I live in fear; moment to moment, day to day, week to week. Fear that another bad day will come. Or, that a really bad day will come. I want so very much for Lea to make steady progress to recovery, and yet I have a fear that she will have another setback; maybe worse than the last one.

And, yet, I know the scriptures about trust and dependence on God based on the fact that we take Him at His word and believe what He has said. Fear has to be the opposite of Faith, and yet, I can feel both at the same time. I feel a great fear that I might lose Lea, and yet, have an inner peace knowing that if I do lose her, she will be in a better place, and that we have already cleaned the slate and expressed our lifelong love for each other.

This became clear to me as I sat here in my room, less than a block from her, knowing that I had almost lost her twice in the last 12 hours, and yet, I can walk away and trust her in the hands of His caregivers at the hospital. My intention is to post this update and retire to my bed for a few hours sleep. Then, I will take up the moment-to-moment challenges again tomorrow, just to be with her.

I have a well rooted peace deep inside simply because I know that at some time past God chose to set his love on me. Not for anything good in me, nor for anything good I ever did, certainly, but simply because he chose to love me. When I accepted Jesus as my personal savior years ago, I knew that I had entered God’s grace only because He had allowed me to. And, when Lea was baptized I knew that she was joining me there, too.

It is because of that inner peace I know that in addition to my romantic attachment to Lea I enjoy so much here, we will meet again one day in Paradise, and that we will rejoice and praise God for what we had here, and what we will have there. Still, I love so much about Lea that I could not lose her without grieving my personal loss horribly. I have been so blessed by having her in my life I don’t even care to think about going on without her at my side.

Today, she had a pretty good morning, and I got to see her react a little to reading of her emails and eGreetings, then gave us a couple of really good scares. During her dressing change surgery, which started early while I was at the airport picking up Link and Deanna, she required more sedation than usual, and her blood pressure still spiked out at over 200 and was heading upward when Adam was able to bring it under control, and keep her from having a serious cardiac problem.

Later, after we arrived at the hospital, she started to get a red rash on her face and legs, and started perspiring. As I cooled her with damp washcloths, her temperature began to spike and her blood pressure rose, which required more sedation to keep it under control. She was heavily sedated enough that none of the attempts by Link & Deanna or myself got any response from her. We continued to work on her temperature, however, and got it down a little by late afternoon.

At around six thirty this evening, we were still cooling her with wash cloths, although her temperature seemed to level out. We hadn’t gotten any reaction from her all day, due to the heavy sedation, so we were pretty well resolved that we may as well go get some sleep, and maybe we would see more response from her in the morning.

I wanted Link & Deanna to wait to meet the night shift nurse, Barbara, before we left, so Deanna and I were talking bedside, while Link was nearby reading. I noticed that Lea’s lips were dry, so I put on a examination glove, put a little lubricant on a finger, and told Lea that I was going to put some ointment on her lips. As I touched her bottom lip to apply the ointment she seemed to start moving her eyes, then popped them wide open and started mouthing a whole string of silent sentences.

We were overjoyed, of course, to see her so animated. It was as though she had a whole lot to say, and had to say it in a hurry. She “talked” for several seconds, and we waved Link to come over to the bedside to experience it before it was over. In a moment more, her blood pressure shot up and the alarm started sounding. Link said he saw the nurse, Adam, who was outside the room at the nursing station look up at us, but saw us standing at the bed and thought it was probably something we were doing to set off the alarm.

I watched the blood pressure continue rising steadily and quickly to dangerous levels, and as Lea finished what she had to say, and dropped back into sleep, her blood pressure continued to escalate. I went outside the room and waved at Adam, who came right in, checked to make sure no connections had come lose, etc. and headed off to the medicine room for a suppressive drug that had been prescribed just in case it was needed for this kind of situation.

In a matter of minutes he had it prepared and administered, and was able to bring her blood pressure back under control again, hopefully with no harm having been done. We won’t know, of course, until she is conscious and able to communicate this us in a normal fashion. Barbara was advised of the situation, and was making preparations to deal with the pressure fluctuations should they occur again overnight. These rapid elevations can result in stroke, or worse, if not caught in a timely manner.

So, I am here in my room, exhausted. She is there in her hospital room, exhausted, I’m sure. I’m frightened. She’s frightened. I know she loves me. She knows I love her. We both love God and have given our lives over to Him. So, I will leave her over there tonight in her little room with people she doesn’t even know doing everything humanly possible to save her. And, I will trust that God’s plan will be worked tonight, and I pray that she will still be there for me to love in the morning.

There is a place in the scripture that talks about fruit of the spirit, which is the result in life produced by the power of the Holy Spirit working within the believer. It says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” (Gal 5:22-23) That pretty well describes Lea to a tee. I would have thrown in “beautiful,” if I had been writing the description of her. J Good night, darling.

God’s peace,

Larry