I'm Back

As all of my regular readers know, I returned home Friday from my ten day sojourn in the hospital. There will be no photos to mark the occasion, though. I am approximately the same color as spackling putty, with big, dark circles under my eyes and scabrous lips, left cracked and bleeding from the ventilator tube. In other words--not a pretty picture. I have the energy of a newborn mouse and I feel like my brain has been sent to the cleaners and isn't back yet. My vision has been affected and I have become (for now, at least) an insulin-dependant diabetic. I am struggling to find anything very funny to say. The whole experience has left me in a rather solemn frame of mind. I was in a coma-like condition for a couple of days and missed most of the excitement, so I only have the words of others to guide my understanding of what happened.

My lung doctor, Dr. Laughlin, told me that I came within an hour of dying. He told me that he suctioned more blood and pus from my lungs than from anyone in his entire career (and he is not a particularly young man). Our family doctor/friend/ Bishop/Dr. Brad Davis, told me when he visited the hospital and saw all the flowers in my room that "I was lucky to to be looking at blooms and not roots." When told about the odd comment I made just before they called the ambulance, Bishop Davis told me that the veil had been "very thin" for me at that point, and it may not have been just the ramblings of an incoherent mind.

All of this has given me much to ponder, especially late at night when all the loved ones left the hospital for the day and I was alone with my thoughts. The scary "what if" door would creak open, inviting me inside to contemplate what nearly was. I know that if it had been my time to go, the Lord would have taken me. The fact that He didn't is a tribute to the many priesthood blessings I received, the countless prayers and the faith of those who love me. Above all, it was simply the Lord's will for me that I should recover, and learn what? When I had my car accident, it was made quite plain to me the lessons the Lord wanted me to learn; that I am not in charge of the universe and that I had to learn to accept God's will with patience and grace. I felt like I had internalized those lessons pretty well. So what, now? A booster shot? A refresher course? Or am I supposed to take something entirely different away from this experience?

If I learn nothing else, I am developing mad patience skills. In the last two weeks I have had more than 2 dozen large vials of blood drawn, I have had my lungs "scoped" three times. The last time I even had the walls of my lungs scrubbed with little brushes. I've had four tissue biopsies of my lungs done. I've had a cat scan of my lungs, an mri of my lungs, several x-rays and an echo cardiogram of my heart done. I have received three different courses of antibiotics, a course of anti-fungal medication, breathing treatments, steroid treatments, massive doses of potassium and have learned to test my blood sugar four times a day, calculate my insulin and shoot myself up. I have been tested for all of the following and all tests were found negative; the six "normal" pneumonias, fungal diseases, valley fever, t.b. in various forms, Legionnaire's disease, and cancer. On the day he let me go home, Dr. Laughlin said, "I still have no idea what's growing in your lungs, but I want to get you out of here before you catch something else in the hospital." So I am continuing all my treatments at home where I am very well cared for by Bill, Sarah, Clare, Chris, Carl, Heather, etc. I will see Dr. Laughlin again on the 18th and by then he will have more results back from the biopsies, but he warns that we may never figure out what I've got. In the meantime he is calling it "persistent viral lung infection."

Sometime on Thursday I woke up to find a breathing tube down my throat and my hands tied to the side of the bed. I didn't know where I was or how I had come to be there. As quickly as I was overwhelmed with terror, that feeling left and was replaced with the calm and comfort that all of the many prayers on my behalf had bought me.

It has been a difficult season for the extended Reed family. We are so grateful for every one's faith and prayers on behalf of me, Abby and her family, Jake and his family, and for my Mom and Dad. I am so grateful for my eternal companion, who has hardly left my side through all of this. He is my rock. We are so blessed to have the children we have. Each one is so good and so filled with faith , kindness and generosity. Thank you, everyone, for your prayers and help. I promise that this is last of the deep, somber thoughts. Maybe my next blog will be about hospital food (I have a roadkill theory I'm working on) or maybe bendy straws (one of the best parts of any hospital stay.)

Again, thank you. It's good to be back!