The Long Wait Starts

Everything went well yesterday. Tina arrived in her room at about 2:00 pretty groggy from the anesthesia. She also had a head ache - go figure. Pretty soon after she arrived they connected the 10 electrodes that are implanted in her brain to the computer and started recording her brain activity. As she became more awake her head started hurting more and they gave her a small dose of Morphine for the pain. She also was getting pretty hungry since she hadn't eaten anything in 24 hours so she ordered a light dinner which she "egressed" shortly after. Poor girl.

About 9:00 they realized that she hadn't gotten her CT scan so they had to disconnect her electrodes and take her back down for her scan. The results came back that all he electrodes were exactly where they needed to be. (Good job Dr. Miller.) They plugged her back in, we watched a couple episodes of Myth Busters and decided that Tina had better get some sleep. In the end she didn't sleep very good, as anyone who has ever been through surgery knows the nurses come in every 15 minutes to check something or ask some question, and when the nurse isn't there some machine starts beeping, a BP cuff starts pumping up, or those stupid leg things turn on.

This morning she was able to keep a breakfast of Cream of Wheat down which is good and I was able to talk the nurse into disconnecting her catheter, BP cuff, O2 wire, and her "leg warmers". With any luck I'll get them to let her put her regular PJs on after she wakes up from her nap.

Now we sit and wait for her brain to have some kind of seizure activity that they can capture which will tell them where they need to operate. It may sound strange that we want her to have seizures but that is what will help the doctors make an accurate decision about the next step. The ideal situation would be that she have a series of simple partial (not grand mal) seizures that clearly show what part of her brain is causing the seizures. What we don't want are grand mal seizures. Unfortunately, Tina's track record is that off her meds her simple partial seizures eventually escalate into grand mal's. The other unfortunate thing is that Tina also tends to not be able to produce seizures on demand. It isn't as simple as going off her meds and bingo seizures. So please pray that God would provide all that is needed in this area as well.

Pray for Tina during this time in the EMU. She can become discouraged just laying in bed, especially when she doesn't have any seizure activity. She gets board and feels like when nothing is happening that she's wasting her time here. Seven days is a long time to be plugged into the wall with a short cord.

We are so grateful for all those who have offered prayers for us, and we have heard from so many of you who are following this blog to keep up to date with what is going on with Tina here in Cleveland, but it is our greatest desire that our time here would not be primarily about Tina and Matt, but that God's glory would be displayed through us. Here comes the sermon:

Paul tells us in Colossians 1 that all things were created by Christ and all things were created for Christ - that includes us. Paul goes on to say that God's purpose in all this is to reconcile to himself all things by making peace through his blood. We hold firm to the fact that we were created by Christ so that we would bring him glory and so that we could enjoy him forever. We also hold firm to the fact that this was made possible only through what Christ did for us on the cross and not through anything we could do to make ourselves acceptable to him. Paul says that God reconciled us to himself not that we reconciled ourselves to God.

So whether we find ourselves stuck in the EMU for 7 days or faced with brain surgery and all the uncertainty that comes with that, we do so with an attitude of gratitude. Jesus made me, for himself and he bought me with his own blood so that I could be with him forever - how could I be anything but grateful.

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!

"Who has known the mind of the Lord?

Or who has been his counselor?"

"Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?"

For from him and through him and to him are all things.

To him be the glory forever! Amen.

- Romans 11:33-36