Praise God for PAIN

Who would have thought that pain would be a good thing? Certainly you would agree with me that pain is not something we sign up for. Its not something anyone likes to be in. The slightest discomfort for an infant and it cries. It does not like pain; and typically neither do you.

Well yesterday at 5am...my father felt pain. He was not comfortable and asked for something for his head. My mother went to get the medication for him; and as she did my father fell off his bed and was unable to get up. My mom called my uncle who lives next door to help her move him to the bed. But it appeared to him, my uncle, that dad had had a stroke and 911 was called.

Once at the hospital a cat scan was performed and the prognosis was 'poor.' He had massive bleeding on his brain and needed specialized care immediately. The doctor called over to Jefferson hospital which he was airlifted within an hour. Upon arrival he was admitted to the ER because there was no bed available in the Neurological Intensive Care Unit. He was only there for approximately a half hour when a doctor informed us that he needed immediate surgery to relieve the pressure on his brain. And for the next 5 or 6 hours we waited.

We saw him in his room around 6pm. Praise God he made it through the surgery! They took part of his skull off to relieve pressure from the brain. He has AVM which means: Arteriovenous malformation or AVM is a congenital disorder of the connections between veins and arteries in the vascular system. The genetic transmission patterns of AVM (if any) are unknown, and AVM is not generally thought to be an inherited disorder--unless in the context of a specific hereditary syndrome. He was born with this condition that we all did not know about until now. He was put on a ventilator at the first hospital; and still is tonight. We said goodnight to him last night hoping to see him in the morning; and Praise God he made it through the first day after having emergency brain surgery!

This afternoon we went back to see him and they had him sitting up in his bed. It is important for his head to be elevated to help relieve the pressure. He had high blood pressure and high blood sugar throughout the night. Today he had a slight fever and maintained the same high BP and sugar. Praise God that today he has been moving his right hand and right foot on his own. (He won't respond directly when you ask him to hold your hand.)

The prayer request at this point is to 1) get the blood pressure down 2)keep his body free from infection 3) get out of sedation

Everyone has been so good to the whole family through this time! I really want to thank everyone for the prayers and thoughts as we are in this wait and see what happens time. My brother goes home tomorrow to care for his wife who is on bed rest and could go at any time. (She is 35 weeks pregnant with their third baby.) You can also pray for them as they want to be here and there all at the same time.

Here's one story that gave us encouragement today...this morning my mom, brother and myself were in his room talking with him making sure he is OK. I said to them that I wanted to take a picture of dad so that when he gets out of this, he will be able to see what he looked like. My mom and brother agreed it was silly but my decision. So I held my camera phone out and said "Smile, Dad"...and his head and body all twitched!:) He knew what I was doing and knew that we were there...it really gave us all a reason to laugh!

Thank you all again so much for everything. I will be updating the blog as more information becomes available. But at this point; no news is good news. Keep on praying:)