Now that you have an idea of the environment we were in it's time to focus on the whole part of this experience. I'll start with Jacob first. When he was eventually discharged home we had a terrible time with him for the first six months. That whole anaphylactic shock issue I explained was more of an issue at home. When he was in the hospital the nurses in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) would not pick him up unless for medical reasons. At night he would lay in his crib alone without anyone there to pick him up when he cried. I really didn't like this particular PICU or the nurses...However, this is something that you need to realize about the hospital. Nurses and doctors are not obligated to pick up a child. It's truly a personal choice, now you would think that common sense would make these health care providers pick up these children but ultimately that is not ever the case, at least not at this hospital. So there's one misconception about the care there. Back to Jacob, he didn't know to cuddle up to mom when he was sick or unhappy. This was a learned behavior which should have been uh...a natural behavior? I don't remember junior year psychology. Anyways, the point here is that Jacob learned to put himself to sleep and make himself feel better when he was upset because nobody ever came to his aid unless his alarms had been sounding for 5 minutes or more.There is a story that relates to this perfectly which I would like to share with you all. In terms of Jacob's experience, we know that the angels were there for him at night and it's nice to think that perhaps God was there for him in this way as well.
~~ A cold March wind danced around
the dead of night in Dallas as the doctor walked into the small
hospital room of Diana Blessing. She was still groggy from surgery. Her
husband, David, held her hand as they braced themselves for the latest
news. That afternoon of March 10, 1991 , complications had
forced Diana, only 24-weeks pregnant, to undergo an emergency Cesarean
to deliver couple's new daughter, Dana Lu Blessing. At 2 inches long and
weighing only one pound nine ounces, they already knew she was perilously
premature. Still, the doctor's soft words dropped like bombs. "I
don't think she's going to make it," he said, as kindly as he could. "There's
only a 10-percent chance she will live through the night, and even then,
if by some slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very cruel
one"
Numb with disbelief,
David and Diana listened as the doctor described the devastating problems Dana
would likely face if she survived. She would never walk, she would never
talk, she would probably be blind, and she would certainly be prone to other
catastrophic conditions from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation, and
on and on."No! No!" was all Diana could say. She and David, with
their 5-year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the day they would have a
daughter to become a family of four. Now, within a matter of hours,
that dream was slipping away But as those first days passed, a
new agony set in for David and Diana. Because Dana's underdeveloped nervous
system was essentially 'raw', the lightest kiss or caress only intensified
her discomfort, so they couldn't even cradle their tiny baby girl against
their chests to offer the strength of their love. All they could do,
as Dana struggled alone beneath the ultraviolet light in the tangle of
tubes and wires, was to pray that God would stay close to their precious
little girl. There was never a moment when Dana suddenly grew stronger. But
as the weeks went by, she did slowly gain an ounce of weight here and an
ounce of strength there. At last, when Dana turned two months old. Her parents were able to hold her in their arms for the very first time. And two months later, though doctors continued to gently but grimly warn that her chances of surviving, much less living any kind of normal life, were next to zero, Dana went home from the hospital, just as her mother had predicted. Five years later, when Dana was a petite but feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for life. She showed no signs whatsoever of any mental or physical impairment. Simply, she was everything a little girl can be and more. But that happy ending is far from the end of her story. One blistering afternoon in the summer of 1996 near her home in Irving , Texas , Dana was sitting in her mother's lap in the bleachers of a local ball park where her brother Dustin's baseball team was practicing.
As always, Dana was chattering nonstop with her mother and several other adults sitting nearby when she suddenly fell silent As always, Dana was chattering nonstop with her mother and several other adults sitting nearby when she suddenly fell silent Hugging her arms across her chest, little Dana asked, "Do you smell that?" Smelling the air and detecting the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana replied, "Yes, it smells like rain." Dana closed her eyes and again asked, "Do you smell that?" Once again, her mother replied, "Yes, I think we're about to get wet. It smells like rain." Still caught in the moment, Dana shook her head, patted her thin shoulders with her small hands and loudly announced,
"No, it smells like Him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest." Tears blurred Diana's eyes as Dana happily hopped down to play with the other children. Before the rains came, her daughter's words confirmed what Diana and all the members of the extended Blessing family had known, at least in their hearts, all along. During those long days and nights of her first two months of her life, when her nerves were too sensitive for them to touch her, God was holding Dana on His chest and it is His loving scent that she remembers so well. "No, it smells like Him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest." Tears blurred Diana's eyes as Dana happily hopped down to play with the other children. Before the rains came, her daughter's words confirmed what Diana and all the members of the extended Blessing family had known, at least in their hearts, all along. During those long days and nights of her first two months of her life, when her nerves were too sensitive for them to touch her, God was holding Dana on His chest and it is His loving scent that she remembers so well.
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