Two weeks ago, Tim had injured himself dragging out our dead lawn tractor which had 2 flat tires from the shed. He had been nursing the injury which had started to improve, but then a few days later, he started having increased pain in the area. Of course, being the nurse that I am, I instantly checked him out for appendicitis since the area is in the right lower quadrant. He passed all of the tests for that, so I told him he probably did something that re-injured his tendon. On Friday night, we felt a pop playing a game at the boys Taekwondo lesson. That brought us up to the past weekend where Tim started feeling really sick and spent most of Saturday and Sunday in bed. He thought perhaps he had a virus. On Monday, he was feeling much better and went to work. By the evening, he was feeling poorly again and was complaining of severe back pain and wanted me to put Deep Blue essential oil blend on his back. When I touched his back, I recognized instantly that he was feverish. I immediately thought of his injury and told him to roll over so I could check the area. I found a large mass in his lower right quadrant that was even hotter than the rest of his body. I knew things weren't good, but I was thinking he had caused a hernia and perhaps some of his bowel had become obstructed.
He wanted me to go to work and promised he would call the doctor first thing in the morning. I told him there was a chance the doctor would send him to the ER. He said he'd be fine. Sure enough, he was sent to the ER. The Lord orchestrated the events giving Tim a Christian physician to care for him. The doctor was assuming it was an abdominal wall hernia and ordered a CT Scan. When he came in to give Tim the results, it was quite a shock for Tim to hear the diagnosis was Ruptured Appendix. The doctor prayed with Tim at that point, which was such a blessing to him. Tim called me right away, and I was able to get my clinical manager to cover me at work so that I could go to be with him.
The biggest miracle in all of this is that Tim is alive and that he is doing as well as he is. Every doctor who has been in to see him has remarked that he is doing better than most people in his situation. We think the appendix ruptured Friday night when Tim felt that pop, so he went several days with a ruptured appendix before receiving medical help. Thankfully, once we thought he had a virus, we were using essential oils to support his immune system. Tim's body perfectly encapsulated the toxic waste from his intestines in a multi-compartmental abscess that preserved him from going into sepsis or from death. The doctors put him on IV antibiotics, and the next day they placed a drain to get the infection and toxins out of the abscess. Tim will have the drain in for the next few weeks until the abscess is fully drained or until he can have surgery to remove his appendix. He will need weekly checks of the drain and follow-up CT Scans. Before the surgery, he will also need a colonoscopy.
Our family has done a lot with essential oils and natural supplements over the last two years to support our bodies and help our bodies function at its optimal function. In addition, Tim did a gentle, natural cleanse in January to clean up his gut and help it be extremely healthy. Then in March, our family began a cellular healing diet that has really helped our gut to be healthy and helped our bodies detox so that we can be as healthy as possible. All of these events has allowed Tim's body to be able to function at its highest level helping to preserve his life and keep him from being as sick as he could have been. We praise God for the perfect timing of all of these events and for the amazing design He has created the human body with to naturally be able to heal and protect itself.
Once the drain was inserted with radiographic imaging while Tim was sedated, Tim got worse with the fever, infection, and pain. We were warned he would get sicker before he got better, but we never expected the pain to be so terribly extreme. The last several days have been very difficult, discouraging, and exhausting. The extra energy I have from being on our diet has tremendously helped me as I stayed overnight caring for Tim at his worst and continued the rest of the week pulling late nights with going to bed after midnight and getting up at 6 and spending most of my awake hours with Tim and orchestrating child care. Through it all, God has been our strength and calm and our every present fortress.
It would take a long time of telling you all of the "mini" miracles we have witnessed this week between Tim's medical care, health, the ways things worked out with the boys' needs, how God intervened when I had to be in two places at the same time and needed something else from home, and how God brought so many people to our rescue to help us in so many countless ways.
One last miracle I have to share is the fact that through this very difficult week that has been hard on all of us, especially the boys who have spent evenings visiting Daddy in the hospital and hardly having Mommy to care for them, Josh has done extremely well. With his Autism, Bi-polar, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, something as huge as this whole event has been should have landed him back in a psychiatric hospital. The last 2 years, he has been able to wean off of 9 of the 10 drugs he took daily because of his increased function through natural solutions, and his final drug is on schedule to be completed by the middle of June. Josh took this whole ordeal in stride and even had a few perfect days at school despite the drama going on. In fact, his behavior overall was better than David's.
All of us are emotionally raw and ready for our normal family routine. Tim was discharged from the hospital on Saturday evening. He is still recovering but slowly. He has a long road ahead of him as the toxins continue to drain out of his abdominal cavity, and he anticipates abdominal surgery in about 6 weeks or so. Through it all, we have confidence that God has all of this under his sovereign control. He holds us closely in His capable hands drawing us near to His heart. We are so thankful that we don't have to go through this alone. We are also grateful for the many family and friends who have come to our aide no matter what our needs have been through this whole ordeal. God is so good!
