Grateful

After only six days in the hospital, Hannah got to come home yesterday. It felt so good to have our family back together and in our own beds.  It has been amazing to see how fast this sweet girl has recovered. She is doing amazing.  She continued to blow away the doctors with her progress each and every day.  Hannah went in Tuesday morning for open heart surgery and the placement of a permanent pacemaker.  She now has a conduit shunt helping to supply blood and oxygen to her heart.  Her oxygen stats went from being in the low 80's to now 98-100.  We have noticed a significant increase in her color and look forward to seeing her run around without getting winded.

It has been an emotional six days for us.  We spent time with nurses and doctors who were all apart of saving our girls life four years ago.  Her hospital room was directly across from the room where we heard doctors tell us she wasn't going to make it.  The same room where they worked on our sweet girl for three hours, pumping her full of meds to keep her stable.  We spent time with another family from our church who had been at CHOC for days with there daughter who underwent brain surgery.  We had an interaction with a family I had met by chance weeks ago at Dr. Changs office.  She was waiting for a heart/lung transplant for her one month old.  Her daughter had gotten influenza and was in the CVICU.  Our hearts were burdened for this family who felt hopeless.  We prayed for another chance to talk with them and were disappointed when they were discharged the next day.  Happy she was well enough to go home though for sure.  You see so much pain and despair when you are in the CVICU.  It made us that much more thankful and aware of our need for a Savior.  I don't know how people walk this life without Jesus.  I chuckle as I look back and see how much better it is to have Hannah and my surgery behind us. It wasn't how I saw things going but once again God's plan is ALWAYS the best plan.  I feel hopeful as we anticipate Noah's transplant that we will someday settle into a new normal.

A few days before Hannah's surgery I received a call from a sweet girl Samantha.  I did not know her but she explained that she worked for Noah's orthodontist and had recently heard of our family's story.  The Lord had put our family on her heart and she felt extremely burdened to do something.  She asked if she could meet with me to hear more about our story.  I told her Hannah was getting ready to have surgery so we didn't have time before.  I told her she was welcome to stop by the hospital since we had anticipated a long 14 day stay.  Samantha had decided to come by Monday.  We were surprised to hear we were going home that Monday so Samantha met us at our house instead.  This sweet girl brought us dinner and a beautiful gift basket.  She sat and listened to us tell her all that God had done over the last five years.  There were tears and smiles as we all recounted the beautiful ways God was at work.  we got to hear Samantha's story and her struggles and it became apparent that God was using her in big ways to impact his people.  We are so thankful for a new friend and the way that God encouraged her to reach out to us.  Don't you just love the way God works.  I don't make this stuff up people he is constantly showing himself in beautiful ways.

 Hannah is still recovering and we have a ton of appointments over the next coming weeks.  Please continue to pray for her. that she would remain stable and continue to heal.  Thank you all for your outpouring of love to our family this past week.  We are thankful and have been so encouraged by it.