Thinking Positive

This past week has been very stressful, depressing and sleepless, however it's starting to look like light really is at the end of the tunnel.

Opa is recovering amazingly well from the mass heart-attack, pneumonia, bladder infection AND blood infection. All of his infections are gone and he's getting better each and every day now. He's still quite weak and is working at gaining his strength back. He's still struggling with walking, it's a huge effort for him to walk a few feet to the door of his hospital room and back to his bed. But, hopefully his strength will return with time and he will be able to come home soon. He's trying and that's what matters. He needs lots of rest and is getting the treatment he needs where he is. Opa has Alzheimer's and that is making it difficult for his doctors and nurses to treat him. He may say he is in pain one minute, and the next he says he isn't. Thankfully his nurses and doctors are so understanding and are really great working with him! Sadly, he doesn't remember when family has been up to the hospital to visit him and desperately calls his nurse and asks her where we are. It's heart-breaking to see him be as sick as he was, so weak and disoriented. I am SO thankful and amazed he's getting so much better and is recovering so wonderfully. I love him with all of my heart and cannot wait for him to be recovered enough to go home. ~~~I love you Opa, Stay strong. <3 ~~~

Although Opa is getting better and stronger, a new tiny un-born family member is facing some life-threatening medical issues. My cousin and her husband are just over 5 months pregnant with their second child. My cousin has a rare disease called Lupus, it effects all different parts of her body and can cause a lot of strange things to happen and is life-threatening if it isn't taken care of properly. Her last pregnancy was great! She felt pretty darn good and there was no issues with the lupus. However, this time it's a whole other story. Lupus can cause problems with pregnancy and the un-born child.

Last week Jen and her husband went to their ultrasound appointment hoping to find out the gender of their baby, but all too quickly the gender didn't matter anymore... the tech said the baby's heart rate was 58, so a doctor checked it and heard 121 and told them not to panic. Over the next couple of days it was discovered that their baby has a heart issue caused by the lupus. Basically it killed the natural pacemaker in the bottom 2 chambers of the heart. So the tech heard the bottom two chambers and the doctor heard the top two. If the baby's bottom 2 chambers drop below 55 Jen may lose the baby. The doctors said it was a 1 in 4 million chance the baby would develop this condition, but it's happened. The baby will be delivered at 32 weeks by c-section and under-go surgery to have a pacemaker put in.

It's a long road ahead, but I know together, as a family we will all be there for eachother and help eachother out! Maybe they can't do it alone, but we as a family CAN and WILL get through this!