Cleaning and scrubbing will wait ’till tomorrow, but children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow. So quiet down cobwebs! Dust go to sleep! I’m rocking my baby. Babies don’t keep. – Ruth Hamilton

Friday, November 9, 2012

A New Kind of Thankful

It's true...you don't know what you've got till its gone!

Here we were-raising healthy babies....
The night before it all happened.  We taught them how to roast marshmallows
 and out of no where BOOM!
We were in the ICU
 
Recently there was a sick child here in our town that almost died-I knew the family through friends.  They would write updates on Facebook.  The mother wrote about never taking your children for granted. Since that happened, I realized when my children asked for one last kiss and it was time for bed-I gave it to them. You never know when the last snuggle will be!  I thought I realized that before this happened.

I am the first to complain about my kid's actions or how tired I am, but I have changed.  Nothing puts things in perspective like taking care of a sick child.  I truly believe you can't know that until something like this happens and I pray and hope this NEVER happens to ANYONE!

This experience has shown us how blessed we are! Not only do we have three perfect children, we have this amazing community surrounding us. That doesn't mean people who live close to us, it means people from all over. The outreach of prayers has been hard to believe. We didn't know so many people cared! We have had emails, comments here on the blog, phone calls, text messages, churches all over adding him to prayer list...it goes on and on.

This has been hard to comprehend. We have come home to food in our freezer from our sister-in-law, food in the fridge from Nanny, our house was cleaned by our neighbor, and food in the fridge from all my beautiful work family!  Mark and I thank everyone and without each and every one of you, we couldn't have gotten though the last week.  We especially thank my parents for taking our other two kids so we had nothing to worry about at home.  My brother and sister-in-law also helped make that possible so all our attention was able to be on Macklin (plus Avery had a blast with her cousins-this made it a little easier on her).  They did more than we could ever thank them for-family is an amazing thing!  We also have to thank Mark's brother and new wife for taking care of our Cooper dog-I never knew how much I loved him until he's been gone.  Both Mark's brothers also cared for Mama-thank you! 

One thing we have learned is, our united front as parents has been stronger than ever! We have stuck together and made every decision together!

This post may seem random, but there is so much to be said about this experience.  I want Macklin to be able to look back and see how strong he was.  We won't have all the answers for about 6 months, but we learned today how close he was to losing his life.  He is still not out of those woods.  He has to stay away from as many sick people as we can.  This doesn't change too much in his little life except running around town.  His liver is healing and we hope the answers we get will be better than an autoimmune hepatitis-this will require years if not life adjustments-there's even talk about a liver transplant.  Here are some pictures of his journey:
This was his first night in the hospital


Avery and Lincoln got to visit


He got lots of toys to play with

I hate Halloween, but it was very emotional not to let our kids participate in anything.  He did get to put his bag out of his room and the whole hospital came by with treats!


On Halloween night we moved to St. Louis.  This is the ambulance ride.

He didn't have an appetite, so when he wanted strawberries we got him strawberries!  This was after he woke up from the biopsy

The Troness family sent this box of toys-thank you!  Thank goodness for that!

I would bring Avery up in the morning and she spent time with us

The Tripp family sent balloons!  Thank you-they were very entertaining.

Avery loved the bed!
Monday night November 5th-we got released to come home!

These two were so happy!  It's been really hard on Avery

Your first bath since it began

Papa and Mum loved having this time with our babies-they embraced every second...even when they trashed their house, threw up in their new car, and ate ALL their food!


Mum and Papa cancelled their trip to Hawaii, instead Mum got a 60th birthday celebration with ALL her grand babies! And Aunt Sarah made a delicious cake.
From the bottom of hearts- we thank everyone!

2 comments:

  1. So happy to hear you guys are home and how wonderfully you were supported through this time. I hope your answers come sooner rather than later. Kissing my babies tonight.

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  2. I am so happy he is at home! Reading this made me cry! I will continue to keep my baby cousin in my thoughts and prayers! Hope answers will and can be provided sooner then six months! I know this may sound silly but I don't tell my family how much I love them! So Beth I love you so much and really look up to you as a mother! You are an amazing mother and your children are lucky to have you!

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