Miracle

If you go to church much or watch Christian television or listen to Christian radio you hear about miracle's happening in people's lives. I've always loved hearing about the amazing things that change people's lives that start with tragedy or something unexpected. I've also wondered how I would respond if I were in their situation and if it happened to me. This week our family had the opportunity to experience our own miracle.

Our youngest son Judah (11 months) was diagnosed with Strep on Tuesday. This was a big relief because now we knew how to treat his illness. Judah was loaded up with some medicine and we were given directions on how to care for him. Things improved immediately for Judah. He began to eat, poop, and pee which were all great signs of his health improving. Wednesday came and he continued to eat, poop, and pee but his energy level was declining and he began to favor his left side and did not like to be touched. We let this go on for a day and then called the Dr's office and got some oral antibiotics. Judah's health continued to decline and eventually we contacted our pediatrician directly. He came to the house on Saturday, Christmas Eve, and suggested we go to the ER.

Fortunately we were just about the only people at the ER at 11am on Christmas Eve and they were able to see Judah quickly. After blood samples, urine samples, saliva samples, and a spinal tap the Dr's decided that Judah had Bacterial Meningitis. We had no idea what Bacterial Meningitis was but by the response of the number of nurses and Dr's that came to the room we knew it was serious. It's not the same Bacterial Meningitis that you see on the news where whole schools and towns are on lock down. This Bacterial Meningitis is NOT contagious and came from the bacteria that was already in Judah. Because of his high temperature and meningitis, Judah had a seizure during the spinal tap. Fortunately, God placed the right people in our lives to explain to us in terms that we understand what it is and what impact it will have on Judah and our family. They did a CAT scan on Judah and moved him to the PICU by 3pm.

I have to pause and let you know that we woke up that morning thinking we would be serving and worshiping at our Christmas Eve services at church. Instead we ended up in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit with a son that had a high chance of dying. It wasn't the plans we had for Christmas Eve.

We had to wait in the PICU waiting room until a second IV line was put in. This process took about 30 minutes. As we are sitting there wondering what is happening and what our future looks like God continued to bring people to encourage us and pray for us. Finally the nurse came to get us and we were able to see Judah. A friend and church leader walked with us and spent time helping us process the situation and praying for us. We only got to stay for a short time before we had to leave the room again. This gave us a chance to move our car from temporary parking and get some clothes. As we were walking to the car we stopped in the hallway and realized that the spirit of God was with us. We were reminded of what God told Moses in Exodus 14 "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still." We could physically feel the spiritual encouragement from all the people praying.

That night was when we saw the first sign of improvement in Judah. Nicole was laying next to him with her latex gloves, germ free suit, and face mask. Judah raised his hand and tried to pull the mask away from Nicole's face. This was the most movement we had seen in several days.

The next day we learned that our PICU Dr would be a lady that attends our church. We were so excited because we had heard great things about her. She came to our room by 9am and gave us the medical plan, that included at least a week in the hospital and then she told us what she would be praying for. Then we held hands and laid hands on Judah and prayed for a supernatural healing. Judah continued to improve and midway through the day he was trying to crawl out of the crib. By that evening they decided he could be moved to the general floor which was a great step in knowing that he was improving. We found out that a part of Judah's recovery there would need to be antibiotics given at home through a PICC line. A PICC line is like an IV but the tube goes from his arm to right above the heart and is intended for longer use. They inserted the PICC line on Monday morning which paved the way for us to talk about going home. Judah was crawling around his crib and would laugh and respond to us. Several Dr's that had seen Judah in the ER and PICU would come visit him and couldn't believe how he had recovered. One Dr made the statement that Judah was a true Christmas miracle and another Dr later said that the only way they were able to explain Judah getting better is by calling it miracle. We stayed one more night and then early Tuesday they let us know we would be going home that day.

Judah's name means "to praise" because in the Old Testament, Genesis 29:35, when Leah gave birth to Judah she said "this time I will praise the Lord." We can't talk about Judah's health and not give God the credit, honor, and glory for what he's doing.

Tim

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