The Road Not Chosen

Fashionable Jesus

"If I'd abandon all that seeks to make my faith informed and chic, could You, would You, show Yourself to me?"
~ Nichole Nordeman~

The religious world is awash in politically current trends these days: Eco-Christianity, Pro-Choice Christianity, churches ordaining & celebrating homosexuality, I could go on for quite a while. But I won't. I was talking to my Language Arts class a couple of weeks ago about Humanism which has been seeping into the Church for ages, but has really picked up popularity since the Renaissance. So called Christian Humanism of the time (and even now) says "I accept the teachings of Jesus as being good rules to live by yet I don't believe in miracles, prophesy or any supernatural manifestations of a higher power."  This thought pervades many denominations today and creeps into our own theology in ways that can sometimes not be easily detected.

Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:

For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths. But you should keep a clear mind in every situation. Don’t be afraid of suffering for the Lord. Work at telling others the Good News, and fully carry out the ministry God has given you.

How often have we "oooh'd" and "aaaah'd" over the most recent Christian best-seller or "hot" sermon? Are books & sermons bad in and of themselves? Not always but we can tend to be so drawn to the coolest and hippest whatever that we lose sight of what we are to measure everything against: the Word of God. The Bible, ancient as it is, can sometimes loom as dusty & not relevant to this modern age. However, it is the plumb  line that we are to use in deciding what it truth and what is deception. To those who try to pick & choose which parts of the Bible they believe are God-inspired and which aren't, I always reply that if God can create the universe He is surely capable of keeping His instruction book to humans intact, all of it!

God wants us to have a faith that will go against the grain of popular culture, if popular culture is against the Word of God. As Paul, about to be killed for his faith, told Timothy: "Don't be afraid of suffering for the Lord." Nichole Nordeman's words at the top of this entry are so relevant to all of us. I don't want to have a faith that is politically correct and modern. Instead, I want a faith that is Biblically correct and wrapped around the Ancient of Days. Then, and only then, will I really see God.

A New Group

I recently signed on as part of a new blogroll at Christian Blogosphere.  You can check out their blogroll which is listed on the left hand side of this page under the "Miscellaneous" section. There are some familiar blogs listed such as "Sting My Heart" and "Laurel Wreath". I'm also having fun checking out several new ones I haven't run across before. It looks like an eclectic & interesting group. If you have a few minutes, pick one and cruise on over.

Michele, the organizer of Christian Blogosphere, has also set up a network at Feedburner, which is a great way to sign up to read everyone's new entries in one place. Check out her post here if you are interested in signing up.

Finally!

We have a surgery date, March 2nd! Yesterday was long & exhausting but very rewarding. Evan's first appointment was with the hip surgeon at 7:30a.m. We were very impressed by the staff's efficiency & compassion. First Evan had a round of x-ray's & we were talking to the surgeon by 8:15. He saw the urgent need for Evan's hip to be repaired, switched his surgery schedule around & by 8:45 we had the date!

Then it was off to do an extensive round of pre-op tests: blood work (6 vials worth & Evan did awesome!), EKG, chest x-ray's, long talk with the anesthesiologist, etc. That all took about 3 hours. Next we had an appointment with a pediatric orthopedic surgeon who was consulting on the case so we walked over the the Children's Hospital where he was at. (Evan is having surgery at a major metropolitan hospital that is in a complex with 2 other hospitals including a Children's Hospital.) Fortunately everything is connected by walkways. We must have covered 3 or 4 miles yesterday, Evan all from the comfort of his wheelchair!

We were not quite sure exactly who this consulting surgeon was & found out later that he is the Chief Pediatric Orthopedic Surgeon of both the Shriner's Hospital and the Children's Hospital. A very big fish indeed who was kind, gentle & with a sly sense of humor. Both he and the main surgeon were very honest in their appraisal of the situation. It was their opinion that there is no guarantee that this pelvic restructuring will permanently keep the femur in place. Evan may need a hip replacement later on but either way, his left hip is so deformed that it must be corrected first. The issue seems to be that hypotonia (low muscle tone) can keep the femur from staying in place. There is no way to tell until surgery is done & recovery has taken place. So the best thing to do is the periacetablular osteotomy (I just had to throw that big phrase in!). They sent us home with lots of reading materials about the surgery,which is a great resource for us and for our friends who are wanting to know exactly what the surgery entails.

One other big unknown is if Evan will come home in a hip & leg brace to heal or in the dreaded spica cast. Again, it will depend on how he heals after surgery & how his muscles respond. At worst, he would be in the spica cast for 6 weeks. Then physical therapy will begin and if all goes well, he will be back to normal in 4-6 months.

The initial outlook for the hospital stay is 7 days. We have booked a hotel & Evan's case manager is fairly certain that she will be able to obtain some money from SB 40 funding.

The only bad thing about yesterday is that an hour after we got home, I became violently ill and spent the night throwing up. Harold thinks I got food poisoning from the lobster ravioli at Macaroni Grill. All I know is that I am soooo thankful I didn't get sick during the 4 hour drive home! I am just now getting up and around, nibbling on toast.

All in all, we have a lot to do in the next week. We will leave town next Thursday, putting our house in the capable hands of a beloved friend who will house-sit for us. Other friends are already making plans to come & help out at the hospital, which is quite the sacrifice as it is a 3 1/2 hour drive one way! We are so grateful for the people God has put in our lives.

So that's the scoop. I'm going to go have some more tea & look out at the warm, 50 degree sunshine!

Strange Visions

Last night Harold, a friend & I were sitting at our kitchen table deep in serious discussion. I glanced out our french doors onto the deck & let out a startled "auuughhh!!" Why, you ask? Because this is what was on our deck:

Yes, a possum! A very large, fat, possum trundling around our deck, rooting around the BBQ grill. Harold jumped up, opened the door, yelled at the possum & stomped on the deck to scare him away. What did Mr.Possum do? Fall into the famous possum "dead" position? Nope, not this guy! He simply looked at Harold, who gave up & came back inside.

We have lots of possum around here but this is the first time we have seen one just walk casually onto our deck. He didn't go away until I turned the lights on the deck. He was large enough to have provided a nice meal for 4 or 5 people, if you were into eating such critters, which we are definitely not! He also reminded me of the R.O.U.S.'s (Rodents of Unusual Size) from The Princess Bride. 

In other happenings, I have spent the last couple of days filling out forms for the new surgeon we will see tomorrow, gathering copies of x-ray's & MRI's, & digging out old medical records. No tangible results yet on funding sources, although we expect that the doctor's office may be some help in that area. I will post news about our visit tomorrow evening. Please pray for us to have favor with this surgeon & a quick surgery date.

Talk to you later!

What 'Cha Thinking About?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Genesis 3:1. Adam & Eve are living the good life in the Garden of Eden. Every need is provided for, they have wonderful communion with each other and with God, and everything is literally perfect. The only rule is that they can’t eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil. So one day Eve is hanging out at the one place she shouldn’t be, that tree! The devil, in the form of a serpent, asks her a fateful question that starts with “Did God really say…?” You know the rest of the story. Eve began to doubt the truth of what God had told her and Adam and by doing so ate from that tree and brought sin and death into the world.

It occurred to me that satan is constantly whispering in my ear “Did God really say…?” about a variety of things. Did God really say He would provide for me? Did God really say I was healed because of the stripes Jesus bore on his back? Did God really say He loved me? Did God really say all my sins were forgiven? Did God really say to love my friends like I love myself?

In ways obvious and in ways subtle the devil tries to trip us up by bringing doubt into our minds. I realize that if I fall for that ploy it means I’ve been hanging out at the wrong tree! If I have been trusting and relying in my own abilities or my own limited human knowledge then my ability to make right choices in my life is shot. On the other hand, if I’ve been feeding from the Tree of Life, which represents God, then I am aware of the trap the devil is trying to spring on me.

I have more thoughts along this line that I will share later. Today, though, try to recognize places in your life where the devil is whispering, “Did God really say..?” and shout at him, “Yes, God did say!” In doing this, you will silence the voice of the enemy and bring peace & joy to your life.

Update

The first part of the week was quite the roller coaster ride. On Monday we called the (new) surgeon's office to see how soon we could get Evan in. After being told that the Dr. was booked until May (!) Harold went through our year-long tale ending with the fact that something must be done in 6-8 weeks or Evan's femur would be at serious risk of dying. The physician's assistant was very sympathetic to our plight & promised to call back on Wednesday. We were a little heartbroken that we couldn't get Evan in this week. Waiting for the call back was nerve wracking. If we weren't bound by this awful timeline it would be different. But we could hear the clock ticking...

They called back yesterday & got us in a week from next Tuesday. There is no clinic next week so that was as fast as they could do it. We were assured that the surgeon understood the severity of the situation.

On a down note, I called Ronald McDonald House in that area & were told they make no exceptions to the age limit of 18 yrs. So we need a (cheap, safe) place to stay during Evan's surgery (which will hopefully be soon.) Two weeks of hotel bills will be pretty rough. We are seeking some funding from Missouri Senate Bill 40, which allocates funds to people who have disabilities. They pay for things that insurance won't cover and sometimes cover hotel & travel expenses. I've been digging for other resources but am finding that once Evan hit 18 yrs. old, he became ineligible for many different funding sources.

We know that God will provide somehow. In fact, a couple from church told us last night that they want to help some with our hotel bills, if we have any. I have great hopes also that the hospital has some other resources we may not know about.

Rolling Again

As usual, it's been an interesting week. On Monday, we took Evan to see the orthopedist for one of the most confusing doctor visit's we've ever been to. After 45 minutes of asking seemingly hundreds of questions, we still walked away saying "Huh?!?" Let me just say that the surgeon, who told us to go to the orthopedist, hadn't told the orthopedist why we were seeing him. Add to the mix that the orthopedist kept saying that Evan had 3 separate issues going on with his hip, yet was very unclear exactly what those issues were, even after repeated questioning.

My husband, who rarely looses his cool, was showing signs of agitation. I had already gone down Agitation Road and was about to come around Angry Bend, especially when we were told the MRI would have to be re-done as they needed more angles. "You do realize," I said, "that your office is the one who determined what views would be taken?" Harold added, "You also need to realize that the fact that Evan cooperated for the MRI might have been just a one-shot thing and the next time won't be so easy?"

At that point, the orthopedist & his resident left us to consult for a moment. When they came back, he told us that really the problem was that they didn't know how to help Evan, as his case was so unique because of how his low muscle tone might affect any recovery from hip surgery. He didn't feel that the surgeon that did Evan's last 2 surgeries had the experience or know-how to do what was really needed: a hip reconstruction. (Yes, the big surgery we were really wanting to avoid!) We also needed to have Evan use a wheelchair again & really limit any walking he might due, as they were fearful that his femur would become damaged & the bone start to die. (Evan was not happy about this part!)

I pressed for details on the recovery for reconstruction & was relieved when they said that patients no longer have to be in a spica cast & that recovery is 3 months of not putting weight on the hip. No months & months in bed, which is good! They were sending us on to a very specialized orthopedic hip surgeon in St. Louis, who routinely sees patients with DS, at a hospital that has a "Young Adult Hip Service". (Sounds like a youth oriented church service, doesn't it?) In fact, the hospital he is part of has a large DS Clinic that we used to take Evan to when he was younger. That's a good sign.

Still we've spent the rest of the week wrestling with that visit. We came away unsure of why the Dr. was emphasizing hip reconstruction & hip replacement seemed not an option now. Fortunately, Harold had a great phone conversation with him yesterday that cleared everything up. Since Evan is relatively young, it is important to keep his skeleton intact as long as possible. Hip reconstruction would keep the hip bone & femur, hip replacement would remove a large portion of hip & femur. As Evan ages, he may need another hip surgery. Doing more than one replacement weakens the rest of the hip. Bone conservation seems to be the priority.

So next Monday, we will find out when we can get in to see this new surgeon. On the hospital website it says  he " has a special interest in the diagnosis and treatment of young adult hip problems. He and his colleagues have developed a comprehensive set of surgical and non-surgical skills to care for this unique patient population..to get them back to a healthy, active lifestyle." Sounds at least like Ev will be cared for by people who understand he is an active guy who longs to be active again, a point we have had to belabor at times over the last year.

Now my only question is why couldn't we have found this out last year at this time, when we first started this process? So I must rest in the fact that God guides all our steps. I can say that I think we have changed Evan's surgeon & some of his colleagues opinion of how someone with Down Syndrome can live: active, happy, part of a loving group of family & friends. So if we had to go through this to educate someone that's fine by me.

And the adventure continues yet again...