Praise the Lord, We're Home!

We are home! Praise the Lord!

We got in, a little later than expected, but we are home!

I have to tell you that R and I felt like we were driving our infant home from the hospital all over again. We felt every bump and agonized over every mile. Those of you that have brought babies home from the hospital know what I mean.

No, we weren't driving our infant home from the hospital, but we were driving our almost old-enough-to-drive-herself baby home from the hospital and to be honest...it felt a little scary.

Rachel was more than ready to go home from the hospital. She told me yesterday morning, that this was the day! I had my doubts. In the last 12 hours they had doubled all of her medications and added the scary magnesium medicine. How could they send us home? But I didn't say anything, I just smiled and prayed.

The doctor on call looked into Rachel's beautiful eyes as she asked him if she could go home and he didn't hesitate. "Yes, he said."...and then we snapped him back into reality! Remember we doubled her meds, she was back to a scale of 9 for pain...etc.

He quickly explained that we would take Rachel off all of her medications and instead of waiting 24 hours he shortened it to only 6 hours, it must have been her eyes, and then if she was tolerating that well then we could go home.

We watched her like a hawk...and her coloring kept improving...and her headaches dropped to a 1. Praise You, Father!

We walked all over the hospital with Rachel smiling all the way. She had asked her Savior to get her home and she silently waited for her "Deliverer to ride in and save the day and get her back home." And He did!

A nurse who looked a little bit like a dreamy guy on one of Rachel's favorite TV shows offered to help us to the car. We were so stunned that we forgot to tell R that we would meet him at the suburban. He rode up one elevator while we came down another. We had to wait about 10 minutes for R to make it back down to the car, but Rachel didn't mind that one bit!

On the drive home, we made it 1/2 way and decided to stop for a good meal at Cracker Barrel. It was so loud in the restaurant that her headache started to return and we had to leave. That was scary!

We settled back into the car and kept driving and praying. Her headache went back down to a 2 and we were thankful. The doctors and nurses told us to take things easy and we are.

We are going to have to watch noise levels for a couple of days and pray that her new dosage of medicine will continue to keep the headaches as low as possible. We are still praying that they disappear completely.

Here are the pictures from the hospital that I talked about but was unable to upload at the hospital:

Her first IV, which was not "her friend" as she called it, but we were thankful for it and her perfectly polished nails.

The gorgeous flowers from Granny, Grandpa & Hannah

This one opened for Rachel yesterday morning.




The amazing basket of goodies from Mrs. Amanda and fam!

Thanks Scott and Brandie for lunch on Saturday and for the sweet time of fellowship.

We miss you guys!

And they brought her Gerber daisies and a cute balloon.

Getting ready to leave the hospital, and looking more like herself again! Thank You, Father!!!

God was so good to us! A couple of nurses told us how much they enjoyed hanging out in our room. The room smelled good and in spite of her pain, Rachel was always so sweet, and they enjoyed visiting with us. I was so proud of Rachel for many reasons.

It's easy to praise the Lord and try to let Him shine through you when everything is going great in your life...you feel well...you are stress free...etc.

It's quite another thing to praise the Lord and allow Jesus to shine through you when you are in a tremendous amount of pain, when you are scared, and when things are stressful. I told her that I believe it is times like these when we choose to praise the Lord in spite of our circumstances, and in spite of our pain, that He receives the greater glory. The doctors and nurses saw Jesus in her...and that's what living for Him is all about!

Thank you for your prayers for our family! I love ya'll so much. Please, continue to pray for Rachel's headaches to cease. We are saying in faith, "Move!" and believing that "all things are possible (Mark 9:23) because of the One in whom we believe.

Joyfully,

Kristi