God Math

These last few months have felt like an eternity. Time has dragged in my heart like i cant explain.

If i were to look back over the fall, time appeared to be flying around me while i stood still in agony. Soccer season came and went. The girls are doing so well in athletics it is wonderful. Luke and Logan have both become pro scooter riders, and man, can Logan ride that tricycle! I changed jobs completely and took on a Holiday Sales Lead roll at Bath and Body Works and even changed malls. Joel had two major surgeries and his parents were here for two whole weeks. All the while nothing changed. Weight quit increasing in November, bowels were not regulated and bloatingcoupled long nights returned.

We see a specialist every four weeks for "maintenance". What it is that's working so well that we need to maintain it, i haven't figured out yet... but we go and get new mirilax adjustments and a fresh game plan at minimum.

At December's visit i asked why we hadn't ever followed his digestion from the top down to confirm its functioning was proper. So we did. Luke hung out with a nurse that was into "life savers" aka light sabers and Logan drank his nasty drink so we could make sure there weren't any glitches in the track. The Radiologist hung his head as he said "i know you wanted something from this, but honestly its perfect." I had told him about our journey and to be disappointed that your child is healthy on the scan is a scary place to be. I am learning to be more cautious about the amount of eggs i put in one basket... but i just want to make him better. Admittedly i am reaching at this point. I just want him to wake up and be fixed. My mind has expanded in ways i never imagined. The perfectly designed plumbing of our bodies is just beautiful!..... I just have to find what isn't quite doing its job in Logan's body.

Saying "I" isn't exactly true but soon you will hear how God is giving me guidance through people in my path because I am so lost in the "where to next" phase.

After the Jacksonville visit tunred out to not be the earth shaking appointment i thought it would be, i wept. A careful friend guided me back to words of encouragement instead of defeat. That very same friend happens to be a pediatric nurse. She texted me 3-4 weeks ago with a condition she wanted me to check out. The connections were just to close to ignore. Hirshsprungs Disease.

Another friend from the high school stage in our lives had suggested these very same two words a few months back, but with the being over whelmed with the actual symptom management i hadn't ever asked about it.

This last Saturday Joel called me at work... which he almost never does... and asked me to come home. Logan was screaming in the back ground and he said we have to give him an enema... its been two days.  My sweet, recently turned two, little guy has learned that there is something in his milk and now will just not drink it. The very same milk that is approx $12 a bottle, so we aren't fighting him and putting it in there for him to waste... we instead are trying to introduce other beverages we could hide it in. Complicating it even more, we are only supposed to give him pediasure or water. So finding something that wont break the rules terribly because sugar causes diarreah and apple juice causes gas etc etc etc is hard.

I worked a short shift Sunday and was just going to swing by our small group gathering a few minutes. The topic of our discussion wasn't planned to be about tithing but it kept turning back in that direction and the phrase "God Math" kept coming up. No matter what the paper says some how things just work out. When you give God back what is His, it comes back in ways unexplainable... in ways only explained by God planning... God Math.

Still while i just listened i heard "its mine". And out of no where our leader (relevant to what they were talking about) said, while looking me square in the face, "Gods got this". No one in that room knew that this weekend had been a rough one for little Logan. Joel and the kids had in fact stayed home from small group Sunday. We stood to pray and since i had missed prayer requests, i just shot out that Logie had an appointment the next day and i was going to ask for a new test to be done and to investigate a new scenario. Hirshrpungs Disease.

Across the room a member and pediatric nurse from our group bolted from her chair and said OH NICKIE!!! She darted to the other room and ran back with a piece of note book paper with two words across the top. HIRSHSPUNGS DISEASE. With specific tests to run and and corrective procedures and suggested care tactics all listed below. All hand written because her printer was acting up. Each letter on that page was meant for me to see.

While Joel's parents were here i had shared the condition with them and was just terribly nervous that i was going to get bogged down in the medical jargon and would get blown off because i wasn't asking the right questions. Now, in my hand were the questions to be asked. Written in understandable medical mumbo jumbo :) Hand written just for me. While we prayed i began to weep. Now it began to add up. My job at Gymboree wasn't patient with Logan being sick. So God opened a door literally with in days for the BBW position to take shape. The position also had an end date, from the beginning. A date that carried us thru Christmas and two surgeries and eight extra hands to carry us thru the season. Between September and December, my dad has been here several times, my mom has helped on weekends and Joel's parents stayed two weeks. Any other time of the year i wouldn't have been able to do it. 

November brought a few ounces of weight gain and moderate complications with our regimen but was manageable. December was a roller coaster all on its own account. Joel and i struggled to keep our heads in the game as a team and to keep everything running smoothly. Four kids is no joke and when you add two jobs and extra curriculars plus little sleep it is no picnic.

So as i sat on my bed in the darkness Sunday night i just begged God for peace of mind, a confident tongue and a CALM that could only be explained by knowing what was best for my child. I know where it all came from but i wanted the staff i would confront the next day to know that i had a power behind me that wasn't worth pushing. I needed them to hear me out.

Arrived early at the office. Since i am never ANYWHERE early, i felt like i was on the greatest track i could be on. "He's got this" i kept saying. I signed in almost shaking. Then i sat for thirty minutes. Was moved to a room and sat another thirty minutes. Meanwhile my very lethargic toddler was laying on his blanket on the floor. Very clearly displaying how he felt. It was like I was in God"s holding tank. Long enough to settle. i played games on my phone, reread my paper and then began to listen to the voices outside of my door. DR Rittmeyer and the FNP were outside discussing Logan.

I couldn't make anything specific out and this drove me crazy but they talked FOREVER!!! in reality it couldn't have been that long but i couldn't focus on their words. My mind was blank. I couldn't even create an imaginary conversation in my head. There is was a big. fat. nothing.

The FNP came in and reviewed the weekends upsets and our care measures and i said i would like to move in a different direction... she interrupted and said Dr Rittmeyer and i would like to test for HIRSHSPRUNGS DISEASE. My heart stopped. I wasn't sure if i was going to vomit or laugh and wail. But there is was, everything i wanted to say! She began to ask me questions almost as if she was reading my paper. Now my heart was racing.

None of it added up before now. On paper nothing that was happening was making any sort of sense. Every single detail had to happen to lead them to " different angle". Each obstacle that made me angry because of the discomfort Logan had to endure led me here. Each person that God placed in my path to suggest this specific testing was spaced just perfectly so that it was such a clear indicator of where the answer came from.

God Math

i am waiting for a date and time of the first biopsy and then if unsuccessful-- she warned me pretty heavily that it might be unsuccessful--we do another biopsy in the following days. Alesha the FNP isn't convinced this is the answer but opposed to the trial and error mirilax plan she has in her mind for the next year this sadly sounds better for logie. If the biopsy doesn't reveal HIRSHSPRUNGS maybe there will be something else of note from it. No matter what the results there is still a long path ahead. However it might add up to me, well or not add up. i have to believe no matter what that "he's got this"

God math doesn't equal understanding, but I believe that it equals Peace that surpasses understanding.

⁶ Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; ⁷ and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7