Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Day 1123: I Learned Two Things Today

Today was a very long day.  Here is the rundown:

Kids to school, baby to Dr. including nasal swab for influenza and blood test for blood count, Baby B to  the home of a wonderful friend who offered to watch him for the morning, HH to physical therapy, phone calls from the Dr. explaining negative on the influenza but way high white blood cell count meaning that she had either a lung infection or a blood infection (ridiculously scary news--I was crying by this point), back to medical plaza for chest x-ray (AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL!!!!), back to the pediatrician to learn that she has pneumonia and wouldn't be needing the additional blood work or the antibiotics injection, shared a huge sigh of relief with HH (because when compared to sepsis, pneumonia seems like a dream infection--especially when it's caught early and doesn't require a stay at the hospital), then to Target for the antibiotics prescription, sad b/c Target pharmacy was closed for lunch, pick up Baby B, library, bank, back to Target, successful prescription pick up, home minutes before Sweet P and Little M arrived home from school, quick snack and violin practice for Sweet P, rush to Dr. appointment for Sweet P (she's fine, it was just a routine thing), pull up to house to pick up Little M, violins, and dinner (thankfully, provided by yet another amazing friend--without whom we probably would not have eaten today) to eat in the car on our way to violin lessons, said lessons (enjoyed a slightly perked up Darling A--she smiled and even talked a little!), home, kids to bed, clean up house (Baby B had gone on a tirade and trashed it since HH couldn't do much to stop him), crash.

But here are the two things I learned:


1.  For all my shortcomings as a mom, I was still able to get Darling A diagnosed with pneumonia, even when at the initial check, everything seemed fine.  

I love our pediatrician (she feels more like a friend) and thankfully, she listened when I explained to her that something was just very off with my little girl, even though she didn't have an ear infection, white throat, or crackling in her lungs, or anything else.  But, she went ahead with further testing because I told her that I knew something was wrong.  She only smiled twice yesterday.  This is a baby who under normal circumstances, I would never even consider counting the smiles of because it is a constant thing.  And when she coughs, she cries and it is such a sad cry and you can just tell she hurts.  And when I move her, she cries and you can just tell she hurts.  So, the pediatrician ordered the tests.  And she told me it was because of what I had said to her.  Otherwise, we would have gone home and the pneumonia would have progressed unchecked.

2.  I've been looking at everything bad piling up on us and seeing it as evidence that I've been abandoned by the Lord.  He knows better than anyone else all that I have going on, why would he let all of these awful things keep happening?  But, in those scary moments of contemplating just how bad things could end up being for Darling A if she had the blood infection, something clicked, although, I didn't really realize just what until later.

In the Book of Mormon, the prophet Alma talks about humility and how much better it is to humble yourself that to have to be compelled to be humbled.  And I realized that maybe all of these things have been happening to give me the opportunity to turn to my loving Heavenly Father for the support I really need to get through it all.

And it took the possibility of losing my baby girl to provide the leveling blow that literally brought me to my knees and finally made me rely on the Lord the way I should have been all along.

Kind of a sobering thought.

I'm not saying that Heavenly Father forced any of what has happened to happen.  I know that things just happen.  I am saying that Heavenly Father didn't intervene when I thought He should have because He knew that the greater lesson would be learned by my experiencing all of this.

And so, for a bit, I had peace and hope.

And then HH and I had a bit of a negative exchange and I'm on such rocky ground right now, that was all it took to crush it all.

Ah, this is a fun process.

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