Just another day in West Texas...

National Weather Service Warning:
20 FOOT WINDS OF 20 MPH OR GREATER...MINIMUM RELATIVE HUMIDITY OF 10 PERCENT OR LESS...AND VERY HIGH FIRE DANGER...THESE CONDITIONS...WHEN COMBINED WITH THE VERY DRY FUELS AND VERY HIGH FIRE DANGER...WILL CREATE A FAVORABLE ENVIRONMENT FOR RAPID FIRE GROWTH AND SPREAD THIS AFTERNOON.

Notice that there is no rain in sight. I do not think that it has rain here since last October or November.

When the Weather Channel shows its wind speed it is typically very conservative, but here is what they mean to say:
20+ mph wind = don't go outside!
15-20 mph wind = bearable, but still very annoying
10-15 mph wind = what most people consider to be a windy day, but to us here in West Texas it is just another day full of dust in yer teeth!

Enjoy!
Taylor

A Return to "Normalcy"

Yeah, right! What is "normal" anyway?

We are out of the hospital. Glory is doing fine. She was a bit traumatic upon leaving the hospital, but she is doing much better now. The grass fire ended up being closer than 1 mile from our house, but all is well. I am headed to class in a few minutes (waiting in the van until the parking police leave so that I can park on campus "after hours"), Alesha is home working on setting up the house, we are waiting to close our mortgage deal and be fully settled in our new home. Levi really likes running around the house hearing himself echo (without any furniture the house is very echoy), but his is also a bit insecure. Perhaps in about a month we will have everything back in order...or under construction again, whichever comes next.

I am off to class. I will try to get some pictures up and more postings soon!
Enjoy!
Taylor

The Hospital Adventure, part VII

Yea! Glory's chest tube is out!

Now everything is not all back to normal and may not be for some long time. One doctor commented that it may take until mid-April before both lungs were completely normal again.

We will remain at the hospital for a bit longer, while the doctors monitor Glory's vital signs.

In the meantime, as we eagerly await to move into our house on Monday...we are hearing reports of a very large grass fire consuming much of the area of southern Snyder (the last report I received was that the grass fire was about 2 miles from our house).

The Lord's will be done in all things,
Taylor

The Hospital Adventure, part VI

Greetings, friends. Glory is still recovering and we will likely be here through the weekend, which is what we would have expected. We do hope to see some more progress and therefore a glimmer of hope in leaving soon, but thus far she is steady in her fluid output. Talking with Dr. Kerr, this means that her pneumonia is still active and hurting her body. The longer we are here in the hospital, the greater the chances become of some other complication arising. So while I have been mentioning Glory's progress, we still do have some great concerns for her well being.

Additionally, Glory has been hurting more. Not with some great dramatic pain, but I am told that the chest tubes are very uncomfortable. We are currently considering if and what stronger pain medications would be acceptable for her.

Finally, Alesha and I are slowly wearing down. Alesha more so than myself, but then Alesha is caring for the little baby in her womb too. I have not been able to discuss with her our future plans to remedy this, but I do know that the Lord Jesus will give us strength to over come and wisdom to know what to do...it seems to be our turn to listen to him, and then obey*.

*Dear sinner, have you learned to obey the voice of the great Physician? Have you felt how comforting his tender, loving hands can be on your soul? Even in times of difficulty, he can bring relief. If not, or if you are confounded as to how we are doing so well mentally in this trying time, then please let me know and let us reason together about the wonderful grace of Jesus, or else I pray that the hound dog of heaven shall pursue you.

In the comforting care of the Creator of life,
Taylor

The Hospital Adventure, part V

For the past two days, Glory has been feeling much better. She has had several visitors and her room looks like a festive event more than a hospital room. We are glad to see Glory walking around some also.

Recently (since yesterday evening), she has been having some additional pain in her back and side. There could be several reasons for this. We are hoping that this extra pain is due to her greater mobility, but there could be other confounding issues too. There is still a significant amount of air in her chest cavity that needs to come out and she is still pumping out about 100cc of yucky fluids a day.

Again, we are very thankful for Glory's desire to get up and walk around (this will help get more fluids out of her body), but we are also not a little concerned about her pain.

-Taylor

P.S. - These posts may be a bit sporadic the next couple of days as I will be working and traveling between here and Snyder a lot to get our house complete.

Oh, by the way...

...we are moving today.
(The house that is.)

The Hospital Adventure, part IV

7:20am
My mornings are getting later and later, so I guess that this is a good sign. Glory is now on a regular schedule of pain relief medication. This has really helped her "feel" better.

Yesterday, we saw several visitors. First, Pa and Grandma Miller came by with lots of gifts from different people. (I am not one for "lots of gifts" being needlessly wasted, but Glory really reacted well to them.) When she saw all of the people that were considerate of her*, it seemed to give her that "feel good" sort of feeling. She sat up (past her nap) and played for a couple of hours. Levi came and I had a great time seeing him again. He and I walked all around the hospital, played in the playroom, and overall had a wonderful time together. (I was very sad to see him leave.)

When Glory woke up she had another visitor. It was a dog. I cannot recall the name of the ministry, but they were allowed to bring a dog in to help cheer up the patients. Glory seemed to like the dog, but she did not think that it was as unusual as I did. (Glory is around dogs all the time, so dogs in the hospital is no big deal, right?) Then my cousin David stopped by to see Glory. By this time Glory was feeling much better and wanted to go see this "playroom" that Levi and I played in all afternoon...you see, no one had told Glory that there was a playroom in the hospital! Also understand that getting approval to go wander around is not trivial either, but at the time we had a great nurse who worked with the doctors to allow Glory to be disconnected from several of her "wires" to make the trip to the playroom easier. Thus I carted Glory around the playroom in a wagon while we visited with David and his friend.

Last night was Alesha's turn to stay up with Glory. Talking with her this morning, she reported that Glory slept quite well.

*By the way, we do check our e-mail, and several people are communicating with Glory via our e-mail. It is nice, because she can read (and respond) to the e-mails when she is feeling good. So feel free to e-mail Glory through one of us and we will pass the message on and you will likely receive a response. (This was Auntie M's idea and Glory has communicated with quite well with her for some time now.)

"Sometimes I feel discouraged,
And think my work's in vain,
But then the Lord, my Shepherd,
Revives my soul again."

Enjoy!
Taylor

The Hospital Adventure, part III

6:30am
We are now on "the floor". The room is much larger and will accommodate guests (and sleeping parents) better than the ICU. Glory's side and the right side of her chest, mostly in the back, are hurting fairly regularly now. I am told that this is partly because she is starting to feel the pain of the tube in her chest better because she is not as exhausted as she was when she first came in. Last night we had some difficulty going to sleep*, but by 2am she was too tired to care about the pain in her side and slept through until now.

Not much else is going on now. We are just waiting, watching, and playing with Glory. Glory's Uncle J has been a regular visitor. We are expecting to see Pa and Grandma Miller later today. I know that we will all be very glad to see Levi. Glory has asked about him, and I sure to miss his hugs. Also with the Miller's visit we will get some much needed supplies ( new clothes!).

Oh! One last thing. We do have a room phone now and hope to have our cell phone charger later today. We would be glad to hear from you.

enJOY!
Taylor

A Father's Hand

This morning as I watched Glory sleep with my hand on her chest I began to think about the part of her body that is in such distress: her lungs. I looked at her chest. I looked my hand. I watched her breathe. I felt her chest raise and lower with each breath. I then realized that her lungs, both of then, could probably rest fairly easily in the palm of my hand. Then I pictured her lungs resting in my hands and wondered what they would look like and what I could do with them. It did not take long to realize that there is absolutely nothing that I could physically do to help my child, but there is someone who can. There is someone who knows exactly what is going on inside Glory Lynn and he knows exactly what she needs. He has Glory's precious life in his caring hands.

I have read about many different gods in my short life and I have sought after some of them. But only one of them has the strong, yet tender hands of my God, my Savior, and my Lord. My God is a God whom I serve. I have yielded my life and all of my desires to Him. My only desire is to do what he asks of me. This is why I call him, Lord.

So as I sit here I think about people in a similar situation who begin to wonder, "Why has God done this? Why does he allow this to happen to me?" I do not wonder at this. Primarily, because I am confident in my God that he is still in control of life and will take or leave Glory's life according to his divine purposes. However hard that may be, we are accepting of this. Second, God did not create sickness, disease, and suffering of any kind. These sort of "evils" have happened because we (man) has decided to live without God. Suffering, death, and all manner of evil entered this world only AFTER man, Adam, chose to leave God. In other words: after SIN. Now that sin has entered the world, we all be bear its burden, because in all honesty, "none is good...no, not one"!

Sin and disease may take a hold of Glory for now, but we rest assured that the Lord Jesus Christ has the final say in issues of life and death. Dear reader, I do not know you nor where you stand with my God, but I would plead with you to consider where you stand. Where will you be if you were do die tomorrow, and then how do you know if what you are believing is true?

I thank you again for you prayers, and in turn I will be praying for each of you that you also learn of your wretchedness and then seek resolution with the forever assurance of the only true God in the Bible.

-Taylor

The Hospital Adventure, part II

It is 4:40am and everything seems to be going well. I woke up from my first straight 8-hour sleep in 4 days at 4:00am. I was leaving Jeremy's place at 4:09am and arrived at the hospital around 4:20am to find my family sleeping. There is a cot in Glory's room to sleep in, but with Glory, nurses, and "beep, beeps" it does tend to keep you up at regular intervals. Evidently, Glory would not go back to sleep without having Alesha nearby, so Alesha is curled up at the end of Glory's bed...very cute indeed, but it doesn't make for a very good night sleep. Tonight she will go to a friend's house to get a better rest and I will stay here at the hospital. David, our friend and doctor recommended to me that, since we will be here for many days, that we should alternate getting rest outside of the hospital.

It seems that Glory's white blood cell count is up. This is a good indicator that the antibiotics are doing something good against the pneumonia. One of the hardest parts about Glory recovery is to watch and even encourage here to cough. Coughing will help get the "junk" out of her lungs, but coughing is very painful for Glory (and Papa).

Oh, about the not getting 8-hours of sleep at night comment above: since Glory has been coughing (last Tuesday...before we were in the hospital), she had been waking up coughing and one or both of us would go to her and encourage her to go back to sleep. My typical nightly schedule was to check on Glory at 7pm (bedtime), 11pm, 3am, and 7am. Alesha checked in on Glory more often though.

We are hoping to move out of the ICU and on to "the floor" early this morning. (Some one who understands hospital talk should better describe to you what "the floor" really is, but I will give it a try.) The Floor is what you may think of as a "normal" hospital bedroom where visitors would come and see you. After a pregnancy, it is where you would go to see the mother and baby. The patients on the floor are not in critical condition and do not need to be monitored as closely as in ICU. We have enjoyed our time with the staff (and the unmonitored fridge with lots of chocolate milk!) here in the ICU, but we will be glad to move out. I will let you know what it is like when we get there.

Thank you for your prayers. We are joyful to have the one true God, the Lord Jesus Christ to be in complete control of our life, and we fully accept the lot that he has for us.
***(more on this later)

-Taylor

The Hospital Adventure, part I

We finally did it (and just in time too)! Glory had been battling with flu-like symptoms for 11 days. While this may seem like a long time, we had reports that this year's flu was lasting 9-10 days. So on day 12 of Glory's flu we decided to take her into the clinic to have Dr. Dave examine her. The last 3-4 days of the flu she had been having a severe cough and it did not seem to be getting better.

Praise God that we took her when we did! It appeared that Glory had a significant amount of fluid in her lungs. (David told me that it is not uncommon for pneumonia to follow the flu.) We were sent off to the Snyder ER where Glory was put on a ambulance on its way to Lubbock for further care. This indeed was another blessing, because we would really have rather stayed in Snyder, but upon arriving at the Children's ER and eventually the ICU (Intensive Care Unit), we realized that this was a good decision. The nursing staff and facilities were wonderfully prepared to handle young children...hence "pediatrics".

Dr. Tiva (that is not really his name, but that is what he goes by...it is MUCH easier to say) and his staff did a great job with Glory. The Lord truly did bless us all when Dr. Tiva inserted a larger chest tube to pull excess air out of Glory's chest...hmmm, perhaps I should back up a bit...after several x-rays and a CT scan, we saw that Glory had three major issues:
1) her right lung had caved-in
2) it was being squished by some air that had leaked out of the lung after her severe coughing (there was evidently a hole in her lung)
3) her lungs have a bacterial infection...pneumonia
...so when the chest tube was put into Glory, several "bad" things could have happened, but by the wonderful love of God one of the best things did happen...the air came out and her lung expanded back to its normal size (or at least mostly normal size).

Now Glory and Alesha are sleeping well and we will just have to wait and see how well/fast Glory will recover from her pneumonia. Also, please pray that the hole in her lung will heal soon. Assuming all things go well, we are looking at spending the next week in the hospital, but it can very easily be longer.

We are very thankful at the quick diagnosis and progress that Glory has had these last 12 hours and we are looking forward to shining God's light to the people whom we get to interact with while at the hospital.

-Taylor
Posted at 3:30am

Colors

Well, the floor man is sick so the electricians are installing the hardware. Countertops are in place too. This should be the last time we see the house "under construction" before they move it. When I go up next week it should be finished and possibly loaded on the truck to move on Wednesday morning.

-Taylor

Toys for Tots

Since Feb 1st, Alesha and/or Glory have been sick...or at least not 100%. Currently, Glory seems to have the flu...fever and aches a lot. Levi and I have had to manage on our own...we took the girls to the grandparents so that we would not have to do too much house work! ;-)

Also, perhaps to cheer everyone up a bit, I decided to buy a toy. This toy is a 1979 Jeep CJ. It needs some cosmetic reconditioning, but it does seem to run well. Levi, Alesha, and I think that it is great...Glory has been too sick to comprehend its full benefits. At one time, Alesha and I agreed that it would be nice to have a small vehicle for me to putter back and forth to work in since we live so far out of town, then Alesha and the kids would have a ways to also get into town for various activities. Well, over time this thought evolved into a Jeep, so after looking into it and praying about it some we found one and got it. (Please pray that Lord Jesus helps it to run well and for me to not roll it over.)

-Taylor

More Pictures

Well the house is coming along...SO SLOWLY!!!...it seems. Here is a picture of the stain...not too exciting, but it is progress. The painting is done and on Monday the flooring and countertop people are scheduled to come.

What is exciting is that Samsung could not figure out what was wrong with our camera...so they gave us a new one. It is newer and more high-tech than our previous one so that is a plus, but I am fearful that it is too good for us in our rugged lifestyle, but we will see if Alesha can handle all of the added features...including the touch screen...oooo, scary!

-Taylor