5-4-19

Yesterday’s update

Candy- this am 
Guys Walker is fighting an infection, has a fever, stats are dropping, ecmo is up, starting dialysis now instead of tonight. Pray God to kill this infection now, protect and heal his lungs now. He did stand and shuffled a few steps which is great but we need this infection to go away now!

Dave
A snapshot of a day in our current life: yesterday 

I awake at 6am dogs barking as backdoor opens, Candy coming home early from an unsuccessful attempt at staying the night with Walker. Sleeping overnight in hospital has been my job and I sleep there pretty well overall considering. I’m up to walk dogs while Candy get a couple of hours sleep then I’m off to hospital to meet Auntie Gail and a minister for prayer and counsel. 

While in meeting, I text quick note to Candy asking her to take some time to pray to gather some strength and refresh. She immediately calls asking WTF is going on as she thought (lack of sleep) I meant pray now for Walker and she panicked. I had to talk her off the cliff but to no avail as she heard his updated stats and was very!! upset 😡. I decided  heading home now was best to be beside her as we have to stick together when one of us is krumping (as they say in our world). 

On my way out I spot Alex, an awesome chaplain at FH, and ask him to pray with me as prayer seems to be the only thing that helps get thru the day. At home Candy is pissed and very mad at God which I can totally understand. As she says, when will these days in the valley end! How can he be doing this to Walker. His care has gone beyond brutal into cruelty from what we see. We hold each other trembling in angst. What next?

Candy showers and gets dressed to head back to hospital with me early afternoon for which I know her being with Walker is only cure at this moment. We did not speak a word on way there. Seeing Walker is good because his face is bright and eyes blue and he is talking, his voice has gotten much stronger in a few days talking with the traech device. After a few minutes a nurse pops in that we have a visitor, Pastor Becky Davis from FPCO. 

We sit with Becky, who of course is a God send at that moment for Candy, and talk about the reality of being mad at God. She commiserates in understanding saying it’s I-4 these days that tends to push her buttons. She says “God appreciates our pain and can handle whatever we throw at him” even literally. We head into Walkers room and Becky prays with us over him. 

We spend a couple of hours with Walker as he has a fever so bundled up tight and resting. Then we tell him we are going out for a bite and will be back after. He asks that we not be long and to hurry back. I decide familiar is best and we go to one of our favorites, Firebirds right around corner. At 7pm on Friday night as luck would have it we walked right in and our favorite table was open. Sweet! Ahh, the little things. We agree that food doesn’t really taste like much right now and that we really can’t focus on any other subject than Walker.

We decide at dinner that my suggestion to move my office into back of house where Walkers room Is now and to move him up to front bedroom with larger windows and easier access for us is best. This lightens our mood a bit with hope of him coming home. Our dinner is very good, cocktails even better, then we head back to hospital. Sticking together helps us both feel a little bit better.

We get to Walkers room and he is awake and we meet his night nurse. At night they tend to rotate his nursing more than days where he gets a fairly familiar rotation. He asked us for first time “why me?” Which is great because we see him improving his thought process beyond simple commands of pain, cold, nausea and the like. No easy answer of course. He also starts talking about the food channel saying he likes the Greek grape leaf thing with hummus :-). Again, we love to hear him talk about this as it shows he is getting better, getting hungry for some real food!

We tell him it is time that we cannot stay at night anymore as the docs and family have recommended we give him space and get better rest for days ahead. He asks me to stay, but I say no and he wants us to promise to come early. This he repeats several times before we leave. We head out doing the blue mile shuffle back to our car in silence. Our roller coaster day is coming to an end off to bed to do it again today. And the beat goes on......