Wash Your Hands

We are currently at day 27 in the hospital. Titus was moved out of the ICU last Friday afternoon and is now in a regular room on the Pediatric Floor (6th floor at Medical City Childrens). We should have known to expect that he would be moved to a regular room just hours before the parenting conference began at FBC Frisco, but Becky's mom came up to sit with him so that Becky could be there to assist in kicking off the conference.

Now that he is in a regular room, a family member needs to be with him around the clock. And our transition of care has gone back to our regular pediatrician instead of the host of pediatricians who worked on the PICU floor. This means, the pediatrician generally comes around once a day instead of multiple times. We still have a dedicated nurse, but instead of just taking care of 2 patients, she may have numerous patients to care for. And, since it's a regular hospital room, we have to be there to watch his monitors and how he is doing.

They are stilling giving him a very small dose of methadone every 12 hours to wean him off of all the sedatives he had. We are hoping that will end tomorrow since he seems to be fine without it. He will need to be off the methadone prior to coming home, so this will be one milestone.

We are working on getting his feeding schedule back to a 3 hour feeding schedule. He had been on a continuous feed for weeks, but we are breaking him back in to regular feeds. Yesterday they fed him a small amount every one hour, today they are feeding a larger amount every 2 hours and hopefully tomorrow he will be back to regular 3 hour feedings.

He is still on a very low setting of oxygen. We have been taking the oxygen off every few hours to see how he does, but his oxygen saturation will start to dip, so after 30-45 minutes, we put it back on. They are more concerned about his breathing at night since we all tend to breath more shallow in the evenings. This is the biggest milestone we need to achieve before bringing him home - weaning him off of the oxygen. I'm hoping that getting him off of the methadone will help this.

The last several days, Titus has had a sporadic fever that will spike up and then go down. His blood levels are not showing infection and they have on a general antibiotic, but they aren't sure why he is running the fever.

But, aside all of that, he is alert, happy (most of the time), and responding to us when we hold him. We do not know when he will be able to come home, but we do know the milestones that he needs to achieve. As the doctors continue to remind us, he is making baby steps and progress.

I have to admit, that I do not think that I have ever washed my hands so much in my life. When we are at the hospital, we are constantly washing our hands and putting on the anti-bacterial gel. While in the NICU, we had to scrub for 3 minutes prior to entering, robe up when reaching his room, wash hands again when we entered, after we touched Titus, and when we left his room. Every time! It has now become such a routine outside of the office. Gone are the days when I thought my morning shower kept me clean for the day. I am now in a constant state of washing, drying, putting on anti-bacterial gel.

Why do we do it? to keep the germs off of me and away from Titus.

And, when I equate germs to sin, I have to think - am I doing the same? Am I confessing my sin when reminded or just whenever its convenient? Am I obeying what I'm told to do even when I don't feel like it? Do I follow the instruction laid down before me or deviate to do what is convenient?

When I think of washing my hands, I think of the story of Naaman (2 Kings 5), the commander of the army of Aram. A great man, A respected man, A valiant soldier, and a very sick man with leprosy. His money could not buy the health he needed. He didn't want to do what Elijah told him to do until persuaded. I often wonder why Elijah told him he had to wash 7 times in the Jordan (that's a lot of washing). It would seem like once would have been enough. But doing something 7 times requires obedience, it requires stamina, it requires commitment, it requires a desire to be healed - to be clean.

When I get tired of washing my hands for the umpteenth time during the day, I'm reminded that obedience is never easy. It takes work, consistentcy, commitment - even when I'm tired, even when I don't want to do it, even when I think it doesn't make sense to me.

Please pray for these things this week.

• Titus breathing gain strength to keep his oxygen saturation levels up without having to be given oxygen
• Titus fever will go away or fight off whatever it's fighting.
• Titus feedings schedule to be renewed back to every 3 hours and that he will begin to gain weight again
• Rest and peace as one of us it at the hospital all the time. Becky has been staying there the last several nights. She hasn't gotten a lot of rest the last couple of nights with nurses coming in, or monitors going off.
• Comfort for Aidan, Noah, Tucker & Cade - they continue to maintain a good attitude, but it's very hard when they only see one of us for a few minutes each day. We miss our boys - and they miss us.
• Paul's work schedule - the last 2 weeks have been incredibly busy at work preparing for meetings all this week. His work should ease up a bit next week, but last week and this week have been incredibly busy with little room for error (and when you are tired, that makes it all the more difficult).

Last of all, thanks for your prayers for the All About Attitude conference this past weekend. We had a great conference. It is a joy to have a team of volunteers who did it ALL. It was another lesson for me in letting go and trusting in delegation, but everything went without a hitch and as planned. And it was great to see so many friends.