Praying for a Miracle

I haven't posted for a while for good reason...

This past Saturday night, my precious granddaughter, Stella who is 5 years old, was admitted to the ICU at our wonderful Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City, with RSV. Most kids have outgrown the possibility of contracting this virus by the age of 2-3, but Stella was born with a compromised immune system.

By Monday, she was diagnosed with Fungal Pneumonia, which is a rare form of pneumonia and is fought by our bodies T-cells....the ones Stella was born without. She is one sick little girl!

By Tuesday, she looked pretty rough and was very, very sick. She was not responding to any meds or treatments and Infectious Disease specialists were called in. My heart just about fell to the floor and, for the first time in my entire life, I felt no hope...I've never really experienced that before and I am ashamed to say that I even went there...maybe my faith is not as strong as I thought it was.

She has seen more needles, tubes, been poked and prodded and through it all, she has been a real trooper. Her fever has been high, she is on 100% oxygen and only able to keep her levels up to about 92% (should be 100%) and her heart rate was fluctuating between 160-185...way too high.

I called my daughter, Brittany, who lives in Idaho, on the way home from the hospital. We bawled our eyes out together. In a weird way, it helped to just cry with someone who is as invested as I am. Britt has two beautiful, amazing children and her heart was breaking along with mine. I love her so much and am so thankful I have her to lean on!

Now, Stella has a feeding tube that was originally placed directly into her intestines. She was more responsive today and I managed to get a few smiles out of her...an impossibility yesterday.
Her preschool class made her cards and her two best friends, Elle and Jaydn brought the cards and some fun gifts to her today. Of course, they weren't allowed to come upstairs which broke their hearts, but they proudly gave them to Aja and Stella was beaming when she opened each card.

I have never prayed so hard in my entire life! I have begged the Lord to heal this precious angel and to let her stay with us longer upon the earth. I know that I am selfish, but I can't even allow myself to think of losing her...it breaks my heart.

As my hubs and I were preparing for our prayer this morning, he asked me to offer the prayer. I sobbed! I told Heavenly Father that I wanted to have faith and I wanted to accept His will, but I also told Him that I was struggling with that. I want my faith to be strong but am realizing how very weak it can be. It's easy to say, "Thy will be done" when it's not THAT big of a deal, but when it comes to life and death, it's the most difficult phrase I have ever uttered! It made me realize that I take that for granted and I asked myself if I have really meant it in the past...

Last night, my ward (congregation) sent out massive emails and began a Ward Fast on behalf of this precious little girl. My phone "blew up" with loving texts offering their love, support and prayers. Even the youth of our ward fasted for her and sent their love. I was SO completely overwhelmed and humbled by the generous offerings of food, daycare for the other two kids and just general "what can I do to help?" questions.

This morning I awoke (after a pretty sleepless night) with a lighter heart. I felt the power of all of these prayers. I KNOW that all of the prayers from all of my friends, regardless of religious persuasion, have been received on the other side. They have lifted me and have sustained me. I actually felt some hope today and I feel much stronger.

I don't know what lies ahead. All I know is that today was a better day than yesterday. I know that Stella's future is in the hands of the Lord. I will continue to pray and even plead with a kind and merciful Heavenly Father, that He will protect this little girl and provide the comfort to endure whatever comes her way.

Impossible Possibilities

**WARNING** Lots of Acronyms in this post...Welcome to the Airline Industry!

For the past 4 months, I have been living away from my sweet home. It all started in June when I entered Flight Attendant training and was required to stay in a hotel in Salt Lake City (SLC) near the airport. I was one of the lucky ones because I was only 1 hour from my home and was able to see my hubs, kids and grandchildren periodically. Most of the people in my class were hundreds, even thousands of miles from their loved ones...

As soon as training was over, I was immediately assigned to the Portland (PDX) domicile. I finished my initial flight and was sent to PDX the very next day. Again, I was blessed to be sent with several of my friends whom I had grown to love during our 29 day training in SLC. We each had 3 nights in a hotel so we combined our nights, stayed together and stretched our hotel stay into 9 days. During that time, we found a crash pad not far from the city train fondly called the Max which meant that we could leave our cars home and have readily available, affordable transportation to the airport. (More on the crash pad in a later post...after I get back to SLC for good...!!)

So now it is October. I am still in PDX and I am still living in a crash pad with anywhere from 5-15 people in a small 2 bedroom/1 bath apartment, depending on the particular month. It's a challenge to say the least.

I have been very fortunate during the month of Oct to have been awarded a Reserve Line with Sunday/Monday/Tuesdays off. Reserve is simply being available at your domicile in the event that you are called to fly. That means that I HAVE to be in PDX available for a possible assignment from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM on my duty days= a LOT of down time=a LOT of sitting around=potential boredom=precious time away from my family and home.

With my Oct. schedule, I was able to usually get back to SLC Saturday evening and able to get back to Portland Wednesday morning before 9:00...not bad at all. Nov is a different story! I was assigned Mon/Tues with only two weeks of Mon/Tues/Wed off...no more Sundays, no more church! I'm bummed!

So yesterday, I finished a 2 day trip to Burbank, which by the way, was incredibly beautiful with very blue skies, clean air and 78° weather. It was a long layover and so nice for a change. But the problem that I had was that we would get in to PDX AFTER the last flight left for SLC on ANY airline out of PDX. That meant that I would miss church and seeing 2 of my precious *Littles* in Primary (Sunday School). One gave a talk about the power of prayer and the other gave a scripture found in John. It's a big deal to a 4 and 5 year old. I listed myself on the 6:00 AM flight this morning from PDX-SLC but it was pretty full and since we fly "Space Available", I was concerned. After all, it is UEA (Utah Educators Association) convention in Utah and since kids are out of school, many families take a mini vacation, thus filling up the flights in and out of SLC...Ugh!!

I am forever amazed at the tender mercies of the Lord. I prayed that I would be able to get back to SLC this weekend and the way things were looking yesterday, there was no way that I could get back until Sunday night at the earliest...if then...and more than likely not until Monday afternoon...if then!! As my crew and I arrived to the Burbank (BUR) airport yesterday to work our last leg back to PDX, my First Officer (FO) informed me that if I was willing to fly to Redmond/Bend, OR (RDM) on the 10:10 PM flight, I would be able to get on the 6:10 AM flight from RDM to SLC. This meant staying overnight in a hotel...I called our crew hotel in RDM, secured a room for $42 and bolted to RDM.

Yes, I arrived home this morning at 8:30 and my sweet hubs picked me up, dropped me off at home so I could change into appropriate church attire and I made it in time to see my *beauties* give their talk/scripture!

Again, the Lord blessed me and cleared a path for me to get to my precious family. This has happened to me over and over and over again. Impossible options mysteriously appear at just the right moment.

When my sweet father passed away, I was in Burbank, working a trip, scheduled to fly one leg back to PDX then was going to try to get on an oversold flight back to SLC. Unbelievably, a SLC based flight attendant rode to the airport with my crew and we were able to swap trips. She flew to Portland and I flew to Salt Lake in time to be with my family and have a few priceless moments with my dad before the mortuary took his body out of the home. Coincidence?!? Absolutely not. I believe that it was a well laid plan by the Good Lord above who knew my needs and provided a path for me.

So today, I am home with my family. I ended up getting about 3 hours of sleep last night and I am TOTALLY exhausted but sleeping in my own bed, eating a home cooked meal and attending my own ward (church) with my family is more precious than anything. The Lord once again provided a way for me to find my way back. That is the most amazing thing about God. He knows each of us and loves all of us no matter who we are or how we live our lives. He is always available to bless us with tremendous abundance if we will but ask and have faith that He has all power to make the impossible possible. That's all we have to do!!