Time keeps on slippin'

Time gets weird in the ICU. I find it difficult to grasp that we have been here for fourteen days now. It seems like just yesterday that we rode the ambulance over from Donalsonville. And then again it feels like forever since the BAD day.

Even though the doctors won’t use the word stable, we had hoped that after the orotracheal intubation and the insertion of the chest tube things would settle down a bit and Patty could begin to rest and heal.

Not to be.

On Tuesday afternoon, April 13, we had our worst crisis yet. Patty’s blood oxygen level and blood pressure suddenly and drastically dropped. This was probably caused by a pulmonary embolism. They had to remove Patty from the ventilator and manually “bag” her for over an hour before being able to stabilize her vitals and reconnect the ventilator.

The dedicated health care professionals did not give up and saved Patty’s life.

That was the worst day for me. I had convinced myself that this was “just the flu” and after a few days it would run its course and we would go home. This is not “just the flu”. This is the hellfire and brimstone of influenza.

So we count the days in many ways. Fourteen days in ICU on the Ventilator. Hospitalized for sixteen days. Fifteen days since I last was able to talk to Patty. Twenty days since she first became ill. Twenty one days since we last did a P90X workout. How many more days we’ll count only God knows.

Then I think about how this time has gone for Patty. The Doctor says that she’ll not remember any of this. But I cannot imagine what she is going to think when I tell her, “Patty, you’ve been here, unconscious for ­­­_______ weeks." Life was progressing along fairly routinely and then BAM, struck by lightning.

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture--"I believed, and so I spoke"--we also believe, and so we speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

(2Co 4:7-18 NRSV)

Amen.