Faith, Hope & Prayer

**NOTE- I could not get my pictures to load.  I believe I am just too unglued right now.  So sorry.

Life’s storms have been brewing since my last post.  I am so sorry I haven’t been able to post before, but our life is a bit upside down right now. You see that absolutely beautiful, precious gift of life above that God has trusted myself and husband with? That’s our Finley! He is the baby boy of four boys!!  He’s 9 and quiet the mama’s baby and that is just fine with me.

The storm broke the horizon Monday around noon.  I got the call from the school nurse telling me that Finley’s blood pressure was dangerously high, and if I couldn’t be there in 5 min or less she was going to have to call 911!  Thank God we live within five minutes of the school and I was home! I know I made it in 3min!  She met me at the door with Finley in a wheelchair advising me to go straight to the ER.  Well here is where the line becomes fuzzy.  You see, for about a year now Finley has been having these episodes.  Episodes of breaking out in a very red rash, complaining of stomach pain and trouble breathing.  For a year now we have treated this as allergies.  Honestly we have had no reason to think differently due to the many, many food and other allergies he has.  Finley could have booked frequent flyer miles last year for all of the trips to the school nurse he had with these episodes.  Well, yesterday for the first time someone, actually Nurse Carly,  checked his BP during an episode.  Holy Moly yall it was HIGH!!  It was  153/119  !  He is a little fella.  Tall, lanky, all of 85lbs soaking wet.  This just didn’t make sense to us.  Thank heavens my precious husband is a Doctor.  We talked things over and he immediately said, “Call Braden and get him in!” Dr. Braden just happens to be what we consider one of the South’s Top Pediatric Cardiologist and our former backdoor neighbor.  Lee, my husband had Thursday off so I called and quickly got Finley on the schedule for Thursday. Tomorrow.  In the meantime I called our pediatrician to get Finely in and let’s get a BP recheck and see what the reading was now.

Fast forward three hours and he and I were headed to the doctor’s office when I noticed he was getting red.  He said, “whew, mama I can’t breathe to good.”  Now most people would have freaked out, but I didn’t.  I have been hearing these words for 9 to 12 months now and would always give him a Benedryl because on the outside it looked just like an allergic reaction.  Well the next thing he did was wiggle his fingers in both of his ears and I thought to myself, “ears are ringing-BP has to high”, so thank goodness I was coming up on the road that led to our local hospital.  I hit panic and drove straight to the ER.  (Thank you Jesus I was where I was! Right by the hospital!)  They got us on back and hooked him up to everything that had a cord on it.  Now I was out of my league.  I’ve learned a lot of medical stuff just from my husband, but when it comes to reading monitors I am clueless!  I finally asked the nurse for a tutorial and glued me eyes to that screen texting my husband every change of reading I was seeing.  Finley seemed fine.  It was his usual “episode” on the outside.  Shallow breaths, heart racing and red splotches everywhere.  But this time I could see what was going on on the inside and it was scaring me.  Pulse was as if he had just ran a marathon and blood pressure through the roof.  I’m talking readings that would send an adult to the ER.  The only thing that held me together besides strength for my baby was my husband had finally gotten there and I knew I could share the stress with him and he knew exactly what was going on.  Then the results of labs and tests all came back good.  His chest x-ray, EKG and labs all looked good.  I could tell the ER physician as well my husband were perplexed.  They would throw ideas back and forth and talk each one through.  Would you seriously believe that the final suggestion from the ER physician  as cause of the elevated BP was possibly allergy related.  Yep! Allergies again.  He knew we had already scheduled the cardio appointment and said go get that cleared then talk to his allergist.

As the night went on I was a little more relaxed.  Worried, but better.  My husband on the other hand was not.  I could see his wheels turning.  It was about 9:30 Monday night and my husband stood up and looked at me and said three words of something I couldn’t pronounce.  He said I have no idea why or how I just thought of this, but I’m going upstairs to read up on it.  Well, about 10 minutes later he came back downstairs rather convinced that there was a HIGH possibility he knew what was causing the blood pressure to do this.  I am not going to put the name to it right now, but I will say I am very relieved that  what my husband thinks it could be is treatable.  Unfortunately it would possibly mean heart surgery on my baby, but it would be something they could FIX as opposed to some other options that are not.

So I leave you now with tear stained burning eyes like only a mother could have.  I am holding it together as best I can, hoping to hear good news tomorrow.  I know God is in control of all of this! I know he will meet every need.  My strength, Lee’s strength and most of all I know He is carrying my baby boy.  My hearts prayer is this: For my Father, the creator of the Universe to wrap, swaddle my baby in His healing arms and rock him! I know the power of the God I serve and I know the power in prayer.  I do ask for your prayers.  Prayers for strength for all of us. Prayers for healing.  I will post an update as soon as I am able.

Cherish your day-g