Giving Thanks Today

Thank you, dear friends, family and the Great Spirit.*

Our last week has been a roller coaster. I have thought of much to write, written some, posted nothing. The first thing I will do is let you all know that we are grateful that our daughter is alive.

Nine days ago she stepped off of a the last plane after 30 hours of travel. Knowing she could be contagious and not knowing with what illness, she sidestepped her family and collapsed into bed.

Twenty-four hours later she was in an emergency room. Exhausted and moving closer to despondency she wilted under the barrage of pokes, prods, tests and alarming results.  None of us, including the attending doctors, could be sure she would make it through pneumonia and septic shock.

Perhaps it was the moment her physician friend arrived and reassured her of her own strength. Perhaps it was the arrival of her teenage son. She rallied. After being transported from that first emergency room to the Intensive Care Unit of the regional medical center, she began to respond to the fluids and antibiotics.

As we (her family and close friends) camped out at the hospital, she worked her way back. It was several days before she was declared “out of the woods”. I’ve lost track of how many days were in ICU, IMCU and in a regular room. I know that exactly a week from when she first went to the ER, she was passing that hospital on her way to her own home. During that week she learned again how to breath on her own, eat, and walk.

I know that we have been spared an unutterable loss. In our extended family and in our close circle of friends there are those whose children are gone from us.  We share that grief as these same loved ones share our joy at this moment.

Perhaps I will personally share more of this journey. I don’t know. For now, I am living in gratitude.

xxoo

*In the midst of our hard days, my brother-in-law invoked The Great Spirit, his higher power. By any name, I believe.