On Memorial Day, Philip and Sarah’s youngest son, Jacob, became wedged between the wall of our family room and the belt of our treadmill. The treadmill was running because our grandchildren were playing with things they shouldn’t have been touching, and Grandpa had failed to hide the key.
It took the adults a few seconds to realize that Jacob’s cries were more than just a part of the normal sounds coming up from the bottom floor.
One ear and the side of his neck were rubbed raw. His arm was burned quite badly. It was an awful evening, and a rough trip home to Asheville for the little guy. But he’s a tough kid and appears to be mending well.
On Thursday, Jason and Gretchen’s oldest child, Mollee, had a tonsillectomy. She seemed to be recovering nicely. But Friday morning, she began to run a fever. Gretchen gave her some medication, but when it was time for a second dose, she couldn’t get her to wake up. Mollee’s breathing was shallow, and her color wasn’t good, and then . . . she had a seizure.
I was studying at home, so Gretchen called me to come get the boys. When I got to the house, she was talking with Dr Barnes’ office, and they were telling her to call 911. She
did. And within a few minutes Mollee was in an ambulance on her way to Children’s Hospital.
Gretchen called Jason at work. He came home, changed his clothes, asked to borrow our car, and left for the hospital. On his way downtown, part of the tread of a blown truck tire bounced up off the road and slammed into the windshield. The glass was shattered, but it didn’t break. If it had broken, Jason would have been seriously injured.
He’ll tell you that on the way to the hospital he had been “discussing” with God the whys and wherefores in relationship to Mollee’s condition. Once the tire tread shattered the glass directly in front of his face, he assured the Lord he had no more questions that needed answering at that moment.
When Gretchen and Mollee arrived at Children’s, doctors and nurses were waiting for them. The oxygen level in Mollee’s blood was dangerously low. One of her lungs was not fully inflated. Her temperature was terribly high. And she had a “bronchitis” type infection. As one doctor described it, she had been hit by a “perfect storm.”
They put her on oxygen. They did a spinal tap and ran an EEG to rule out any complications from the seizure. Because of the tonsillectomy, she couldn’t swallow pills, so they were giving her antibiotics through an IV. Her throat hurt, and because of the spinal tap, her tailbone and head ached. She needed something to dull the pain. So through her IV they gave her morphine, which made her dopey and sick to her stomach.
Sunday evening, at her nurse’s suggestion and with the doctor’s agreement, Mollee was taken off of morphine, gotten up out of bed, and walked up and down the fourth floor hallways. She quickly began to improve.
She drank, ate, and took medicine orally. When taken off of oxygen her blood levels stayed normal. And late Monday evening, almost exactly a week after Jacob got lodged between the wall and the treadmill, Mollee was allowed to come home.
Obviously, most of the time we don’t understand the whys and wherefores. Just ask Jason. But we know that those by whom we are loved are praying, and the tender mercies of the One Who loves us more than we may ever know are new each day.
Pastor Caines