Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Power of Prayer

The past two weeks have been long, stressful, scary and amazingly amazing.

I don't have time to explain everything, but on Feb. 7th my dad was taken into emergency open-heart surgery. He made it through the surgery okay (although it had been touch and go for a while) and then through a second surgery to stop some uncontrolled bleeding. He was in critical condition for the next two days and then Friday evening he had a clot in the artery leading to his lungs.

A Code Blue was called on him around 5:15 that evening and the team worked on him for about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. When the doctor finally came out she told us my dad was alive but that his chance of surviving was about 2-3%. (Understand that means 97-98% chance of dying.) The doctor said the big question was whether my dad would even wake up again. "It's a minute to minute thing," she said. And even if he did wake up he could have severe brain damage due to the fact that his brain had been without oxygen during the 3 times she had performed CPR on him for 10-15 minutes each time--we would just have to wait and see.

All we could do was pray and ask others to pray. The response we got was overwhelming. It seemed like every minute we were getting another phone call from someone saying that they had contacted a few people and then *they* had contacted a few people and so on and so on. The result of the power of prayer has never been more apparent to me. Why?

It's been 11 days since the Code Blue and my dad is alive--not only alive, but with no sign (so far) of brain damage. He was moved out of ICU three days ago and should be moved out of CCU (Cardiac Care Unit) in a couple more days.

Was this a miracle?

The doctors and nurses think so.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Oklahoma, Kansas, Ireland

(Cool. I get to post in different fonts and colors now.)

Once upon a time there was a girl. She used to live in Oklahoma. But she moved to Kansas. There she began a story. She wrote it one chapter at a time. And never, ever finished it. And it made her friend cry. Because her friend loved it. But it was never completed. Because the girl enjoyed making her friend cry. And an Irishman read it as well. And he loved it. But he never said he did because he was just like that. Instead he said he hated it. But he really loved it. Because he always loved a good Blog story. And Ireland was a better place after that. But Kansas wasn't. And neither was Oklahoma.

The End.