Thursday, September 13, 2012

Praise You in the Storm

oh. my. word.

We have had one of the most difficult weeks in recent memory, and I'm completely spent. Every available moment this weekend will be spent sleeping since I haven't gotten much of it in the last few days.

Thank you to those who have been praying for us. We haven't said much about what's been going on this week, so we thought we'd fill the rest of you in. We would love it if you would pray for the stuff that is sitting on our shoulders from this week as well!

If nothing else, at least it will be immortalized in the blogsphere. :-)

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One: Early Wednesday morning (as in, a week ago), around 2:30am, Sean had some heartburn and got up to find the Tums. On his way to the bathroom, he stopped to check his text messages. I heard a huge crash come from his office and thought that maybe he had knocked something over. When I didn't hear him start to pick anything up, I got up to go check on him

I found him lying halfway in the closet, completely passed out.

I tried to rouse him, but he wasn't responding. I managed to get behind him (a tricky task with him in the closet) and drag him out so that I could get him flat on the floor. A bag of clothes ready to go to Good Will ended up being the poor guy's pillow.

After a few seconds, he came to and couldn't figure out where he was, what he was doing on the floor, or why I was sitting there.

Okay, let's just be clear. Sean has a heart condition, and I knew it when I married him. He has episodes on occasion when he is super, super sick (like pneumonia, shingles, etc), but that only happens maybe once every year or two.

It has happened twice this summer, with another two times that we've been able to get him on the floor fast enough to keep him from passing out. That's four times total. This summer.

The scary thing about this episode is that he didn't have any warning. Normally he can feel it coming and/or I can see the color leaving his face and we can either get him flat, or break his fall. But this time, he went down without any notice that it was coming. And the only "illness" he had going on was some heartburn. Ugh...not good.

Sean and Abby
Sean will start some testing with a cardiologist in about a week and a half to try to figure out why there is a sudden increase in episodes. If the cardiologist can't find anything, then he will be referred to a neurologist.

Please pray that they will figure out what is going on, or at the very least, that his episodes will become more infrequent. Even though I've seen them happen several times, it still freaks me out!

Two: Two days later, on Friday, we woke up to find that the van had a flat tire. We were planning on buying new tires for it at some point before the end of the year, but it wasn't necessary quite yet.

Since we had to take it in for one new tire, we figured we should probably just bite the bullet and get them all. Then we wouldn't need to go back.

And while they were changing out the tires, they noticed the two back brakes were shot.

So four new tires and two new brakes later...don't you just love car repairs?

Three: On Monday, three days the car issues, I heard running water in the house and couldn't figure out where it was coming from. No toilets were running, the dishwasher and clothes washer were empty, and no one was in the shower, but I couldn't ignore the water sound coming from somewhere in the house.

I finally went down to the basement to take a look around and noticed water was pooling on the floor. I followed the trail back and found a bunch of wet boxes in our storage area.

But I still couldn't find where the water was coming from. Hmm....

So I went outside and looked around. The window well right by the basement window had water in it although it wasn't over the edge of the window. Since I couldn't figure out where else the water was coming from, I bailed it out with a cup.

            And it immediately filled back up again.

                             So I bailed it out a second time.

                                              And it filled back up again.

                                                                                                 Something was clearly wrong.

Long story short, I turned off the water to the house until the plumber and Sean could get home. When the plumber came, he popped a hole in our drywall in the basement thinking the outside spigot was leaking.

Nope.

Then he started digging around where the water was filling up the window well and realized that the main water line to the house had broken.

Uh oh.

He turned off the water at the street and suggested that we dig down to the water line ourselves to save a little money. He also called in a favor to his plumber friend who works on that type of thing to come out first thing in morning so that we could disrupt the kids as little as possible.

Since we didn't have water, we moved the kids over to Sean's parents' house for the night and then Sean went home to start the digging project while I stayed with the kids.

We were so grateful that not only Sean's dad showed up to help, but also four other men from church. We were floored with the way those five guys dropped everything to come over and help us dig. Several hours later, they had the pit about 5 feet deep and found the leaky spot in the pipe.
They also found out that it had already been repaired twice by previous owners (wouldn't it be nice if stuff like this was included in the home disclosure?!)

The next morning, the plumber came and told us that it was galvanized piping rather than copper piping. Any attempt at repairing would probably just put enough pressure on the rest of the piping to pop a hole somewhere else. The whole thing had to be dug up and replaced.

This is what our front yard has looked like for the last couple of days:

I guess it's a good thing that Sean didn't spend time mowing the grass again after the recent rain. Sheesh.

And if you are wondering, yeah. It was insanely expensive.

Last night, they got the water back on, and we were able to bring the kids home after Sean's parents had so graciously allowed us to stay at their house for a couple of days (Ellie kept giving us kisses to tell us how happy she was to be back in her own crib! Lol!)

Four: Unfortunately, last night as I was in the kitchen unloading stuff from our mini-vacation, I suddenly stepped in a puddle.

*sigh*

So now, we have water, but the kitchen sink/garbage disposal, bathroom sink, and outside spigot in the backyard are all leaking. None of them were leaking before. *sigh again*

And we had to call the first plumber again to come look at those. He is supposed to be here in the morning to see if he can fix it or if we now need new faucets in the house.

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This week has been rough in every way. I'll admit it, I'm super stressed out from lack of sleep, concern for Sean's health problems, and the financial ramifications of everything dumping on us at once. And I've reached the point where I'm almost afraid to get up in the morning because I don't know what else is going to go wrong that day.

But one thing is for sure: As the situations have continued to pile up on us, I've definitely been praying more.

Much like our pregnancy and NICU stay, these are things that I can't control. I can't prevent them. I can't fix them. I can't see how we are going to get through them.

But we do have a God who can take care of every single one of the issues and situations. He hasn't left us high and dry yet, even with problems raining down on us.

There is a great song that has been running through my head for the last couple of days. Maybe you've heard of it? It's called "Praise You in the Storm" by Casting Crowns. Go listen to it if you get a chance! It's my go-to song when life gets overwhelming.

So I'm choosing to praise God:

  • That Sean isn't hospitalized...or had an episode while driving.
  • That all of the kids are pretty healthy (although suffering from awful seasonal allergies!).
  • That both of our vehicles are running.
  • That we have water to our house, and we are home again!
  • For friends who showed up to help my husband dig, and friends who listened to me through my worries and tears at our Bible study this week. Friends lighten the burden considerably!
  • For the prayers that I know are being said for our family.
  • For a God who always takes care of the details, even when I don't know how it's going to happen.

8 comments:

  1. Wow, I can't image. I hope things get better soon!!

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  2. Oh Wow!! You had a really difficult week! I am so sorry. I will definitely keep you and your family in my prayers. I am glad to hear that you are keeping the faith. Hang in there. Hugs!



    "When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your unfailing love, LORD, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy."--Psalm 94:18-19

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    1. We really appreciate the prayers, Kelly. We serve an amazing God and we know that nothing happens that surprises Him!

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  3. Sean's health is the most important of all these issues. Take care of each other and yourselves. All the other problems will sort themselves out ... somehow! It will happen! Sending you prayers for strength.
    Lee Ann

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    1. Thank you so much for keeping us in your prayers! You are right, Sean's health is of the greatest concern right now. We are praying it turns out to be nothing but a little too much stress and not enough sleep!

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  4. Wow! That is quite a week. I think my heart stopped for a moment when you described Sean's episode. That must have been terrifying. Then you had all the other frustrating things happen one after another. I am glad you have such a wonderful group of supportive friends and family. I hope things take a major turn for the positive very soon.

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    Replies
    1. Supportive friends and family make all the difference! I can't imagine what the week would have been like without people holding us up!

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