About a week and a half ago, Rees and I had our scariest situation as parents. Annabel woke up from her nap with severe rigors (shakes), trying to cry, lips blue. Being a mom and having been an oncology nurse, I'm no stranger to the rigors and the following fever but this was more severe than normal and scared me. I called Rees to come home from the class he was teaching and called a pediatrician who told me to give her Ibuprofen. Rees came home and we quickly decided to get a move-on to the capital, Dushanbe, where there are medical options we can trust. Thankfully, our pediatrician friend, Mirjam, was able to grab her doctor bag and jump in the car with us. We were just driving out of town when Annabel had a seizure (caused by the rapid onset and increase in her temperature) and proceeded to turn sheet-white, stop breathing, and have her eyes roll back in her head. To say that was terrifying would be an understatement. We screamed and cried out to God, trying to stimulate her and get her to respond and eventually she took a little breath and for the next 30-40 minutes was breathing rapidly, grunting, not making eye contact and so very pale. Rees and I were having lots of conversations with God and trying to be strong for our little girl. I kept catching myself with what felt like a panic-stricken look on my face and then I'd change it, thinking, "If these are her last moments on earth, I want her to see her mommy's face full of love for her, not freaking out."
By the time we reached Dushanbe, she was whimpering and making eye-contact and humming a little (she loves to sing and hum) and even had a bit of color to her. Mirjam had made all the phone calls to have the right people waiting for us at the right place - not to mention assessing Annabel in the car, helping stimulate her, praying for and and all-around being strong. When we got to the clinic, we found out that one of Annabel's tonsils was red and swollen and after lots of baby torture (poking, prodding, cooling her off, etc.) and plenty of vomiting on Annabel's part - she was sitting up, drinking spoonfuls of water, letting us know she wasn't happy with the baby torture and her temperature had come down to 101.5 We spent the next few days trying to hydrate her, get her to take medicine (and keep it down) and generally alternating being paranoid and being full of thanksgiving she was alive. She had another night of high fevers (but was stable otherwise) at which time a rash broke out - which led us to change antibiotics to treat her for Scarlet fever. We are overjoyed to be able to report that she's eating, drinking, playing and taking her medicine and has been fever-free for over a week now. Praise the Lord. I wish that I could say that God's presence was more real and overwhelming than ever before during that time but it was not. What was very real, though, was that He wasn't going to leave us - no matter what.
"And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears fro today nor our worries about tomorrow - not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love." Romans 8:38.
I wondered if my faith would falter if we lost Annabel and even then I knew that He could handle taking care of my faith, regardless of how puny it was or would be. We are overwhelmed with thanks that we get to have our little girl with us right here, right now.
