Job is doing so much better today. He lost a liter of fluid last night!! We had already noticed the swelling go down in his arms and legs, but this morning when we saw him we couldn't help but notice how drastically the swelling had gone down in his head!! I know that he's still really sick and I know it's going to take days still for his swelling to go down enough that they can close up his chest (Monday was given as a possibility?). But I'm so happy to see my baby look more like my baby!
Wednesday night was so scary - they told us to come say goodbye to him when he went into cardiac arrest (because we were on our way to Tacoma to take Ezra and Isaac home after a visit to the hospital). We think (well, *they* think) Job had so much fluid (and therefore swelling) that his heart just couldn't pump enough blood to his kidneys because of the pressure of the fluid/swelling and that this incredible pressure on his kidneys decreased their function as well.
Thankfully God decided to give Job another day of life (now two more!), but this "event" (as his medical team calls it) has given us the opportunity to have a lot of difficult conversations. We had to, have to, face the reality of Job's death sooner rather than later. Until Wednesday night I think we were lulled into a... false sense of security? He had survived his surgery and made so many gains during the day on Wednesday that stopped thinking about the possibility of him dying soon.
So it's been good for us to have all of these conversations and to just cry and pray. We're seeing a number of improvements between yesterday and today, and we're thrilled! But we're also recognizing that for every three steps forward there will likely be two steps back and we're coming to terms with that reality. We've said it to ourselves so many times and to others many times, but this is a long, long journey. It's going to have so many ups and downs. Now we know what one of those "downs" feels like and are probably a bit more prepared for future "downs".
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