Then Jesus told His disciples a parable to show them
that they should always pray
and not give up.
Edward Gardere "needs and found" an Advocate in Methodist Hospital, Houston Hospital District. He is having a secondary Retina detachment
and
requires a Retina Specialist.
Yesterday was completely harrowing. And yet, being in your 60s has a charm and a blessing to this. We have lived with the experience of having a premature infant who basically had SIDS. Our eldest son failed his sleep study in the Neonatal Intensive Care. And almost died, as an infant, recovering on Christmas Day. What a beautiful Christmas Day. With a year of SIDS events, an Apnea monitor sounded, then he was shaken. Eventually, he learned to breathe while sleeping. Thank God Almighty. This required a mighty discussion with my own very wonderful Pediatrician because he wanted to cease the monitor about 9 months in. We kept a journal of these events and, then, reading the journal, he understood. The events worsened from 10 to 12 months and then miraculously stopped after his first birthday.
Our second son went into a fever seizure in a pizza restaurant surrounded by family. He was about to be one year old and swallowed his tongue. He quickly turned blue and was seizing. Firefighters were there and snapped reality into place as they discussed infant CPR quickly. Which took me from shock to necessity. We had to pass infant CPR to bring our eldest son home. While in extreme fear, we did pass CPR. And instead of discussing this, I sat in the entrance of the pizza restaurant, took our middle child, put his frail sternum on my V-shaped legs and pounded him onto my knee. He gasped. And his tongue fell forward. Immediately, he was a normal color. The firefighters said, this looked so ugly, one of them briefly thought it was child abuse. Fortunately, this worked.
We dealt with the medical field again when our daughter Isabelle died during labor. And gained more experience. The first lesson was given by a Hospital Chaplain, beginning with, "We would never recover." Christian grief does recover normal equilibrium in 2 years. But grief doesn't walk on water. And the whole family grieves in separate emotions on different days. This crucial fact, we learned from Church, as an initial lesson in Grief Recovery. Good to know immediately.
Learning from Isabelle's brief life, the most real experience was seeing hyperparasitism clearly for the first time. We had one lady who had been most helpful during late pregnancy when Isabelle's health concern was found in week 28. And afterwards she balled me out like a freight train on fire let loose running down a mountain. She was horrified because, as I delivered Isabelle, my young sons were not in the birthing room. I was in grief and really couldn't even speak. Just absorb the craziness in shock. She shrieked we had not been loving enough. I did find my voice long enough to say, you weren't in the delivery room the whole time. You really don't know and should not comment. Then, our funeral with a lovely vase being donated to the Church was stolen by a congregant. This I was sufficiently up to dealing with swiftly. Professional intervention in childbirth asked us to a meeting, about 2 weeks later, after Isabelle passed, to talk about ministry lessons in successful necessity. We were mocked as being in a dire situation. Until the crowd saw our devastation. The culture has problems. We were told to remain seated and not look at the back door. We found the door.
Probably because what we really and completely need in life is Jesus Christ. When we find His door, we have found pasture, where we live and dwell fully.
John 10:9
I Am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved
and will go in and out and
find Pasture.
Yesterday was a lot like the movie, "Adventures in Babysitting."
1987. I took a film class as an Honors course in High School. Film classes are marvelous to find the theology, the design, the set and the cultural message. And how to throw away what is junk.
When Edward has had eye surgeries, 3 since November, they are outside the Hospital. Because medicine has advanced to plateaus, divided by: dire, computer-aided and likely outcomes.
Yesterday morning, we discovered Edward's eyesight was failing due to a need for a 2nd Retina Surgeon. Not good to happen on Memorial Weekend. Eye surgeons deal with dire daily. And want a vacation. This is as stressful, completely more than cardiac surgery. Cardiac surgery people have one heart; if it fails, life ends. Eyes are a dire situation. Life is not perfect. This is a driven ministry career.
But if your eye is going to fail, on Memorial Weekend, it's not good.
We went to 4 ER Hospitals yesterday. And they spoke to one another to assist us. We changed Hospital branches 3 times.
Life hands us lessons. With all the data we process, we need our souls to help our minds to recall. Decades ago, a friend told me how to get help in dire Hospital situations. And we went along these paths. The truth is, we live in a time with radical changes. And our advice from decades past has to change.
And we found help.
We reached out to everyone. The Resident Ophthalmology Resident. To the Charge Nurse, to the Nurse who ably assisted us, to anyone we could think of. Edward's eye was at risk of blindness. And in doing so loudly, we met the Doctor of the Emergency Department. Who stayed late and called every Retina Surgeon in Houston.
We called our able prior Retinal Surgeon, we enjoyed meeting during all this, on an international flight to vacation. And he and his assistant gave us medical data and advice to stay ON.
We called everyone.
That is not to say we didn't find idiots who told us to accept our fate and be blind. And they were insistent. And firmly disregarded.
And let me say, I have always thought Medical Residency is the worst form of medicine, as inhumane. 24 hours on duty. Barbaric, cruel and unwise.
And now I understand in my 6th decade.
Our initial greatest help was from the Ophthalmology Resident. Who is called to visit 3 different systems, daily, in the 4th Largest City, due to the dire need, in the necessity of eyesight. This Resident has tremendous care and concern. And his diligence, without enough of a break, connects the system to draw up from being in dire circumstances - - - relentlessly.
Dr. Beau Sylvester. Amazing.
Connecting the VERY UPSET AND LOUD with solutions during Memorial Weekend.
The Doctor of the Emergency Department, drawing up and connecting physicians, not acting, chiefly, within Hospital Range anymore.
This medical system is growing and we have 4 tenetive solutions to address emergency schedules by Thursday.
We arrived at our 4th Hospital ER at midnight.
And in the 4th Largest City in the USA. This is the trauma Hospital. And the Hospital was amazingly... EMPTY.
Adventures in Babysitting.
Immediately, we had a small car on our bumper going into an empty multistory parking lot. We pulled into a Faculty space, thinking we could see if this was violent and suddenly pulled in. The car blocked us in. Edward and I calmly cussed as wildly and explicitly as we could. Edward found the huge can of bear spray, about the size as a quart of milk. We felt better. God evidently was already in our midst. Gallantly forgiving us for our foray into calm and outrageous language. We noticed our assailant was not getting out of the car. Maybe his window was down. OR God was Armed!!! Or we were. He screeched into the space next to us, marked "Faculty." And Edward said, he is police. NO< THAT MAN IS NOT. And we exited our parking space immediately.
To have him block us in. In the parking lot roadway. His car stalled? God stalled him?!!! He stalled. Pedal to the Metal! We accelerated so largely, ... he immediately realized he was in dire circumstances, and he pulled back into the faculty space. We sought other cars parked around the corner/floor. And peered out of our car at this being. He ran by like a streaker on fire, in a jacket labeled Security. A massive man. Surprisingly, with bleached white blond braids well past his large, clothed, all in black, rear end. Running to the stairwell.
The alternative was blindness, so. We took the elevator. And briskly walked past the homeless asleep on the Hospital sidewalks. Quickly down the next downtown block to the ER. Where the REAL Security and Police jumped into action, to the near-empty multistory parking lot. And I had to leave the enormous, quart of milk sized, Bear Spray Canister checked in with security. I love Texas. We were able to retrieve our Bear Spray Canister to go back into the parking lot at the end. With 4 people helping us to do so.
Texas, our Texas! All hail the mighty State!
Texas, our Texas! So wonderful, so great!
Boldest and grandest, Withstanding ev'ry test;
O Empire wide and glorious, You stand supremely blest.
[Refrain] God bless you, Texas!
So, about 1 in the morning, we ran into our favorite Medical Resident for a Life Time, Dr. Beau Sylvester. Who ran more tests to determine if Edward would require more backbreaking effort to find immediate surgery or the 4 lined up as maybe already with appointments in hand.
Thank Jesus Christ, God Almighty and Physicians who Genuinely Care and will work so diligently when Loudly Alerted. The system is flawed and requires kicking the door open, and is manned by truly caring people, who are highly skilled. With a Resident on fire.
Last chapter, hopefully, of Adventures in Babysitting
One something thirty in the morning.
The North Freeway is medium, moderately packed. About the same as 9:30 AM. And since Covid and "The defund the police genius people of insanity," we have people who form small groups and like to go 100 to 120 miles per hour on the freeways and interstates. They change lanes and swerve, teetering like drunken toddlers.
Now, the Police roar past. Got one. Good.
If you've seen one high speed, impact crash, you never forget a vehicle airborne and flipping. Seeing a car door melt away and blood spurt out.
This is going to stop. People with real driving talent need to pay the fees to drive more professionally. This really is drive and let die cruelty.
Another hyperparasitism that will heal from the cold culture of plague.
Today, we saw a system pulled in all directions of improvement, fatigue, and moving outside the lines to care and adapt.
John 5:17-20
Jesus answered them,
“My Father is working until now,
and
I Am working.”
To know
The Love of Christ
Surpassing all the books ever written,
fully know,
We are filled with all the fullness of God
Your Promises,
Father,
Are Sure.
In Jesus Christ,
we live and move and
have our being.
Amen!
You are The Lord Jesus
Thank You, for hearing us
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