Friday night before sending the kids up to Idaho for a week we had our greatly anticipated sleep over here in Nicki's hospital "suite". It was great fun! We had some dinner in the room with Nicki's parents and all four kids. That usually consists of trying to put in bites of food in your mouth in between trying to catch Ruby from knocking over drinks or falling off a chair. Ruby really likes the blue latex hospital gloves and is constantly asking to be lifted up to pull gloves out of the box on the wall. She also enjoys holding the box of tissues and pulling tissues out one at a time, throwing them on the floor. The Rec therapist brought in some paints and crafts, along with two small kids wicker chairs, and all of the kids like to sit at a little table in our room and paint crafts. Ruby likes to try and get close enough to grab the paint and throw it off. So far, she has not succeeded. So, here are some pics of the sleep-over. After dinner Grandma and Grandpa O'Brien took Ruby back and we started the fun. First we went out to the courtyard where each kid got a chance to push Nicki in the wheelchair and Caleb and I played a little hoops and fussbol. After the courtyard fun we went back to the room and set up the beds. Nicki of course kept her bed, Caleb and Elsie were on the double hide-away couch, Sophie was on a single fold out chair, and I was on a roller cot. Needless to say, there was not much room for walking around in the room! After setting up the beds we watched "Gnomeo and Juliet" together. We all really enjoyed that movie and I was interested to see that my friend from BYU undergrad days, Chris Bacon, did the music--along with James Newton Howard. Pretty cool.
Bring on the night.... After a made up story and a new bandade for Sophie's cut on her arm the kids began drifting off. Around midnight or 1am the nurse came in to do her usual checkup and Caleb was the only one to wake up, so that was good. He and the others loved hearing the heart monitor on the baby. So, the kids actually slept pretty well given the circumstances! Fun times were had by all. The next morning (Saturday) I took the kids back to our house where we got everything loaded in the van for Idaho and then drove back to the hospital to say goodbye. Nicki and I went out to the parking lot to tearfully say goodbye to the kids for one week. It seems like I've waved goodbye to these kids WAY too many times this summer. We are all looking forward to just being together in some familial normalcy again. When will that happen? Not sure.... We just wait and see.
The baby: she is doing great. Her heart continues to pump along doing the important dips and accelerations typical of a healthy, growing baby. She is definitely a fighter! Nicki's hematocrit continues to drop and that is a concern. But, the docs aren't too concerned about it. She is still not at the point of needing a transfusion yet, but that time may come in the near future. We shall see. She is feeling very weak and tired, and it seems that weakness and tiredness may last the duration until this baby comes.
Today Nicki got to go in the wheelchair with me to the LDS hospital service. It was nice to sit there together and take the Sacrament together. The service certainly was full of a smattering of folks going through a variety of challenges and struggles. I looked at the row of wheelchair-ridden individuals and thought about how grateful I am to have the current health I do. As I sat there I also thought of how wonderful it is I can bring myself with all my worries, struggles, pains, angers, frustrations, concerns and grief; I can come with all of that and find peace through it all in the Savior. I found this great quote from Soren Kierkegaard in his book "Practice in Christianity" that is really meaningful to me in this light.
He writes, "I will give you rest." --Amazing! Then those words "Come here to me" presumably must be understood in this way: Remain with me, I am that rest, or to remain with me is that rest. It is not as it usually is--that the helper who says "Come here" thereupon must say "Now leave" as he explains to each individual where the particular help he needs is to be found, where the analgesic herb grows that can heal him, or where there is that quiet place where he can relax from his labor, or where there is that happier part of the world where people are not burdened. No, he who opens his arms and invites all--ah, if all, all you who labor and are burdened (this strikes me that we OUGHT to bring everything we are really experiencing to Christ, rather than bury our real suffering or concerns to put on a happy face--we ought to bring every single aspect of our person-hood), were to come to him, he would embrace them all and say: Now remain with me, for to remain with me is rest. The helper is the help. Amazing! He who invites all and wants to help all-his method of treating the patient is just as if intended for each one individually, as if in each patient he had only this one patient. Ordinarily a physician must divide himself among his many patients, who, no matter how many they may be, are very far from being all. He prescribes the medication, tells what should be done, how it is to be used--and then he goes to another patient; or if the patient has come to him, he lets the patient go. The physician cannot sit all day long with one patient, even less have all his patients at home with him and yet sit all day with one patient--without neglecting the others. Therefore the helper and the help are not really one and the same. Throughout the day, the patient keeps with him the help that the physician prescribes in order to use it continually, whereas the physician checks on him only occasionally or the patient visits the physician only occasionally. But when the helper is the help, he must remain with the patient all day long, or the patient with him--how amazing, then, that this helper is the very one who invites all!
I really appreciate Kierkegaard's thoughts here! We can find direct and constant help from the Helper as we come to Him with all we are; with all our burdens.
More later...
