Weak vision can leave a bad taste in your mouth!

During the week before Christmas, I began to hassle with swollen and unbearably itchy eyelids. I just wanted to scratch them all the time. However, I had a vague memory of, twenty years ago, giving up my contact lenses after having something called blepharitis, so I simply continued with a variety of home remedies over Christmas. This week, realising my eyes felt even more "puffy" and my vision was slightly blurred, I finally went to the doctor who told me that I had both blepharitis and conjunctivitis. He prescribed an antibiotic, as well as antibiotic eye drops, and told me I have to go back next week for a hydrocortisone cream if I don't begin to see an improvement within 7 - 8 days. And so, for the past few days, I've been putting drops into my eyes several times a day.
This week I began to notice something else that was rather strange: every day, when we were driving to the hospital, I noticed that I had a bad taste in my mouth. I realised that the strange chemical taste at the back of my throat was coming from the drops that I had just put into my eyes. I had been aware that our ears, nose and throat are interconnected, but - not being much of an anatomy student - I hadn't realised that what I put in my eyes can also end up in my mouth. Sure enough, the leaflet in the box explains that the tear duct which drains tears to your nose can also drain some fluid from your eyes to your throat.

Today is the last day of the year. In Scotland, we call it "Hogmanay" and, for me personally, it's always a time when I look back to evaluate the year that is ending, and look forward in anticipation of what God has for me in the year that lies ahead. There have been a few times in recent years that I stood at the end of an old year without a clear vision or knowledge of what the new year held in store. On Hogmanay 2007, I had just left Africa and moved back to Europe, and I still didn't know which country I'd be living in for the coming years. On Hogmanay 2008, I knew that Spain was to be my new home, but I was asking God some questions about ministry priorities and commitments for the next few years. On Hogmanay 2009, we had just "lost" the house we'd planned to rent the following year, and I knew I'd be returning to Spain to start house hunting again. On Hogmanay 2010, it was very nice to move into a new year without wondering where I'd be living at the end of it! But I'd been having increasing pain from arthritis and was in a season of seeing Spanish doctors regularly for x-rays and other tests to determine what could perhaps be done to offset the discomfort of the joint degeneration...

I think it's probably true for all of us that we begin every year with one or two questions about what the future might hold for us. Usually there are some things that are certain and predictable, but there are other things, both good and bad, that we simply cannot foresee with our human eyes and understanding. What security there is in knowing that we can draw on God's wisdom and can rest in the knowledge that He goes before us, each step of the way. How important it is to take time to listen to Him and find out His vision, goals and priorities for our lives, so that we can move into the future, knowing that we are prepared even for the unprepared and unpredictable. As I discovered this week, having blurry vision can leave you with a bad taste in your mouth!

So here we are at the end of 2011. When the year began, we never imagined that we would spend most of the last two months of it in hospital wards. And as those months went by, the doctors told us again and again that 2011 would be my Dad's last year here on earth. But now we stand on the cusp of another new year. As we begin this year, we can't foresee what it holds for us. We can't even predict how long Dad will be in hospital or when he'll really start eating and walking for himself again. As I return to Spain next week, I do know some things about what lies ahead and what ministry projects I'll be involved in... but there are also some question marks and some areas where I'm not totally sure what to expect. That's why I find security in the words of an old song that I heard when I was a teenager. It says: We don't know what the future holds, but we know Who holds the future.

Happy New Year to you and all that you love at this time.

Success!

Well, after our expressing our concern yesterday about the possibility that Dad's medication was contributing to his pain and discomfort, the nurse, the doctor, the dietician and the pharmacist got together for a pow wow this morning and decided to discontinue not only one, but four of the pills he was on. They also decided to adjust the rate of his nasogastric feed so that a smaller amount per hour is going into his stomach. These measures seem to have done the trick and Dad was pain free for most of the day. He was a much brighter and chattier man today than he's been over the past few days of abdominal pain and nausea.

Dad was proud to announce to us that he had eaten some porridge this morning and had stood on his own two feet today for the first time in nine weeks. Here's one of his nurses showing us the stand-aid hoist that's they use to help patients begin to stand again for the first time.

Still seeking solutions...

Well, there continues to be a little bit of "experimenting" as far as finding the source of Dad's pain is concerned. He had a good night's sleep and a pain free morning, but then told us that he had pain again this afternoon, after eating some lunch. As the "lunch" had consisted of four spoonfuls of soup, his nurse told us that she would be really surprised if that was what was causing the pain. 

She told us he's being given a drug called omeprazole, that is supposed to prevent stomach acidity. 

Graham (my brother) also had omeprazole last week, when taking anti-inflammatories for his knee, and he told us that he'd had a sore stomach all week - though he didn't know if it was from the anti-inflammatories or from the omeprazole. I decided to check the official leaflet that you always get in a box of tablets -  just to see if there might be lactose in the pill. I found that there was an anti-allergy warning on the box, saying that the pills do contain lactose, and when I read the patient information leaflet, I found that "stomach pain, nausea and vomiting" were listed as common side effects of that drug. (Seems a bit strange to me that a pill designed to prevent stomach pain can actually end up causing stomach pain.) 

The leaflet not only warned that omeprazole may be unsuitable for people with suspected lactose intolerance, it also said that it could have adverse effects if used at the same time as a blood thinning drug (Dad's on an anti-coagulant), digoxin (a heart drug that Dad's been on for arrhythmia), sedatives (Dad's being given midazolam as well as morphine) or certain antibiotics (including one that he was taking last week for the pneumonia!) Anyway, I mentioned the omeprazole to his nurse, and she agreed that it's worth trying anything at the moment. Dad complains of feeling nauseous whenever he takes pills, and perhaps the pharmacist can substitute a different tummy pill tomorrow, so that we're trying everything possible to identify the reason for the pain. 

This evening Dad was feeling better again; the pain had subsided and he'd managed to sleep a little before we went back in to see him again. He feels so much better and is much more positive when he's not having to cope with pain... so we're seeking and praying for an answer to what could be causing this.

So far, so good...

Well, Dad reported that he was feeling much better today and hadn't had so much pain as over the past few days. It may be too soon to say whether it's the decision to avoid milk that is making the difference, but the results are pretty promising so far. Dad was pain free for most of the day, except for some discomfort in the evening after eating a little dinner.
The nurse told us that the surgeons continue to be pleased with the progress of his wound (even though it will still take a long time to heal because of not having any stitches in it) and it's possible that Dad will soon be moved to a different ward - a rehabilitation ward for people who are no longer dangerously ill and whose recovery is likely to be a slower process rather than of short duration.

Secrets and solutions?

This morning in my daily Bible reading, I was studying the Old Testament book of Amos. There's a verse (Amos chapter 3 verse 7) which says that God reveals plans and secret things to his prophets. In fact, we see this often in the Old Testament: that God gives insight and understanding to his servants (Moses, Abraham, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, etc) about things that are happening or going to happen. A favourite verse of mine - Psalm 25 verse 14 - says that the Lord shares his "secrets" with people who love and respect him. It wasn't just something for the Old Testament days, but is something that we can still experience today. The New Testament uses a variety of different words to describe this experience of hearing from God: a word of knowledge, a word of wisdom, a word of "prophecy." But these terms can sound sort of religious, and sometimes they obscure the simplicity of just hearing God speak to us in the quietness of our hearts.

Some years ago, when I was moving back to Europe from Africa, a very meaningful scripture for me was Deuteronomy 29 verse 29. It says that, "The secret things belong to the Lord, but the revealed things belong to us and our children, so that we can obey God's instructions." It's a fact of life that there are many things we simply do not know or understand.... but the things we do know and understand are the things we need to hold on to and obey. I may not know the source of my Dad's ongoing tummy pain and nausea; I may not understand why he's spending so many weeks in hospital and struggling with so many setbacks.... but I do know that God is good and that he promises us His presence and His strength in difficult situations.

Just as I was writing these thoughts in my journal, back came another thought that had flitted through my mind over the past couple of days. The thought was "lactose intolerance." It had first come to mind as I watched Dad struggling with stomach cramps and vomiting on Christmas Day. I had even spoken to his nurse yesterday and asked whether critical illness could be a trigger for lactose intolerance. She said she wasn't aware that this could be the case, and that Dad has been drinking milk for the past two months - since starting to take things orally again. As I thought about it again this morning, I realised that it's been three or four weeks now that Dad has been eating hardly anything and only drinking milk... and over these weeks he has increasingly complained about tummy pain. Could this thought about lactose intolerance perhaps be an impression from God, an insight into something that doctors hadn't considered as the source of Dad's discomfort?

Well, not being a healthcare expert, I had to resort to the 21st century's source of information for laypeople: I googled lactose intolerance to see if I could find out further information about it. The first thing I discovered was a list of four or five symptoms that pretty much described what Dad has experienced over the past weeks. And right there, at the top of the list of possible causes of lactose intolerance in adults was: bowel surgery. Two or three different websites said that bowel surgery or intestinal infection (Dad's had both of them since his surgery nine weeks ago) are common triggers for lactose intolerance in adults. This seemed like too much of a coincidence. Could God be drawing our attention to something relatively simple that just happened to have eluded doctors amidst the many other complications that Dad's been facing over the past nine weeks?

I was of course hesitant to give the impression that I was trying to tell the doctors their job, but I felt that I needed to be obedient to an impression that seemed as if it could be from the Lord, so I phoned the hospital and shared my concern with Dad's nurse. I asked her to check with the consultants whether they felt it might be worth doing a blood test or a hydrogen breath test to check whether lactose might be the culprit behind the pain he's been experiencing. "That's interesting," said the nurse, "Because he told us he doesn't have any pain today, and he actually had a glass of cold water instead of a glass of milk this morning."

When we arrived at the hospital this afternoon, the nurse told us that the consultant said he thought it was unlikely that milk could be the cause of the problem and he didn't think it was worth doing a test for lactose intolerance. But the nurse was pleased to report to us that Dad was doing well today and had had a pain free morning. So you can imagine our surprise when we went into Dad's room and he told us that he was struggling with the tummy pain again. I looked at his chart to see what he had eaten at lunch time and, sure enough, he had drunk a glass of milk just about an hour before we arrived. Despite the fact that the doctor had been unconvinced, we shared our thought with Dad and suggested that he avoid drinking milk for a few days, just to see if it makes any difference to the discomfort he's been experiencing. When his dietician came in just then, she agreed that it wouldn't do any harm to "experiment" for a few days to see if it makes a difference. She took a marker pen and wrote on his whiteboard: "No milk allowed for the next 2 or 3 days."  So I guess now we just need to wait and see whether this might be the secret to the solution as far as Dad's pain is concerned.

Adjusting your altitude...

Well, Christmas Day was not one of my Dad's better days in the hospital, and it was sad to see him struggling with some stomach pain and vomiting when we went in to visit him. The hospital had flexible visiting times for Christmas, and so we were able to stay with Dad for several hours, but he spent much of the time sleeping after nurses gave him medication to counteract pain and nausea. The first photo shows Kasey helping him open the present that he was given by the hospital Santa, and the other is just a family photo taken in the early evening.

Dad was still struggling with sickness and tummy pain today, which is rather discouraging for him after several days of feeling better last week. No "reason" for the pain has been offered by medical staff yet, so we're not really sure what's going on there. We so wish he could have some more days without pain and discomfort.

When we got home from the hospital last night, we watched one of those so-called "heartwarming" Christmas films that are on all the movie channels at this time of year. This one was about a couple who had lost their teenage son in a car accident during a previous Christmas season, and the "happy ending" was when they decided to adopt a little girl who had been orphaned just before the upcoming Christmas. At one point in the film, the husband, who was a pilot, said he'd been taught in flying school that, "You can't change the wind or the weather, but you can choose the altitude of your plane." It made me think that life is like that: we have very little control over our circumstances, especially the difficult things like illness, pain or family tragedy; the only thing that we do have control over is our own attitude and response to the trials. For me, as a Christian, that means making a daily choice to draw on God's strength and trust him amidst the ups and downs of our lives and circumstances.

It's the 25th and it's Christmas

Today is the 25th, which means it's exactly two calendar months since my Dad had his first surgery on 25th October. Things went so well that day; we could never have foreseen all the complications and heartache that lay ahead. There were many times that doctors told us Dad wouldn't live to see this Christmas. Back around mid November, when ICU doctors were being particularly pessimistic, I asked God what I should expect and what I should prepare myself for this Christmas. My daily Bible reading that day happened to find me in Isaiah chapter 9, a passage that is often read in church services at Christmas time. Verse 2 says, "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light... the light has dawned for those who were living in the shadow of death." Of course, it's speaking about the fact that Jesus our Saviour was born at Christmas, bringing light and life for those who used to live far from God. But for us as a family, after several weeks of doctors telling us Dad was close to death, I really felt as if we'd been walking in darkness and "in the shadow of death." Even though we knew so little of what the future might hold, I had a sense that God was telling me our Christmas would bring the dawning of light and not of death.

So here we are on Christmas Day, and we'll be spending much of it in the hospital. Dad is still very weak, but over the past days there has been a sense of things being stable, with no further setbacks and complications. Sadly, he's not really eating yet, so there will be no turkey dinner for him this year. But it is nonetheless amazing that he has made it this far and is still with us on Christmas day.

We'll be having some Christmas dinner at home today, and then heading to the hospital to spend the rest of the day with Dad. At the moment, as we're putting the turkey in the oven and beginning to prepare the vegetables, the TV is on in the background. I had to smile when I saw that it was a film about a sheepdog puppy: the dog in the movie looks very much like my Kylie that I had to leave in Cape Town. That reminded me of many summer Christmases over the years, and what a surprise it was when the very next thing on the television was a programme about animal rescue in Cape Town. So many of the places shown were very familiar to me. It's strange to sit in wintery Scotland and see pictures of sunny South Africa on TV.

Christmas is often a time for memories - hopefully mainly for remembering the fact that God sent His Son to earth so that we could be His children and His friends - but often also a time for remembering Christmases past, with their memories of old friends and places. I wonder what our memories of Christmas 2011 will mean for us in years to come.

Sun, snow and squirrels...

This time last year we were "snowed in" as Christmas snowfalls stopped my parents and their neighbours from taking their cars out and driving down the hill to the main road. With hospital trips twice a day, we are very thankful this year that it's not going to be a white Christmas. In fact, the weather forecast says that this may be one of the warmest Christmas days in recent years - with rain instead of snow. Not as warm as it is back home in southern Spain, where they've had sunny days and temperatures as high as 20 degrees over the past week (That would qualify as a Scottish summer heatwave!) but a welcome respite from ice and snow, which will make our daily trips to the hospital a lot easier.

We spent Christmas day 2008 in the hospital in Edinburgh, as my Dad had just been rushed back in for a repeat op when he got an infection after his brain surgery. At that time, they kept him in two months on intravenous antibiotics, but he actually felt pretty well for most of that time. Yesterday, looking back on that time, Dad said to us, "The brain operation was nothing compared to this." This time, Dad's troubles were also due to infection - an infection that poisoned his entire body and led to weeks of struggles and setbacks. It's been a very difficult time, and he still doesn't feel strong and well. But this week has been free of further setbacks, and we're preparing, for the second time, to spend Christmas day in a hospital.

Meanwhile, in our back garden, the squirrels also seem to be enjoying the lack of snow. We have four squirrels - two large ones and two small ones - and they're a source of entertainment that's better than the Christmas TV on offer. My Mum hangs out fat balls and peanuts for the wild birds... but our four squirrel friends have perfected a system of jumping from the garage roof, scurrying along the washing line and hanging upside down to steal all the peanuts. The snow-free Christmas this year will no doubt make it easier for them to enjoy their Christmas dinner.

Talking about the past weeks...

Our day began with rather sad news, when we heard that Uncle Bobby, a long time family friend had died in the early hours of the morning. He and his wife had known my parents since they were all teenagers. Bobby and my Dad were both in the hospital at the same time, but Bobby was allowed to go home a few weeks ago. He died early this morning of heart failure.

When we arrived at the hospital this afternoon, we got a surprise to see that Dad's bed was empty; he was no longer in his room. Turned out that he had been moved to another room which has a built-in hoist to lift him from the bed to the armchair every day. Dad is now sitting up for a couple of hours every afternoon and, even though he finds it quite tiring, the physiotherapist told us that she is pleased with the progress he is making with his arm and leg exercises.

One of today's nurses had told him that we "nearly lost him" a few times over the past weeks, so today Dad was talking a lot about what he remembers of his experiences, and asking us to fill in some of the gaps by telling him about things that he's not able to remember clearly.

Sitting up...

What a relief it is to have two or three consecutive days without any major setbacks! Dad was doing generally okay today - still on pain medication and still on antibiotics, but holding his own. Nurses had him out of bed and sitting up in an armchair for two or three hours this afternoon, and he said he felt "not bad." This was the first time in a couple of weeks that he'd been out of bed for a bit, so he was pretty tired this evening and just slept all through the visiting hour.

Eight weeks...

It's eight weeks today since my Dad had his first operation... and what a challenging time these two months have been. After looking rather rough yesterday, Dad seemed a little brighter today. The pain was under control, the initial weary feeling of the pneumonia had passed a bit, and he was quite chatty this afternoon. He's pleased that he can sense more strength now in his arms and legs, but with Christmas just around the corner, he wishes that there would be an end to the feelings of pain and weakness that he's known over the past weeks. His biggest challenge at the moment is that he has no appetite and doesn't enjoy eating because everything seems tasteless.

Not so HAPpy HAPpenings...

Well, after seeing Dad struggle a bit with listlessness and pain over the past couple of days, doctors whisked him off to be x-rayed again last night. Today they told us that he has HAP: hospital acquired pneumonia. One of the dangers of lying in bed for such a long time is that phlegm builds up in your lungs and it's easy to contract a chest infection. (Having had pneumonia four or five times myself, I had kind of been suspecting pneumonia as I watched Dad over the past days.) It's horrible that he has to put up with this on top of everything else, but he's on an antibiotic now which should hopefully clear it up fairly quickly over the coming week. As is typical with pneumonia, Dad was feeling tired and week during the day today, but feeling slightly better and brighter by the evening. Despite feeling that everything is "tasteless," he's trying to force himself to eat a bit, and managed to eat just a few spoonfuls of stew and potatoes this evening.

The surgeon's update...

Well, the ongoing saga of Dad's hospitalisation is beginning to make us feel like actors in a TV medical drama - like E.R. or Casualty. The reason for Dad's tummy pain continues to be a mystery, as recent endoscopies have shown that there is no ulcer or other problem in the stomach. This morning it seemed as if the pain might be slightly higher up - perhaps in his lung. Concerned about the possibility of a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lung), doctors put him back onto an anti-coagulant (he'd been taken off that a couple of weeks ago after his bleeding episode.) Dad's mostly pain free - now that there's a pump with round-the-clock painkilling medication - but he says he still feels discomfort after eating or drinking, and the reason for this continues to be somewhat of an enigma.

This afternoon we had an appointment with the two main doctors responsible for his care (the surgeons who were involved in his three operations.) They say they realise it's disappointing that his progress is so slow at the moment, but they are satisfied that he is not deteriorating either. His blood indicators are continuing to drop (meaning that infection is decreasing) and his kidney function is continuing to improve. Lung infection is always a danger when a patient is lying in bed for a long time, but that can be treated with antibiotics if necessary. An x-ray today showed that it is not necessary at the moment. They are satisfied that his wound is continuing to heal slowly but well, and that the pus in his abdomen is of an acceptable level (and not in danger of increasing because of the recent removal of the drain.)

While there are no guarantees "which way things will go" when a person has been so critically ill, the doctors said they are satisfied that Dad is stable for now, and we just need to "wait and see."

All change...

When we arrived at the intensive care unit this afternoon, nurses told us that Dad's blood pressure had gone back up to normal again. Otherwise, he was doing much the same: "holding his own" and chatty when awake, but dozing again when given a pill for pain relief.
An even bigger change lay in store, however, and this evening Dad was moved out of the ICU and back into a general surgical ward, the ward he was in after his original operation six weeks ago. He is not on any life support machines and they say he no longer needs "intensive" nursing now. He continues to be very ill, though, and it will still take time for his wound to heal, for his appetite to come back, for his arms and legs to become strong again...

Settled, sleeping and stable...

Dad seemed more settled and peaceful today; he said he felt a little better, and he didn't complain of any pain. His blood pressure continued to be very low, but was stable and not dropping any further. He slept quite a bit, but when he was awake he was bright and fairly chatty, and he ate some soup at dinner time. While he was dozing, we played some of his favourite hymns to him and we could see him mouthing the words. He complained a few times of feeling very cold, but all  of us were cold in the ward on this wild and windy day. In the end, nurses called in engineers to put a deflector on the air conditioning vent so that it wouldn't be blowing directly on Dad's bed, and he felt more comfortable after that.
A doctor came to us as we were leaving to come home. He told us that Dad was "holding his own" with only minimal support, and that they might soon make a decision to move him out of intensive care and upstairs to a different ward.

Yet another new day...

Another new day, and the weather forecast says it will be a wild one with gale force winds. When we looked out the window this morning, we saw that some of the neighbours' wheelie bins were blowing down the street. On the news last night there was a warning that the wind would be strong enough to cause structural damage to homes and property.

On a different level we continue to feel buffeted by the uncertainty of Dad's condition. His night nurse reported this morning that he had had a comfortable night and that his blood pressure had risen again this morning to "the low end of normal." (Ironically, his blood pressure isn't too much different from my own, which is often unusually low.) Of course, anyone who has ever nursed a terminally ill patient, such as someone with cancer or aids, knows that fluctuating blood pressure and body temperature can be a sign that the end is near, and so it seems that medical staff are "watching and waiting" at the moment, and giving morphine to keep Dad comfortable and pain free.

His night nurse reported, though, that he was looking bright this morning, and that she was able to have a conversation with him (which must mean that he's beginning to be able to speak a bit better, after having the trachy tube removed yesterday.) She was telling him about how she used to keep her horse in the fields near our house - the place where my Dad used to walk the dog - and he was also telling her that I usually live in Spain.

Even as the TV weatherman announced that today's 100 mph winds might cause structural damage to some homes, I was reflecting on the fact that the prevailing winds of our lives can also cause "structural damage" if we are not firmly anchored. It's been challenging and stressful to live through six weeks of ups and downs with a loved one in intensive care, and I know that even these six weeks are a relatively short time compared to the trials and challenges that some families have faced. I remember, back when I was a teenager, hearing someone say that life's trials will either make us "bitter or better" and that we do have a certain amount of choice in which will be true for ourselves. Even though life is unstable, we can trust and pray that our own life and faith will be stabilised and not "gone with the wind."

Even though we still have no certainty of what today might hold in store for us, my prayer for myself and my family is that we will be firmly anchored amidst the storm. Many things in life are uncertain, and one of the few certainties we can have is that God is good and that His grace is sufficient for us in every situation. Thanks for remembering us, and Dad, in your prayers today.

Mixed messages...

Some surprises awaited us when we arrived at the hospital today. As Dad has been breathing on his own for a whole week, the doctors had decided to remove his tracheostomy tube this morning. This meant that he had a hole in his throat (covered with a dressing, of course) and so he wasn't able to speak as clearly as in the past weeks. They had also decided to remove his abdominal drain, as there has been very little infected matter in it over the past week. Nurses also reported that the stoma bag continued to be free of any blood.

All of this was good news, but there was a little concern that his temperature had gone up, which might have been an indicator of a chest infection. By the evening, however, his temperature had gone back to normal again and his heart rate had stabilised. However, his blood pressure had dropped and settled around 80/40.

Tonight, before we left the hospital, a doctor asked to speak to us. He told us that Dad's falling blood pressure was not a good sign; that it is usually a sign that the person is dying and the end is near. He knows, of course, that we've been told this several times over the past weeks, and that the doctors got it wrong on those occasions.... but he wanted to let us know this, anyway.

It's true that we've been here many times over the past six weeks, and have spent a few exhausting and rather traumatic nights in the hospital. This time, we decided as a family that we wouldn't sit up in the hospital all night, but would come home and simply "wait and see." You may not read this blog posting until Thursday morning anyway.... but if you're in another part of the world and will be reading it while it's still night time for us here in Scotland, we do value your prayers again for us and for Dad during this night. Thank you.

A slight improvement today

Today, at last, there was no blood in Dad's stoma bag - which might be a sign that the bleeding has completely stopped now, or at least is in the process of stopping. He slept much better during the night, but also continued to sleep a lot during the day and recover from the setback of the past week. He looked a bit better on the whole, and his physiotherapist reported that he had worked well at his arm and leg exercises today.

's no time for snow

When we awoke this morning and looked out the window, we saw that our street was covered with a  thin blanket of snow for the first time this  winter. Within minutes, the snow starting falling fairly heavily, but seems to have stopped again now. I'm very much hoping that it won't last for too long. My Mum is always nervous about taking the car out in the snow, and I don't fancy having to catch buses to and from the hospital twice a day. I'm hobbling a little at the moment anyway (from a recent back and knee injury) so I'm not too excited about the prospect of limping around on snowy or icy paths.

As far as today's hospital report is concerned, Dad's night nurse has told us that he had a settled night and said that he slept well. There is still some blood in the stoma bag this morning, but there was no torrential bleeding during the night. We'll be going up to visit after lunchtime as usual.

Meanwhile, back in Spain, the rain held off and the sun shone brightly for the few days of our KKI leaders' conference last week. Obviously I couldn't be there to help lead the conference, but I hear very positive reports of the time that our group spent together. Some of our northern Europeans - like the Latvians and Finns - even went swimming every day. Brrrr!

Speaking of northern Europeans, I notice that some of you have been checking this blog, and so I'd just like to say thanks for your prayers for my Dad and my family at this time.

Sunday update...

Medical staff decided to do another endoscopy today, and also to put the scope through the stoma - just to see if they could get any further explanation for the night time bleeds my Dad has had over the past week. What they found was just a very small irritation in the lining of the bowel, and so they hope that it'll be only a matter of time until it will heal itself. They suspect that it isn't actually bleeding heavily, but it probably only oozing slowly, and the blood seems to be collecting in the bowel and then flooding. The doctors are aware that there could be more bleeding until this heals, but these night time bleeds have been exhausting for my Dad and we're really hoping and praying that his body can rest and that he can get a good night's sleep.

Another new day....

Concerned about Dad's bleeding, medical staff gave him another transfusion just before midnight last night, and the bleeding seemed to stop again after that. The night nurse told me this morning that she'd been checking his stoma regularly during the night and there was hardly any sign of blood any more. She says, as far as hospital staff are concerned, this seems to be one of those situations where you simply need to ride out the storm, and "wait and see."

And so it's another new day. Tomorrow will mark exactly six weeks since Dad first went into hospital, and they've not been easy weeks. None of us wants to see Dad suffer and struggle, or to be tortured by ongoing setbacks and medical procedures. And yet, superficially at least, so many things are doing better than they were five weeks ago, and there have been so many "close calls" that ended in turnarounds which could only be explained as miraculous. The question my Mum asks is, "If he's not going to make it anyway, why is this dragging on for such a long time, and why are the horrendous setbacks interspersed with such encouraging improvements?" Perhaps that's just the way things go with a patient who's in intensive care with a critical, life threatening illness.

It gets hard to know what to expect, and sometimes it's even hard to know exactly how to pray. At times I have a clear sense of a Bible verse or a word from the Lord that I should pray for my Dad; at other times, I don't have any understanding at all and I can only pray for God's mercy, grace and goodness to surround Dad in his hospital bed.

Good news, bad news...

The good news is that Dad reported one or two little encouraging steps of progress today: he can hold a cup to drink by himself, and drank a glass of banana milk this afternoon; he can move his arms a little more, and move his head to adjust his position on the pillow.
The bad news is that he had another bleed during the night. Though not as heavy or as long as the previous one, it is still a cause for concern. They have stopped the anti-coagulant drug he was taking (he was on heparin during the two weeks he was hooked up to the the dialysis machine, and since then has been on a milder anti-coagulant that is given to long term hospital patients in order to prevent blood clots in their legs) and in its place they are giving him a mild dose of a coagulant drug instead.
Interestingly, when a couple of friends heard that he'd been bleeding again, they asked themselves whether it might be due to a blood-thinning drug that he's been on over the past weeks. Anti-coagulants slow down blood clotting time and can cause more bleeding than normal from cuts or lesions. Only time will tell if this is part of the reason for Dad's bleeding. Obviously, the presence of ongoing bleeding would also suggest that its source is somewhere within the bowel. 
Dad was tired this evening, after having had another disturbed night last night, and we pray that he'll be able to get a good night's sleep tonight. All the drama is extremely wearying for him, as you can imagine.
It's quite stressful for the other family members too, as we never know what news awaits us when we enter the hospital doors and make our way upstairs to the intensive care unit. Please would you pray for my Mum too; this is a really difficult time for her.

Ernie talks about dying...

Dad continued to look brighter when we went in to see him today. He's a little tired after yesterday's drama, but beginning to pick up again, and this evening he ate a bowl of soup - the first thing he's finished eating orally in several weeks. (Until now, he's only eaten two or three spoonfuls of whatever was offered to him.) He talked today about how he was feeling during the night time vigil that marked the early hours of his birthday: "I'd accepted that I was just going to die," he said, "And every time I took a breath, I wondered if it was going to be my last one, and wondered what it was going to feel like to die."

There has been no further bleeding over the past two days. As far as medical staff are concerned, it was a mystery why the bleeding started and it was just as much a mystery why it suddenly stopped. Today's nurse reported that his stoma looks healthy, his wound is continuing to heal, he's not speaking of being in any pain now, and they're pleased that he managed to eat a little today.

One of the hardest things for us emotionally has been the way that some of the consultants seem over-zealous when it comes to giving us their negative prognosis. We understand that part of their job is to help relatives prepare for the loss of their loved ones, but surely it's enough to tell a family once or twice that a patient has the odds stacked against them. It seems unnecessarily cruel to keep coming again and again to tell us that they are amazed at the latest turnaround but they are still convinced that Dad will never get out of hospital. Even on a day where the nurse gives us a good report of how well Dad's doing, it seems there's always a consultant waiting in the background to ambush us and remind us that he's unlikely to sustain the improvement. We can still hardly believe that a doctor would go to an old man on his birthday - a man who has fought hard for five weeks and just overcome incredible odds - and tell him that he has no hope of making it anyway, and that they're not going to try to help him (with machines or surgery) if he has any more setbacks. When Dad's physiotherapist went in to do his exercises yesterday, he told her that there was no point doing it because he was going to die soon anyway. He had been wiggling his fingers every day as the physiotherapists had shown him, but he also stopped doing that when the doctor told him that he wasn't going to make it anyway.

Today we talked with him, prayed with him, and read again the best wishes and Bible promises written on his birthday cards... and he seems to be brighter again now. I asked him if he felt discouraged by what the doctor had told him, and he said,"I'm okay now that I'm feeling better again."

We don't know what the future holds, but we nonetheless feel it's important to keep speaking words of encouragement and life to Dad, and thus to counteract the words of death and hopelessness that doctors have spoken to him. Fortunately my Dad has always been the positive one in the family. (Mum says that if a doctor told her she had no hope of making it, she would just give up and not even try any more to get better.)

If we look back and compare today with this time last week or the week before, there has actually been an amazing number of improvements:

• Dad no longer needs a dialysis machine for his kidneys.
• He no longer needs the ventilator to help him with his breathing.
• He no longer needs antibiotics to help him overcome the internal infection.
• He's no longer complaining of sore muscles all the time.
• He's sleeping well at nights and no longer struggling with insomnia.

Two main improvements that still need to happen are:

• He needs to start taking more food orally. (He says he doesn't want to eat because everything is tasteless.)
• He needs to get more strength back in his arms and legs, so that he can move them more for himself and can perhaps stand up for the first time next week.

And so we continue to take one day at a time, and pray that Dad can keep his spirits up and can continue to make small steps of progress. Each time there's a setback, like this week's bleeding, it undermines the progress he's made over the previous days, and so we invite you to join us in praying that there won't be any further bizarre setbacks to impede his progress.

Not yet his "time" - Dad was 83 today!

Sometimes, if you overhear conversations about a person who has died, people say that it was his or her "time" to go, and that "you don't go before your time."  I'm not sure that I totally agree with this. If a young person is killed in an accident or murdered in the street, I don't think this necessarily means that it was "God's time" for her to finish her life on earth. I believe it's quite possible that many people do die "before their time" - either because of the sin and violence of others, or because they shorten their own lives with reckless behaviour or with foolish habits such as smoking or taking drugs.
But what about that other common belief: that the day of our death is pre-determined and therefore it is pointless to pray for people when they are sick? Well, I don't agree with that either. The Bible does tell us that none of us has the power to prevent the day of our death (Eccl 8:8) but it also tells us to lay hands on sick people and pray for them to be healed. (James 5: 16)

Last night, I was reading an Old Testament story (Isaiah 38) that suggests it might sometimes be possible for people to ask for an extension and to live beyond their "time." At the beginning of this account, King Hezekiah is "at the point of death" and God's message to him is, "Put your house in order because you are going to die; you will not recover." And yet, in response to Hezekiah's tears and heartfelt prayer, God heals him and adds fifteen more years to his life. God says to him, "I have heard your prayer and seen your tears."

Because of the way my Dad became ill - because the life threatening sepsis was a complication possibly due to human error - I have fought hard in prayer for him not to die in circumstances that snatch him away "before his time," or that could be attributed to someone's "fault." It's been amazing to see how God has spoken words of scripture and has preserved Dad's life, even in the face of some bizarre setbacks and some very close brushes with death. So last night, when I read Hezekiah's story, I prayed, "Lord, you have also seen our tears and heard our prayers. If this is not yet Dad's "time;" if his continuing to live would not mean even more pain and suffering, please would you add some more years to his life - perhaps so that he can be around for his 60th wedding anniversary."

It was midnight, but I was still praying and writing in my journal when the telephone rang and it was the nurse from the hospital to tell us that Dad was "at the point of death" - he was bleeding heavily and doctors didn't think he could survive much longer. So how do you pray in such a situation? Was this Dad's "time"... or was it time to pray in faith and to trust in a word from the Lord? When we arrived at the hospital, I continued to reflect on the story about the woman who was bleeding (see here) for twelve years and the way that Jesus had instantly stopped the bleeding and healed its cause. I began to feel faith growing in my heart and I had a sense that I was supposed to ask God to touch Dad and to stop the bleeding.

In the meantime, though, because doctors were expecting Dad to die at any moment, they began reducing his care: they didn't put him back on the ventilator overnight as they usually do, and they didn't give him his usual overnight feed through the nasogastric tube. They were basically just waiting for him to die. "Lord," I prayed, "If this is Dad's "time," the kindest thing for all of us would be for him to slip away quietly in his sleep. But if you are planning to save his life and demonstrate that you are wonderfully and undeniably God, please would you do it very clearly and unambiguously; please would you touch his body at the source of the bleeding so that it stops before morning and there is a very clear turnaround." Even as I prayed, I felt a sense of confidence that the bleeding was going to stop. 

Around 6 am, we headed home, exhausted after yet another sleepless night. I phoned the hospital several times during the morning, but didn't manage to get through, so when we arrived to see Dad this afternoon my first question to his nurse was, "Has the bleeding stopped?"
"Yes," she said, "It suddenly stopped early in the morning."

Just as the cardiac episodes a couple of weeks ago caused doctors to withdraw Dad's dialysis support, this bleeding episode last night caused them to withdraw his ventilator support. Ironically, the result of this is that Dad's kidneys are now working fine on their own, and that's two days now that he's been breathing on his own without help from the ventilator. When we went in to see him this afternoon, he looked brighter than we've seen him in several weeks. It was such a pleasure to see him looking peaceful and cheerful for his birthday in hospital - even if he did announce to us, "The doctors say that I'm going to die; I'm not going to make it."

Unfortunately, this is true. Even though doctors keep telling us that they are amazed at his miraculous progress, they are also holding on staunchly to their role of helping family members prepare for the worst. Most of our conversations with doctors are characterised by doom and gloom: they tell us quite candidly, and have told Dad too, that he will never get back the strength he had before coming into hospital, and they think there is only the tiniest possibility that he can improve enough to ever get out of hospital. Today, on his birthday of all days, they told him quite bluntly that they will not give him any treatment should he have any further major setbacks: they won't do further surgery or put him back on any life support machines again. They're surprised to see him making some progress at the moment, but they don't really believe that it is possible for him to sustain it.

And as for us, we don't know what the future holds either. But, in the words of an old song, we do know the One who holds the future, and He guides us with His hand. We don't know how long Dad will keep improving and still be with us, but we can only continue to take one day at a time and to pray the prayers that God puts on our hearts each step of the way. For today, we are thankful to the Lord for last night's miracle and for the privilege of celebrating Dad's 83rd birthday with him.

Birthday celebrations...

We went back into hospital this afternoon to see Dad for his birthday. The two arrows show his birthday cakes - one (above) that we took in for the ICU staff to eat at their coffee breaks, and another (below) that hospital staff gave him for his birthday. We read out all his birthday cards to him, including some of the Bible verses that people had received when praying for him and we also took in a photo (top right) of the many get well cards that people have sent to him over the past five weeks. 

Dad was looking very well this afternoon. The heavy bleeding had suddenly stopped this morning, he is now off the ventilator and breathing totally on his own, and hospital staff continue to be amazed at this "miracle man" who has astounded them by cheating death yet again. (More about that in the next posting. Watch this space for more details.) Everyone who hears the story of last night's brush with death can only say, "That is a miracle." Isn't God amazing?!

What a birthday....

Today is Dad's birthday, and so far we have spent most of it by his side. The hospital called us at midnight to say that Dad was bleeding profusely into his stoma bag, that they had given him four units of blood transfusion, but he just seemed to be bleeding it all out again. The source and cause of the bleeding are unknown, but the surgeon felt it wasn't advisable to take him into theatre and open him up to investigate; it was felt he would be too weak to survive the anaesthetic and the operation. So, basically they were expecting him to bleed to death within the next couple of hours and they were calling us to be by his side if we wanted to.

As we drove to the hospital in the cold, rainy night, I couldn't help thinking about the story told three times in the New Testament about a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. She had been seen by many doctors, but they were not able to help her and she was growing worse rather than better. (Mark 5 vs 25 - 26) Right at the point where doctors had given up, this woman reached out to touch Jesus and the bleeding totally stopped. Jesus said that her faith had healed her. (Mark 5 vs 29 & 34) I knew that my Dad was in the same place as this  woman: he was at the point where doctors were saying, "There is nothing else we can do for him." I knew that if Dad was to survive this latest setback, it would only be because of a miraculous touch from God, a touch that could stop the bleeding, even if doctors couldn't stop it and didn't even know its source. I also knew that, if this didn't happen, my Dad wouldn't have much longer to live; he would very probably die on his 83rd birthday.

Dad was awake and comfortable when we arrived at the hospital. "I don't think there's any hope," he told us. "They say they can't do anything to stop the bleeding."  He also told us that he was at peace with the Lord, if it was time to go home, and he told my brother and me, "Look after your Mum, because she's going to miss me." Then he took Mum's hand, saying, "You'll be all right."

The doctor on duty asked to speak to us, so off we trekked again to one of the little private rooms where they break bad news to relatives. He told us that if Dad had continued to bleed as profusely as he'd been doing an hour previously, he would probably be dead within an hour or two at the most. But the bleeding had begun to slow down, and this meant that no one really knew how long Dad might still hang in there. It was going to be a heart wrenching waiting game and another night-time vigil by his bedside.

We sat with Dad for the first six hours of his birthday; sometimes he talked to us and sometimes he fell asleep for a while. By this morning, he had been off the ventilator and breathing on his own for twenty four hours - the longest stretch since going into intensive care five weeks ago. The nurse emptied his stoma bag a couple of times during the night, and reported that there was still some fresh blood in it each time.

We're back home now to get something warm to drink; Dad told us to go home and try to get some rest, while he also has another sleep. Medical staff say they don't know what the day ahead will hold. The original plan was for us to take all Dad's birthday cards to him in the afternoon, and to give the nurses a birthday cake that has his picture on it. At this point, we are still planning to do that. Thanks for remembering us, and Dad, in your prayers today.