When I started journaling my experiences with diabetes I had all intentions of writing a post every week describing my trials, tribulations and triumphs as I navigated my diagnosis. But, as often happens in life, my plans were interrupted and our family was thrown into a bit of chaos as a more imminent threat revealed itself.
My beautiful daughter-in-law received a diagnosis of her own and it was way more devastating than mine. I wrote a post a few months ago telling hers and my sons story. Two days after that post, Kari-Lee had a double lung transplant and everything went amazingly well. We were all so over the moon at how smoothly everything went and over the next few months, things just kept on getting better. And then it didn’t. At a routine clinic appointment, they found a shadow on Kari-Lee’s new lungs. The bacteria that had destroyed her old lungs was back. She was admitted in to hospital and they tried to beat it with antibiotics, but after a week the bacteria had grown. Kari had to go into surgery and have two lobes of her right lung removed. Since then we have been rallying as a family to support her through this.
As you can understand, my diagnosis took a back seat. I could have easily become very inward looking and self focussed, but this crisis has made me look outward (and upward) and has shown me that although I thought I was being brave to face up to my own health issues, there are people out there who are braver still. My daughter-in-law has shown me what it really means to be brave as she has decided to keep fighting when the doctors have given her very little hope. She has an inner strength that continues to believe she can beat this and we have stood with her and joined her in believing for a miracle. I don’t often talk about my faith in my blog, but I cannot tell this story without mentioning how we have clung to God over these past few weeks, praying and believing for a miracle.
The bacteria is still waging a war in Kari-Lee’s body but she fights on still and we, who feel so utterly helpless, stand by and fight with her with prayer and supplication to our God believing for healing and wholeness. This story is far from over and we are committed to stand in the gap and hold up Kari-Lee when she feels weary and go into battle on her behalf. That’s just what family do.
