“Good Afternoon!!  Well, Larry had his device (the defibilator/pace maker combo) put in his chest this morning.  The procedure went well and he has been fine since he’s been back in his room.  He is so funny when he is on sleeping pills or pain medication.  When he got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, I got up to help him became the sleeping pill makes him a bit drunk and he said to me “The time passes so fast when you are having fun.”  Made me wonder just what he’d been dreaming about.

Last night one of the nurses helped me to understand where the doctor was coming from that was so negative with us yesterday.  She said to keep in mind that these super specialists are rather tunnel vision oriented.  And the doctor that was going to put this device in had studied all of Larry’s charts, numbers, etc. and the picture is rather bleak when you look at it from a layman/human perspective.  When a normal heart is at its best, it has an injection factor of 60.  That is how the blood flow rate is addressed.  If a person has a factor of 30, they are considered to be disabled.  Larry’s rate is 10.  Well below the number they use for determining who should be getting a heart transplant.  And then you add the heart that is so damaged and the two totally blocked arteries and the blood clots he has and the damage that has been done to his liver and kidneys and it is a very negative picture.  And the doctor was giving us his professional viewpoint of “Man, you need a transplant.”  But we’d gone through that and the Heart Failure Team had given us hope that with the stent, the device he got this morning, medication and careful diet, etc. Larry can have some good years to serve the Lord and enjoy his family.  I know that it is a miracle that Larry has lived with the condition of his heart and I just KNOW that God is not through using him.  And we are trusting that the work God has started in Larry’s chest will be sufficient for Larry to enjoy a good quality of life.

We are supposed to go home tomorrow.  Thank goodness because its been two weeks since we slept in our own beds.  You don’t get rest in a hospital.  And since I have been bunking in with Larry, even though it was Larry that was inspected, poked, prodded and stuck–there is no way you can be in that environment and not be disturbed.  I am tired to the bone.  And I have got to get a good night’s sleep so I can drive us safely home tomorrow..

Larry still needs your prayers.  We are not out of the woods at all.  I think about the moment I looked over my kitchen before we left home two weeks ago and I had the thought that we were about to start a journey that was going to be life changing and boy has that ever been the case.  So I can admit that I have no idea of what the future holds but I sure do know without a doubt of WHO holds the future.  And that is enough for me.

God bless you richly.  Brenda “