What a weekend! We left early Friday morning and made it to
Stephen and Mandy’s about 10:30. It was so good to get to spend some cuddle
time with little Gracie! She is growing so fast! Dennis and Stephen went to the
office for awhile to take care of business, while Ricky and I played with the
boys and held Gracie. Mandy fixed us a wonderful lunch, and then it was time to
hit the road again.
We got to Benton around 5:30, so we went to our hotel and got
checked in. Then we grabbed a quick supper and headed to the church house. We
had time to visit with a lot of folks before time for the service to start. Ken
gave a good lesson, and then we spent a lot more time visiting with more folks.
Dennis and I headed back to our room, and Ricky went to Sarah and Jeremy’s
house for the weekend. Saturday morning,
we enjoyed a good lesson from Logan and then spent the day at Warren and Linda’s.
They had a water slide and bounce house for the little ones, and plenty of chairs
in the shade for us older ones. The guys provided two great meals for us: burgers and hotdogs for lunch and a shrimp
boil for supper! (Not to mention the homemade ice cream!) If anyone didn’t have
a good time, they had no one to blame but themselves. There were a lot of
wonderful people to visit with, and a couple of sweet babies to enjoy, too!
We got to bed around 10 or 10:30 Saturday night. I went
right to sleep and slept hard until my phone woke me around 12:15. Stephen told
me that Gracie was sick in the ER and they were fixing to transfer her to
Children’s Hospital in Dallas. They thought she might have meningitis and needed to do a spinal tap. We had a bad connection, and he didn’t have much time to talk,
so I didn’t get many details. I tell you for certain, that is NOT how you want
to get woke up from a sound sleep! I couldn’t sleep after that, so I got on my
phone and started researching meningitis in infants. That probably wasn’t the
best decision I’ve ever made! I was really scared after that! After praying for
Gracie and her parents, as well as for my own peace of mind, I finally settled
into a fitful sleep. I would wake up every hour or two and send a text to
Stephen to see how things were going. He finally stopped answering me around
6:30 am, when they got Gracie settled into her room in Dallas. I figured they
were finally trying to get some sleep, so I got in a couple of hours myself. Then
about 8:30, I received a phone call from Daddy saying they were taking Bobbie
to the ER because she was having trouble breathing. I contacted Charles and
Linda, since they were supposed to be driving them to services, and let them
know what was going on. Then I messaged Tonette to get more details. I thought
it was going to be her “normal” anxiety problem, but it turned out to be some
small blood clots in her lungs. They originally planned to admit her to the hospital, which
really had Daddy upset. They ended up, however, putting her on a new blood
thinner and sending her home.
We planned to leave immediately after the morning assembly,
so we could go check on Gracie. The Salem congregation had their services
organized with the Lord’s Supper before the lesson. Since Jamie was speaking and
we had already heard the lesson he was going to give (last Sunday), we decided
to leave after communion and get a head start on getting to Dallas. I still hadn’t
heard anything else from Stephen and was getting pretty nervous and upset. So
we took off and headed south. About an hour down the road, we finally heard
from Stephen, and Gracie’s fever was gone. She was resting well and they had
ruled out bacterial meningitis. They still wouldn’t know for another 40 hours
whether it was viral meningitis or not. After five hours on the road (and going
to the wrong hospital first), we finally made it to the right place and got to
see Gracie for ourselves and get all of the details from Stephen and Mandy.
Gracie looked good, still didn’t have any fever, and was eating well and
sleeping a lot. They still don’t know for certain that it isn’t meningitis, but
nobody really thinks it is. At her age (just one month old), they just have to
be very careful and make sure because just about any kind of infection can lead
to meningitis or septicemia (since their little immune systems are so
undeveloped). We still won’t know until the culture results come in tomorrow,
but it is looking more and more like she will be ok and get to go home after
the results are in. What a relief! I know I will sleep a LOT better tonight
after having seen how well she looked.
So it was a great weekend, but also a terrifying one! I tell
you what, I can’t seem to leave town without SOMETHING bad happening! But all
in all, I’m very glad that we made the trip. It was good for all of us. And I
am very thankful for the prayers and concern of SO many people on Gracie’s and
Bobbie’s behalf! I love and appreciate every one of you!
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