To say we were carried through the week by angels on high and cradled under the wings of the almighty is an understatement. It was Super Bowl Sunday and my five year old daughter was to be checked into the children’s hospital north of Atlanta at 6 AM the following morning for surgery. She had suffered with progressive renal reflux since birth and the damage to her kidneys had worsened. Her latest check up revealed she was not thriving as other five year olds thrive. Her weight and height had not moved in almost a year. I could see it in the dark circles under her eyes and in the pasty white color of her otherwise olive skin-tone. We had spent many weeks in the hospital on IV antibiotics fighting urinary tract infections caused by her increasing inability to void. She now she needed intervention.
That same night during the football game my nine-month old son had to be rushed to the hospital on the opposite side of town of where we needed to be in just a few short hours. He had become dangerously dehydrated from a violent stomach virus. It was a virus his pediatrician had told us could last for up to 10 days and to “wait it out.” The problem with waiting it out was that my son also suffered from Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease. His case was advanced. In other words… he was not your typical baby spitting up from an overfull belly. Though he had not yet failed to thrive like his sister, he was not well either and his status was about to change.
The night was harsh but by four o’clock in the morning our baby was stable again and we knew the time had come to split up. As two parents with two children suffering from two disease processes wreaking havoc on their little bodies, we had no choice. We needed to be in two places at one time. Even though it appeared as if we were losing our battles we were not, we were fighting them. Though we were temporarily without the comfort of the other’s hand to hold or shoulder to rest upon we were not alone. God provided help during our time of need.
For seven days friends and family also split up to comfort and care for us. During our most unpredictable and worrisome hours they prayed with us. They cleaned our house, washed our laundry, cooked our meals and held our hands. By the end of the week we had been relieved of the burdens we had been shouldering for years. The people in our lives loved us through the darkest moments until we reached the light of day.
The first week home we noticed was our son was holding his food down, something we had never before experienced. During our second week home we noticed our daughter’s temperature charts had maintained readings between 98.4 and 98.6. That’s a normal we had not experienced consistently during the past year when I learned to drink coffee by the pot instead of the cup.
A few weeks later my son’s gastroenterologist held in his hands the test results before the virus along with the ones after the virus. He was weighing them in the balances. “It’s a medical impossibility that an intestinal virus could correct such a complex condition,” he said before adding, “But it did.”
Then a year later my daughter’s urologist did something similar when in his hands he waved the results of her most recent renal scans. He said, “though we can correct renal reflux disease through reconstructive surgery we cannot reverse the damage it causes to the kidneys beforehand; however, according to these results there is no trace of the previous damage.”
Unlike their pediatric specialists my husband and I were not scratching our heads; we were lifting our arms and praising our God for the healing He had brought to our family: two children healed from two disease processes while in two hospitals located miles apart.
In the period of one week’s time two battles were fought and two were won and two children were healed and two parents relieved. And for this reason, “I will praise You, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will tell of all Your marvelous works. I will be glad and rejoice in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High.” Psalm 9:1-2 (NKJV)
