Sunday, December 20, 2009

A Snag in Our Plans

We hit a very unexpected little snag as we were moving from Florida to Ohio.

We were stopped over at my parents' house in TN (letting the kids celebrate Christmas with the grandparents while Jay was busy driving the moving truck to Ohio). I noticed one morning that baby C had a vey "gunky" eye. Being a mother of 4 youngsters, I thought I knew what the problem was. I figured she had pink eye, and planned to take her to a local pediatrician to get some eye drops.

However, after calling several pediatricians in the area, I was told that they would not see us on a one-time-only basis. So, I took her to a walk-in clinic. However, they also informed me that they would not see her, this time stating that they would not see anyone under 1 year of age. My only other option was to take her to the ER at the local hospital.

Once there, the nurses took baby C's temperature and noticed that she had a slight fever. Due to the fact that she was only 2 weeks old, they informed me that the standard procedure was to transfer her to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital and admit her for a few days while they ran a battery of tests.

I was in complete shock! I mean, I only needed to get some eye drops for her goopy eye! And yet, there we were, en route to Vandy. I called Jay to let him know what was happening, and he immediately left his dad (who would be driving with the moving truck and all of our belongings to our new house in Ohio all by himself now), and changed his route from South Carolina to be with me and baby C at the hospital. He drove for 20 straight hours - from FL to SC to TN - before he finally met up with us at Vanderbilt.

Meanwhile, baby C and I got settled at the hospital, where doctors and nurses quickly hooked her up with an IV, and began drawing blood for the long battery of tests. The biggest shock of all was learning that they were going to do a spinal tap on my precious 2 week old baby to test her for bacterial meningitis. Hearing her screams as they did the spinal tap was the most heartbreaking sound in the world!

Thankfully, my wonderful friend, Tonya (who lives in Nashville), was able to be there to hold my hand and offer some wonderful words of encouragement, since Jay was not able to get there in time. It was really nice to see her after many years of living so far away from each other. And what a blessing she turned out to be, too! She and her husband, Brian, took our younger 3 children to their house to play with their 5 kids, and kept them all overnight, feeding them, buying them gifts, and completely spoiling them for us! It's just so amazing to me how your true friends are never far from your hearts, even when they are far from your house. :o)

We were told baby C must stay at the hospital for at least 48 hours, until the blood test results could come back. Then, as long as all of the tests were negative and everything looked good with her, we would then be permitted to leave, and continue on our way to Ohio. Which is exactly what happened. And, do you know what that goopy eye thing turned out to be? A clogged tear duct, perfectly harmless and completely normal. Something that will eventually clear up on its own. (sigh).

Oh well. God had His reasons for keeping us there longer than we anticipated. It is just so incredible to think about the whole situation and how God's hand was evident throughout it all.

It "just so happened" that baby C ended up going to Vanderbilt - one of the best children's hospitals in the world. We "just so happened" to be in Nashville where all of my friends and family live (and also so I knew my way around the area). My friend Tonya "just so happened" to have that entire week off of work, so that when I called her to help, her schedule was completely clear and she had nothing standing in the way. There are so many "just so happened" things that occurred with this situation, that it is unfathomable to think that it was anything but the hand of Almighty God, making the whole situation as easy as possible for us.

Praise the Lord! :o)

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