Through the Valley of the Shadow #2

Now these will be some excerpts from my prayer journal:

Within 45-50 minutes from the time we had walked into the ER, they had changed the cath lab schedule ….moving someone back who was not an emergency…and had him in there doing a procedure on him. That was the next sign of His sovereignty.

As the word got out through the church rapidly, friends started showing up immediately. O LORD, what peace You were giving to me. Thank You. And from that moment when I knew You were telling me to bring him here to the heart hospital, I lived in the grace of Your sovereignty. We were all praying that You would guide Dr Kerns and help him to do whatever needed to be done. He came out pretty quickly to tell us that he could not get into the whole heart because there were some blood clots that prevented him from looking down vessels and arteries to see where the damage was. He was disappointed, but had left the sheath in his leg artery to try it again the next day after getting him on blood thinners to try to dissolve the clots. And since the creatinine serum in his kidney was elevated, he wanted to flush out the dye from it as much as possible because he was a candidate for kidney failure. And in order to feel safe to go into the artery again the next day and inject more dye, he was concerned that the kidney needed to be at a lower level of the serum.

So the next prayer was for the clots to dissolve and the serum level to decrease. The next morning they took him again for another angiogram to put the stents into the arteries Dr Kerns knew needed them. He came back out to us pretty quickly and told us that he could not even get the scope to the heart this time because his artery was so twisted with a 360 degree revolution. He was not sure if he couldn’t get through because the sheath had perforated the artery, or that it was just so kinked that he could not get it straightened with the instrument to go in and look to see if the clots had dissolved. He was disappointed and was now more concerned about the kidneys, because he was going to have to have dye twice in two days. Only this time it was to take a CT scan to see why he couldn’t get through and to see if the left leg was as twisted an artery as the right. So, by now Monty had to lay flat on his back with his right leg perfectly straight for 36 hours. Two nights now had been miserable with no sleep. He was so uncomfortable……..and they still had not been able to do anything for his heart attack damage.

Well, more and more people were contacting us, praying, coming by and calling or emailing. IT was such a blessing to be able to tell them that I was living in the reality of Your sovereignty and that I truly was fine through it all. I know that You are my sufficiency and adequacy. I love You, LORD.

They finally were able to come in and take out the sheath from the femoral artery, which was excruciatingly painful for Monty. He has already endured so much.

Kaylyn and Gwyneth arrived from Denver around 7:30 P.M. It is good to have them here with us. Gwyneth wanted to stay the night with him so I could go home and get some sleep, after being up for two nights in a row.

On Wednesday morning, Monty was sitting up in bed. It was such a pleasant surprise. He was getting tired and wanted to lie back down in bed. The nurse had said that she thought their plan was to get him on the right blood thinners, and the right blood pressure medicine and get his kidneys safe again by flushing him with fluids….. since he had the dye the second time for the CT scan………which had shown that they could not go through the left femoral artery either because his just happened to be made that way…………..kinky and twisted. So the only other way was to try the brachial artery in the arm which is much smaller and a little more difficult. But they would wait and have us go home on the meds and then come back in a week.

Once again, that was their plan and not Yours. Already we had asked that they would be able to get into the heart the first time. You said “No!” and I believe that was from You and for Your glory and purposes. You needed more time to do what You wanted to do with this whole situation. They tried the 2^nd time and again, You said “No!” And this 3rd time, they had their plans, to send us home for a week..... .and You said “No!” Which I am so glad that You are in control!!! All of a sudden Monty began feeling pain in his chest and was once again saying he was “uncomfortable”. This time when they asked him how bad, he was he said that it was about a 3 in pressure.

At that very time, You had it such that Dr Kerns was walking onto the floor to come and check on Monty. They immediately began doing the EKG and other tests. When Dr Kerns saw that there was no significant change in his EKG, or blood stats, he said that he sees nothing happening that says he is having another attack, but that he cannot ignore the pain in his chest. He prepared us very frankly that he did not know if he would be able to get into the heart with the scope and stents because.... first, he didn’t know if those veins were kinky. He didn’t know if the clots had dissolved and he didn’t know if he would have to cut him open and do an emergency by pass, or if he would die!! He just said it that plainly…………he just didn’t know what he would find, but he did know that he could not ignore that he was having pressure.

He was going to check to see how crowded their schedule was in the cath lab and get him scheduled as soon as possible. It was about 9:25 Wednesday morning. He came right back in and said that they had him scheduled for 11:00 a.m., but that he wanted it done sooner than that. Not even 5 minutes had gone by when a tech came in to prep him for his procedure that was going to be at 10:15!!! Only 45 minutes from then and a total of one hour from when he had that first mention of chest pressure. Once again, LORD, You were sovereign over the whole thing. But this time, we said our good-byes to him……….Rachel, Nick, Kaylyn, Gwyneth and I. (Philip, Christina and the girls are skiing in CO with Gwyneth's four children and Erik!!). It was an emotional time because we really did not know what we were facing for sure…………………..but YOU DID!!! {NOTE: Something weird happened with the font here and I can't seem to fix it!! Sorry!! Too late}

By 10:45 the pager went off that Dr Kerns was ready to meet with us……….Kelley joined us to take notes once again and be our secretary on the details. The first words out of Dr. Kerns’ mouth were “The LORD was with me!” He was able to get straight into the heart, the bigger clots had dissolved, he was able to put in the two stents in the LAD artery and clean up most everything. It could not have gone better. Praise You, LORD!!! That was in answer to the many prayers of many righteous people whom You dearly love and who dearly love You!!! Thank You for such great news. What a glorious celebration!

(This is a good place for me to say Good Night!!. I don't know what time this blog says, but my clock is saying 12:27 a.m. More later!!!)