SOMETIMES HE CALMS THE STORM

SOMETIMES HE CALMS THE STORM
By~ Scott Krippayne

All who sail the sea of faith
Find out before too long
How quickly blue skies can grow dark
And gentle winds grow strong

Suddenly fear is like white water
Pounding on the soul
Still we sail on knowing
That our Lord is in control

Sometimes He calms the storm
With a whispered peace be still
He can settle any sea
But it doesn't mean He will

Sometimes He holds us close
And lets the wind and waves go wild
Sometimes He calms the storm
And other times He calms His child

He has a reason for each trial
That we pass through in life
And though we're shaken
We cannot be pulled apart from Christ

No matter how the driving rain beats down
On those who hold to faith
A heart of trust will always
Be a quiet peaceful place

This week has again been VERY long and difficult. I had to make another trip to the ER Wednesday night due to excruciating back and abdominal pain, accompanied by nausea, vomiting and fever. This time the visit was very pleasant, as far as hospital visits are concerned, but all they could really determine was that whatever was going on was not 'life-threatening'. All the testing they did came back normal. This was a bit of a relief because the last 5 or 6 times I've been, it has been life-threatening and I've ended up staying a week to 10 days due to sepsis. It was also a bit frustrating because we still don't know what is going on.

At this point, I have appointments to see a couple different specialists for further evaluation and testing in hopes they can identify the problem. For now, I feel a tad bit better, thanks to a couple more medications the ER doc gave me to help with the pain. *sigh* I am so very tired of just throwing meds at things to cover them up. It would be nice to know WHAT is going on, WHY I am hurting, and QUIT masking it all! I feel like they are doing their best, but it is still frustrating!

Thanks so much for stopping by and for listening. I love this song. I KNOW I am in the midst of a great big storm, but I can see that the Lord has chosen to hold on tight to me and let 'the wind and the waves go wild'. He is also trying to calm me, I just have to let go and let Him.

For more inspiring and uplifting music, please visit
Amy at SIGNS, MIRACLES AND WONDERS!

ANOTHER URGENT PRAYER REQUEST ~ My Mom ~

Source

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.
~ Isaiah 43:2 ~

Hi Dear Friends ~

I would like to ask for your prayers for my mom again. She was just rushed by ambulance to the hospital. She has a very high fever and is having severe abdominal pain that started earlier today. As some of you may remember, she had a very similar episode back in February that was initially thought to be Pancreatitis, but she was eventually told they believed it to be Diverticulitis. However, they never actually pinpointed what was going on. She seemed to recover nicely and hasn't had any problems since.

My mom suffers from a whole host of medical issues that are quite serious. The two most pressing issues at this time are Type II Diabetes and a severe heart condition. Her Diabetes is not currently under control, even though she and her doctor have been working aggressively to get it there. Her heart condition is NOT from heart disease but from a very abnormal heart rhythm, Atrial Fibrillation, that has led to her having chronic Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) and a very enlarged heart that no longer functions very well on its own. Therefore, a few years ago, she had to have a Pacemaker/Defibrillator implanted in her chest. The Pacemaker is to ensure that her heart pumps at a steady rhythm at all times to ensure that enough blood is pumped to the rest of her body. The Defibrillator is there in the event that her heart goes into an abnormal, life-threatening rhythm and does not correct itself quickly. If this should happen, the Defibrillator would then deliver a jolt of electricity to hopefully help the heart return to a normal rhythm. Praise the Lord, that has never happened and I pray it never does.

I would really appreciate your prayers for my mom. She is always taking care of others, no matter how sick she is or how rotten she may feel. I really hope this is nothing major. Please help her feel our prayers tonight.

Thanks so much and have a blessed Sunday.

{{HUGS}}

Teresa

URGENT PRAYER REQUEST

Although she is still on IV antibiotics, Teresa has developed a fever again. We are going to administer the last dose of antibiotic tonight, along with Ibuprofen/Tylenol, and then call the Infectious Disease docs in the morning to see what they want us to do. We will keep you updated. Thanks so much!

By the way, don't miss Teresa's post from earlier today - IN SICKNESS and IN HEALTH. Thanks again.

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ENDURING SEPSIS with Dysautonomia Part 2 of 2

(NOTE: To fully understand this post, you'll need to read 'ENDURING SEPSIS with Dysautonomia - Part 1 of 2' . You can find it HERE.)

I don't remember much of the next few days, just every few hours when the meds would start to wear off I would wake and feel really, really bad. It was very unpleasant. It took a little while of working with the different doctors to get the right cocktail of meds, the proper dosages and exact times to be administered but they finally got it all figured out. But I'm telling you, if you don't have someone with you at the hospital 24/7, you can really get into big trouble. I can't tell you how many times my husband and my mom had to go to bat for me to get things straightened out and how many times I hit the nurse call button and no one ever came to assist me! It is pretty scary stuff! I hope and pray that I'm never in the position where I'm there all alone with no one to advocate for me.

It was finally determined that I had a staph infection and the Internal Medicine Specialist (IMS) assigned to me by the hospital was insisting my port would have to be removed. However, as you know, we have already been down this road several times before and we knew that staph did not always equal removing port. The IMS doc was not listening to my family or me AT ALL as we attempted to explain my ongoing illness OR my previous experience with this same type of infection, so we finally insisted on seeing the surgeon who implanted my port before making any rash decisions. And I am SO very thankful we did!

After speaking with my surgeon, we determined together that we would hold off on making a decision about the port for a few days. He said there was really no big hurry, plus he wanted an Infectious Disease Specialist to come in as a consult to see if they could determine exactly what kind of staph it was and what we needed to do to treat it.

Thankfully, after the Infectious Disease doc took the time to look at my history, my labs and the actual slides of the bacteria, she determined that antibiotics should be enough to get rid of the bacteria completely without having to remove the port! She said that we would have to change the particular IV antibiotic I was currently on and that I would have to stay on it for an additional 14-21 days. However, she said I would be able to go home and finish it. Hallelujah! I could have reached up and kissed that woman, I was so happy! I just had absolutely no energy to do so. *sigh*

After a 9 day hospital stay, I have been home almost a week. I am still extremely weak and still feel really yucky. I am receiving the IV antibiotics twice a day and it takes about 90 minutes for each dose. I have to have blood drawn every couple of days to make sure I'm getting enough but not too much. As long as everything goes as planned, I should be finished in about a week. I just hope and pray that ALL of the infection is gone at that time.

Thanks to everyone for your kind words of encouragement and your faithful prayers. They all mean so much to my family and me! We humbly ask that you continue to keep us in your prayers through the coming days. We surely need them.

Have a great day!

SICK AND TIRED of being SICK AND TIRED

(Warning: Some readers may find the photos in this post to be a bit, um, gross.  Just a heads up!)

As some of you may know, I have been really sick over the last couple of weeks.  Well, sicker than normal for me.  It all started last September when I had surgery to have a PORT-A-CATH placed in my left upper chest so that I could continue to receive IV fluids of Normal Saline on a regular basis.  Normal Saline has lots of salt and is supposed to help keep my vascular space more full. This in turn is supposed to keep my blood pressure a little higher and help keep me from passing out when I stand….at least that’s the theory.  We have been doing this for over a year, but in the beginning we had to use peripheral sites like my hands, wrists, forearms, upper arms, etc.  We even had to resort to using my lower extremities because we ran out of anything to use elsewhere.

 (Here’s an IV in my ankle. Click on picture to enlarge.)

I just didn’t have any useful veins left.  Plus, I wound up with a blood clot in my right leg which was thought to possibly be related to  one of the IV sites in my ankle  and/or a very long car ride to and from VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER where I receive some of my care.  So, as an absolute last resort,  I had my very first port put in on September 22nd of last year, which was my husband’s and my 18th wedding anniversary.  Wow, what an awesome anniversary present, huh?!?

 (Here’s an example of what my port looks like.   The circular part is called the portal and has a silicone bubble (the septum) for needle insertion.  The long, skinny tube is a catheter that runs from the portal and is inserted into a large vein.  Once inserted, the tip of the catheter sits just inside the superior vena cava, just upstream from the right atrium of the heart.)    

The surgery went fine.  It only took about 15 minutes in the operating room (OR) under CONSCIOUS SEDATION and then it was in.  After that, everything went fine with the port until April 20th when I suddenly became very, very sick.  Every time we would flush my port or begin to run any fluids through it, approximately 20-30 minutes later, I would have extremely violent chills and my temperature would spike very high.  At first, we did not realize the connection with the port so I had several of these horrible episodes and each one was worse than the one before it.  At one point my fever was 105.  After several days, it was determined that my port was infected and that I was SEPTIC.  Each time we used the port, small pieces of bacteria  were breaking off and going out into my system and then I would have that horrible reaction.  I don’t think I’ve ever been that sick in my life! 

I spent 5 days in the hospital on IV antibiotics and fluids.  They had to do their very best to use peripheral sites again because of the port being infected.  My veins are so poor and they just would not tolerate an IV for long, especially with all the strong antibiotics and the Phenergan I needed for nausea and vomiting.  They finally determined that I had E-coli growing in my port.  That was very unusual as ports that are infected usually grow much different bacteria.  The doctors explained that I apparently had  E-coli somewhere else in my body and that the bacteria got into my bloodstream and then started to colonize in my port.  So, on April 28th, they finally took the port out and let me come home that day.

Once I was home, I had a bad reaction to the surgical dressing.   I am allergic to most all tapes.  All the skin around my surgical site had become extremely raw and was really hurting.  We weren’t supposed to remove the dressing but we just had to. 

(Here’s what my surgical site looked like a couple of days after surgery.  YUCK!)

After some much needed recovery time, I went back in on May 22nd to have another port placed, this time on the right side of my chest.  Everything went fairly well until Tuesday, June 30th.   Then, we started all over again with chills and fever.  I will tell you more about that in my next post.

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope to see you again soon.  Please leave a comment if you have a minute, just so I know you’ve been here.  You may do so by clicking below this post where it says ‘HEARTFELT COMMENTS’.  You don’t have to sign up for an account or give any personal information.   Where it says ‘Choose an Identity’, you can choose ‘Anonymous’ and then leave your name at the bottom of your message OR you can choose ‘Name/URL’ and then just put your name and leave URL blank.  It’s REALLY easy!  If I can figure out how to blog, you can leave a comment, I promise!  Regardless, if you don’t leave a comment, I’m still glad you stopped by!

Have a wonderfully blessed day! 

(You may click on any of the photos on my blog to enlarge them.)