Sleeping in hospitals is not comfortable, everyone knows that and spending more then a few nights is pretty miserable. I bring blankets, essential oil diffusers, pillows, all the comforts of home but lets be honest. On top of everything, you need to be able to make decisions, talk to doctors and nurses, ask questions, and be smart, all on just a few hours of sleep. It doesn’t help that hospital time is seriously its own time zone, everything starts really early and ends really late. Every day the doctors do there rounds and its always 6am early not 8am early. Every night I remind the nurses to make sure I am awake for rounds the next morning and they always do. They come in and give me a little nudge and I jump up (no pushing snooze), throw my hair in a ponytail, grab my phone for notes and listen. “This is our 4 year old Eliza Darby, admitted Monday morning in respiratory distress, history of…..” and on and on. After they go over everything I get my turn to ask questions and I ALWAYS think to myself… I really should have been a doctor  (I wonder if other parents of sick kiddos think the same thing).

So on this particular day we were discussing the days events. We would be having  blood work , x-rays and a swallow test. This is a test that they wanted to do to determine if Eliza was aspirating when she eats or drinks. Aspirating is when liquid or food goes into the respiratory tract and it is more likely to happen when you have low muscle tone AND would explain the recurrent pneumonia. If she was in fact aspirating it would be our answer and it is a fixable problem. They had already ruled out sleep apnea with a sleep study a few weeks before so we were starting to run out of “it could be’s.” As I was talking with the doctor I was asking 100 questions and my main question was if its not this then what is it? Why are we struggling to keep her out of the hospital?  The doctor very simply said “it could just be her brain.” Wait what? It could just be her brain? We can’t fix her brain?  That would be bad right? So we want her to be aspirating because THAT we can fix right? Yes… I said all of those things. In that order. Probably as fast as you just read it. I was starting to freak a little, remember its super early and I am trying to wrap my mind around this really big important thing that she is saying. I was really wishing Aaron was with me because he can always find the bright side in these situations (even if the bright side is really just gray). But he wasn’t so I took a deep breath and asked the doctor what I should pray for.  No I don’t know the doctor, I don’t even know if she prays but I asked… not really expecting an answer. She said if you want something we can fix then pray for what we can fix.  OK,  I will pray the swallow test comes back that she is, in fact aspirating. Since I am being completely honest, as I was just typing that sentence it sounded really dumb…but I was sleep deprived and hind sight really is 20/20.

So I had my plan, I called my family, texted my friends, our church was having a staff meeting that morning so they were standing by to pray and I let them know what I wanted them to specifically pray.

and then it was test time…

I was so nervous because I had no idea what Eliza would do in this test, if she would even comply. Since she is developmentally delayed we can’t really explain things like that to her because she doesn’t understand. She understands basic things like lets brush your teeth or lets go to bed but explaining a procedure, no way. So I prepped everyone for what could go down, charged the iPad, had her favorite books and we were ready!  Everyone was amazing especially Eliza and the test went off without a hitch. The results were immediate, Eliza swallows PERFECTLY, she is NOT aspirating and to my surprise I felt a huge wave of relief.

Looking back now aspirating would have been terrible. We would have to add thickening agents to her drinks, she wouldn’t be able to swim anymore because she always swallows water, and swimming is her favorite thing to do. I would be a nervous wreck anytime she ate or drank anything.

Pray for what WE can fix keeps running through my head. I said it 100 times that day. Now I am asking myself who is we? The doctors, Aaron, me? Why would I limit God like that? Isn’t he The Great Physician who can fix anything? He preformed miracle after miracle in the bible, why shouldn’t I expect the same for Eliza. It was a real moment for me when I saw in such a clear way that I am not in charge of this. That the entire day leading up to that test I was pretty intent on what I wanted for Eliza and what I thought was best. But I quickly received the biggest blessing when the test results came back.

These are the little gems that I have been discovering. They may be things I’ve known my whole life but suddenly they are brand new.

I was looking for a verse that would be relevant to this post but then decided to post a verse from a song that my sweet friend sent me this morning. We are still believing in our miracle and until then we just Move, keep walkin’… it ain’t over yet.

    “I know your heart been broke again
I know your prayers ain’t been answered yet
I know you’re feeling like you got nothing left
Well, lift your head, it ain’t over yet, so

    Move, keep walkin’ soldier keep movin’ on”   {tobyMac}