Monday Evening

I've been avoiding writing this blog all day. It's not the one I wanted to right. Ok, enough with the melodrama, there's no tragic news. No more freakoid contractions or transfers to another hospital. Isaac isn't doing any worse.

Today was just very, very difficult. If ANY of you are in jobs where you ever interact with other people (that would presumably be most of you), don't EVER, EVER think that the way you interact with those people is meaningless. For eight days we have been working with a resident doctor at the hospital who has the bedside manner of a cactus. When she comes into our room, all our heart rates go up. She shovels in anxiety by the truckload.

I don't think she's a particularly mean person, she just doesn't know how to interact with us as people. I sense she is not confident in her role, and perhaps that makes it dangerous for her to communicate anything deeper than data and test results. I don't think I'm asking too much--I just want her to acknowledge the deep, deep struggle this journey has been. Let me know that she knows I am a real, living, hurting person--then I can bear the burden of her facts and figures with much greater ease.

Fortunately, the attending physician for today is at the other end of the spectrum. Her very presence exudes peace and comfort. She is not an anxious presence, and this very presence welcomes all the questions we have, whether they are of a specifically medical nature or not. (I could go on about parallels to pastoral care here, but I won't. I think the parallels extend to every profession.)

On to the facts, figures, data, etc.: They decided against a CAT scan. The pulmonologist wanted one, but the radiologist (the one who would read the scan) was a little edgy about exposing a 16 day-old child to that much radiation. Instead, they did another chest x-ray, which was relatively painless. Our favorite resident (referred to above) had the privilege of relaying the results:

Resident cactus: "His right lung seems to have cleared up, but there's some infiltrates on his left side now. I've ordered an upper GI for him for tomorrow and he won't be able to eat for six hours before that. Any questions?"

[We sit, speechless, feeling like we've just been kicked in the gut. We thought we were making progress, and now the momentum seems to have been completely reversed. I felt like I was going to throw up, and I know I couldn't have looked too good. If you could take a picture of utter despair, we looked it.]

Resident cactus: "Ok, well, if you have any questions, let me know."

[Exit, resident cactus.]

While this scene is being played out, we are attempting to wean Isaac down from .4 liters of oxygen to .3. As resident cactus is staring at us, waiting for us to respond, Isaac's alarms are going off because his sats are dropping and his breathing is becoming more labored. (I blame cactus.)

Again, I don't think we've taken any steps backwards. We turned the oxygen back up to .4 liters, and Isaac is maintaining. When the amazing attending physician came in later to talk with Janel, she made it clear that the infiltrates on the left lung were not a serious matter, but could be caused by reflux. This is something we'll potentially learn during the upper GI tomorrow. (Well, good grief, would have been nice to have that info with the initial information dump!)

Another great bit of interaction with the attending physician relates to Joshua and Jenna. Janel and I have been growing increasingly concerned about how they are handling all of this, and how much of a burden they are having to bear. The attending physician (Dr. Williams) at first wondered if Joshua and Jenna had been back to PICU to visit yet. Well, the nurses had made it clear that there was some bad stuff on the floor that we just might not want to expose our kids to. After thinking just a second more, Dr. Williams remembered there were a couple serious cases of H1N1 in PICU, and she would not want to feel responsible for our other kids coming down with that in the midst of this!

Anyway, she recommended some very practical and helpful ways of getting Joshua and Jenna involved with Isaac. So tonight I took a short video of them to show to Isaac, and tomorrow I'll take a little video of Isaac to show to Joshua and Jenna. It breaks our hearts that Joshua and Jenna haven't seen Isaac for nine days.

At the end of the day, there are still reasons for hope. Dr. Williams told us, "I want Isaac out of here!" Glad we're in agreement on that point. Now that his breathing has slowed down quite a bit, she said he'd be free to go as soon as we got him off the oxygen. They would obviously observe him for 24 hours or so after he got off oxygen, but it sounds like that's officially the last hurdle. If we learn something about reflux or aspiration from the upper GI, and we can treat it, perhaps that will move things along faster.

We are so very, very weary, but we press on. We're thankful for Dr. Williams, and we're thankful for the miracle of our three beautiful children. We're thankful for this amazing seminary community who continues to surround us with love and support; for Grandma Mary (who is changing her ticket so she can stay until Saturday, even as I type); for blog followers, e-mailers, pray-ers, cry-ers, laugh-ers, callers, and visitors. You are the ones who desperately pull back on the veil that seems to shroud God's face. Though we see him not, we see you. And tears of hope fall from our eyes.