What a Beautiful Day!

July 24, 2008

This is the song that Wade and I walked down the isle to! That was a good day and so is today.
Wade struggled through the night as he dealt with reactions to mediations, fever and inattentive nurses. Thanks to Steve, Natalie and Alex I was able to be by his side and remain focused on his recovery and know that Hunter was being taken care of.
My parents arrived at 3am this morning! They are helping with Hunter and the house so that I can be at the hospital as much as possible. They are a blessing to us.
Dr. Mast came to visit around 8:30am. He outlined the entire surgery and explained what complications arose and how they were handled. He had to unattach Wades small intestine from his large intestine, remove the appendix and then reattach the small intestine in a different location. These complication caused Dr. Mast to open a rather large section of his right side (8" opening) in addition to the three small openings for the scopes. He was impressed at how well Wade had recovered so far from such a challenging surgery. He ordered that the catheter be removed and that Wade begin to move around a bit. Wade is still taking a great deal of pain medications, and is in a great deal of pain. Hopefully soon the pain will subside and we can begin getting away from pain medications that freeze up the bowel. Ultimately we are after a working gut. Burping and Farting are celebrated occurrences!! He still has not eaten anything but ice chips...we are expecting to get some food into him in the next day or so. Dr. Mast still expects us to be here at the hospital for another 4 days or so.

Please continue to pray for Wade's recovery. Pray for attentive and intelligent nurses who are opening their ears and eyes to Wade's needs. Pray for his intestines to begin moving and working. Pray for his pain to subside.
In the midst of all of this chaos our house is being painted. I had serious nightmares about choosing a paint color because we would be stuck with it for 20 years. We drove around looking at houses for ideas, got bids and made a color choice. "Muddy Creek" was the color we went with. On my way into the hospital this morning I was thinking about our color choice and how much I love it. The color really does look like a muddy creek where the dirt has been stirred up in the water. I began thinking about how perfect that color is for this time in our lives. The past year we have been 'stirred up' with all the flurry of activity around us. Life has been challenging, demanding and very painful at moments....but I love it. With great privilege comes great expectation and with heavy pain comes supernatural strength. I do not want our lives to be crystal clear and perfect, in fact I do not mind muddy. We are stronger, braver, smarter and more in love with life because of the "dirt".
Thanks for listening. Thanks for praying. Thanks for loving us.