Light Bulb

     I get it.. I keep saying that God has more faith in me than I have in myself... therein lies the problem... I don't need to have faith in myself, but rather faith in him! (Cue the light bulb) I know that we are lucky, and that others out there may have it worse... but these last couple months (not to mention years) have been overwhelming. Starting with the sudden (to us anyway) loss of my father... We had convinced ourselves that the Lord would heal him with a bone marrow transplant if we could just get him to that point... We never expected Dad to develop such a massive and sudden bleed that called him home to the Lord. Just a little more than a month later, and I am still having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that I can't just drive North for an hour and visit him in the hospital... It doesn't seem possible to me that I will never wrap my arms around him for another hug, or that I will never hear him tease me in the ways he always did... How can I possibly miss him SO much and still kinda feel that he's not really gone?
     The loss alone would have been enough to handle, but no Kaitlyn was getting worse again and had to be hospitalized. Her trip to Ft. Lauderdale with her Aunt Steph was canceled because of Dad's passing, but her admission date was kept the same, because Dad's memorial service was June 30th. We went into the hospital on July 2nd for what we expected to be a two week stay that would include a bronchcoscopy and a sinus surgery. She had both done at the same time, and they went well, but her body was a little shocked... she was extremely pale after for a few days, her throat was unbelievably raw, and her O2 sats kept dropping.. they had told us unexpectedly, on our first day in, that Kaitlyn was going to need a port... her veins were shot and they could barely get the mid-line going. Originally it was going to be done a few days after her bronchoscopy and sinus surgery, but they decided her body needed a few more days to recover. When she finally did have the port placed, it went great, no complications, it was awesome. By then, we knew the gram-negative culture was positive, but not sure what gram-negative bacteria it was... we knew she had yeast in her lungs.. they had begun to treat it with the help of an ID doc... and just the day prior to her port placement, we found out she had a third culture come back, and that she had a mycobacterium in her lungs.. although we still do not know which mycobacterium as they take awhile to grow enough to be identified. So after a few days they sent us home on IV anti-fungal meds for the yeast... they are debating when and if to treat the mycobacterium... for now they are holding off. Her PFT's are coming up as the yeast is treated. She's doing ok, but she is still extremely fatigued. She is ready to be done with IV meds.. this is the longest she's ever had to be on them, poor kid... all she wants to do is go swimming, but she probably won't be done the IV meds until the day before school starts.. which is quickly approaching and is less than two weeks away!
     While we were in the hospital, I though Gabby may have picked up something. She started to have her tummy troubles again, and with the symptoms being familiar, I got her in to see the GI doc last week. I haven't even been able to pick up the cups to do her stool studies yet, and last night she developed a fever. It started at 99, but grew to 101 by 3am... I gave her motrin, and she finally fell back to sleep around 5am. We got up early this morning and ran around to the back to school events collecting school supplies (Thank You to the generous people of Charlotte County...) we made a stop at the blood center where I tried to donate to no avail (darn you low iron levels...we'll have to try again tomorrow), and by the time we got home, not only was Gabby's fever back, it had climbed to 103.4!  She is acting okay when the motrin is working, but she is cranky and obviously not feeling well...I am hoping it's not another bacterial infection for her too.
     I am one worn out momma... my heart hurts when I think of my Dad... when I see Kaitlyn struggling with missing him.. when Gabby says "where's Pop-Pop?" or cries and says "oh Pop, oh Pop" how do I comfort her in a way she'll understand? I am physically tired of all the running.. my body is on strike, the fibromyalgia flaring so bad I haven't felt pain like this in a long time... I am about to enter a two and a half year nursing school, and somehow figure out how to make everything fit into my days... to bad cloning is still frowned upon... I could really use another me... or two, to share the work load with.
     So I've been wondering why God seems to have so much faith in me that he feels I could handle all of this.... I realized that two years ago, when Kaitlyn and Dad were both diagnosed, I didn't pull closer and lean on him as I should have... instead I was angry and pulled further away... but I am starting to realize that maybe that's why he keeps piling it on. Maybe he was just waiting for me to figure it out and start coming back to him... saying prayers while keeping my distance just isn't cutting it.