have learned through all of this, God is always present, always making Himself known, always “roaring.” There have been many dark, quiet, scary times over the last several weeks, but I have never been so convinced and overwhelmed by the deep love and grace of our good God. I prayed for Heaven to roar, for God to be present, and in an undeserved act of grace, He did. He did through so many of you!
Gang, our prayer is not that you would look at all that we have been through and think “man they have been through so much, that’s really incredible,” but instead to look at us, know how weak and feeble we really are and see a great God who has sustained us, been so large, and so great in the midst of such a great storm. The great God who sustained us through this storm, is the same great God who longs to be present and gracious to you.
