Day 3

Exhaustion!

Two nights of not much sleep + a lot of running around = exhaustion

I think and hope that tonight we will sleep good. Today was a very busy day. I took the girls down to Provo again for swim lessons. It went well and we had a great time. Always nice to get our minds off of things. Then it was back home for lunch and another drive the other direction to Riverton. We first dropped the girls off at Grandma Meacham's and then Aaron and I once again headed to the hospital for more time in the ER. 

After getting checked in, the long waiting game began. They must have been much busier than yesterday, because almost and hour went by before we heard anything. Luckily, we had plenty of texts, emails and phone calls to return that kept us busy. Finally a Doctor came in to check quickly on Aaron. It wasn't the same doctor before, which was a little disappointing, but she was nice enough. Finally they brought in Aaron's steroid infusion in and started getting that going. That took another 24 minutes. Which was fine. I called my sister, and Aaron worked on computer stuff. 

We were lucky enough to have our Doctor from the days previous stop in. I guess he is actually the hospitals director over the staff. He was all dressed up in his tie and you could tell his duties that day were not the ER. The nurse later told us, that he had flagged our file and said, "Do not let them leave until I see them!" That really touched us. He was an amazing help and actually will continue to be so. He gave us his personal cell, work and email. He told us if we have any problems getting in with the doctors we need to contact him and he will work his magic. What a comfort! You have no idea, no idea. I was glad we had written him a thank you note, because he truly needed to know what an angel he has been thus far in our journey! Why can't all Doctors be like him? What an incredible tender mercy from the Lord. 

That was not the only one either. After the drip was done, in came the darling nurse who had checked us in the day before named Jenny Budd. She two had flagged us and said she wanted to be the nurse to treat us. She told us that every once in awhile as a nurse you have a patient that you can't get off your mind. You go home and you can't stop thinking about them. She then said her husband said to her that this patient (Aaron) must have really touched her to have felt so much emotion. She said she actually went home and researched a little about the specifics of Aaron's case. She was worried, she said that she had never heard of a MS patient coming in with the symptoms that Aaron had, making her think that things might mean a worse condition than someone else who comes in with more typical symptoms. I guess to her relief this was normal. Thus, she wanted to see us today and treat Aaron. She then sat down and we conversed for almost a half hour. It was a beautiful conversation about prayer, family, the future, disease, trials and faith. She said some really good advice that we took to heart. She also asked is she could put our names on the prayer roll. How sweet? We then talked about a trial she was having and we felt so glad that we could offer the same thing to her. What magic it is, to have a common ground such as the gospel to pull people together in such a strange situation! We finished by getting her email too. She was so sweet and wanted so dearly to be added to a blog or something to keep her posted. It made me think, that maybe it is time to start another blog dedicated to just MS. Which is why I switched our entries over from our family blog to this one. After we left, her words were so uplifting, we felt a little relief. We felt again, another tender mercy. What a blessing that we were sent to that hospital. I was so impressed and grateful.

After our long ER visit, we were able to talk with my dad who shared some other great advice and knowledge about things my cousin Roy had shared with him. We honestly feel so overwhelmed by the love and support we are receiving! We then went back to Grandma and Grandpa Meacham's to find our two happy girls. We unfortunately had to run since our sweet neighbors were headed over with dinner. They were of course so sweet and brought us a beautiful spread. We were so grateful after such a long day.

We finally ended the evening with a beautiful basket left on our doorstep filled with goodies, gift cards, pajamas and other thoughtful things. We were shocked and felt overwhelmed. We have an idea, but don't know everyone that was involved. How did we get so blessed with such amazing friends?

The night ended with a few more visitors and calls. We love all the support, but we are also exhausted too. Day 3 is over and Day 4 is coming... it is a big day. We hope we will receive a little clarity or at least one step in the right direction. We are trying to feel optimistic. We are having good moments and not so good. I guess the more it sinks in, the more we accept it and move forward, the better it will get. I hope at least. The hardest part is that we are just starting a life long journey, one we know will not always be easy. We try not to focus on the hard parts ahead, but it's like when I run, I know the hills are coming, I know the fatigue is coming, so I try to enjoy the fun parts and prepare for the harder parts. But the knowledge of the joy at the end is what gets me through. I guess that is the same as real life. We just need to remember that this is life, it's what it is all about. Trials are here to stay and we can either push through them and look forward to the reward at then end. Or give up and miss out on the good times. So here's to the long marathon ahead. Preparing we are, but trying to find the sweet joys along the way will be our goal.

Aaron was really proud of his dino tape around his drip line...

Emmy loved it too!