Thank you Lord

It seems fitting today to take some time to praise God.  One week ago, at about this exact moment, we received a call that our daughter arrested.  She was in the process of dying.  We were even given the option of letting her die.  We didn't take that option.  And we called out to God to come to our aid against death, our foe.  We called on our church, friends, and family who in turn called on their churches, friends, and families and before we knew it, people all over the world joined us in pleading for the life of our daughter.  Today, the surgeons came back and closed her chest.  This is a procedure that some little ones don't tolerate very well, but Louisa barely seemed to mind according to the nurse.  They had all kinds of "code" medicines ready to go, but had to put them all back on the shelf.  We know we don't deserve this.  We also know there are more hurdles to go -- coming off the vent (maybe tomorrow!), coming off the blood pressure support, feedings, removing chest tubes, 2 more surgeries over the next couple years, the first night at home when there's no nurses to watch over her, her first cold that will panic us, etc, etc.  But, this is a post of thanksgiving.  Here's the list Carissa and I have come up with and some photos that speak a thousand words.  We could go on and on.

This picture came in a text from my brother-in-law Allan, he "likes this picture of Nick.  Good night, love you guys."  Carissa wants to make sure I point out that I'm the guy in the background. 

We had a great nurse who got us through Carissa's C-section, Cheryl.  Nurses have different personalities and Cheryl's was perfect for us.

Uneventful C-section.  Went as planned.  Carissa healed well.  Pain was as expected.  The dreaded post-op nausea passed without being "productive".  

Louisa came out screaming!  She stabilized well and had an uneventful pre-op couple days.

We got to hold her a few times before surgery.

All six of the siblings could come the day before surgery to see her and we got some wonderful pictures that day.

Her surgery went faster than expected.  Her surgeon, Dr. Ohye, (who nonchalantly mentioned that he has the highest success rates in the world right now for this particular surgery) was pleased with the result.  He was wonderful -- living up to this 20 foot banner hanging from the ceiling at the main hospital:

That's Dr. Ohye.  He gave Louisa a chance at life.

When she arrested last week, they had a very successful resuscitation as far as the medical stuff goes with that.

The fellow just walked by and told us this morning's head ultrasound is still stable!

The doctors and nurses were amazing after she had her arrest and walked us through the decisions to be made realistically, but maintaining hope.  They helped our families and friends understand what was going on when we didn't have the fortitude to think, much less explain what was going on.

The Psalms.  When our minds couldn't think and our lips couldn't speak, we read the Psalms.  When there was no safe place for our minds to stay, we stayed on the Psalms.  We prayed the Psalms to each other, to Louisa.  Our friends prayed the Psalms.  Our pastors and elders prayed the Psalms.  The emails and texts and facebook messages were often the Psalms.  Many of the songs we are listening to on continuous loop are the Psalms.  Praise the Lord that he gives us the praises to raise to His throne when we are incapable of uttering anything on our own!

At one point on Friday when Louisa was finally "stabilized" on ECMO and the doctors said we'd just have to wait and see what would happen, Carissa said, "I don't think I can make it through the next 5 minutes.  How can I make it another 2-3 days like this?"  It's been 7 days, and she's sitting across from me humming right now, A Mighty Fortress is Our God.  

The ECMO people are amazing.  UofM is the world's center for ECMO.  People come here from all over the world to be trained on using ECMO.  Alex jumped up every time people came to the bedside and hovered over them to protect those leads going directly into Louisa's heart.  No one was going to touch those leads while Alex was on guard!  And Steve found that clot during her trial before it had a chance to travel inside my little Louisa's body.

Thanks ECMO team, you gave us another chance.

A Congregational Prayer from Jon Saunders, our church's Campus Director, that cast out fear and doubt and brought us hope at a time that we were weak and our faith was fragile at best.  And the reports of God's people saying their Amen.  Amen.  You can read the prayer here and add your Amen!

The Ronald McDonald Mott House here on the 10th floor, down the hall from Louisa.  They had a low census this week and the normal 2-3 night maximum stay was extended to 8 nights!  Our social worker Nicole kept "squeezing" more nights out of them for us because Louisa was so critical.

We're moving to the Med Inn today.  It has a queen bed!  I've been sleeping on the floor for the last 8 nights (but thankful for the camping pad our friends brought us!).  Thankful that I've always been an easy sleeper, could pretty much sleep anywhere, anytime.

We were at first nervous to be in the "Bay" area of this unit instead of in a private room.  But the Bay feels so safe now.  Nurses everywhere helping each other out.  And I can literally see the doctors in their room from Louisa's bed.  And we have this little nook behind her bed with an amazing view of the hills to the east of Ann Arbor (who knew Ann Arbor had rolling hills!) and the arboretum that I hear is beautiful in the summertime (I won't mention the cemetery view, though there's something comforting about cemeteries too, maybe because it's a reminder of the resurrection to come -- all those bodies ready and waiting, death does NOT have the last word).  We've also had some beautiful sunrises that remind me of the dawn that comes after the darkness.  Here's the view:

In any health system there are some interesting characters.  The Lord has provided us with some comic relief at great times.  I won't be too specific here, but people are weird (myself included), but the Lord even uses weirdos to encourage us.  Thanks Cartoon Team (that's Carissa's name for them, it's not official).

Our cardiologist, Dr. Z.  He is exactly what we needed.  He studied hard for years and understands how little people with funny hearts work.  He leads the team that brought my baby back to life.  And he choked back tears while explaining to our families how hard this was for us.  I know he stayed late last Friday night to care for us.  He's a strong ally against our foes.  Thanks Lord for Dr. Z.

Nurse Jen, our primary nurse.  I made the mistake of saying she's like mom's meatloaf (I didn't say she LOOKED like meatloaf).  There is comfort and safety and peace when she's around, just like mom's meatloaf comforts in hard times.  She has stood by our side and hugged us and changed diapers, and laughed at us and with us.  We've talked about sin and grace and she loves our baby and loves our Lord too.  I'm not sure she'll appreciate the nickname, but thanks Meatloaf.

And she represents dozens of amazing nurses here.  I've never doubted for a minute that Louisa was in amazing hands.  I joke each night as we go back to our room to sleep, "Alright you guys, we're going to turn her back over to you now, you're on your own."  They laugh at me.  They should.

This morning they closed up her chest and she stayed amazingly stable during the procedure.  Put those "code" medicines back on the shelf!

Thank you Lord.

One week ago.  Post-op, prior to ECMO.

You've come a long way little lady.  Getting closer to that carseat!

I (Carissa) just have to add one more:  I think Nick has said, "she's so beautiful" no less than 2500 times.  Her daddy loves her so much.