I Can Do Hard Things

My friend Samantha Miller and I have a common saying, "I can do hard things". We remind each other of this as we experience our different challenges, we say, "Remember, you can do hard things!". I was reminded of this as I was on the phone with her yesterday. Austin, Emma, Ben, and I are going to do this, we can do this, all because of the love and care from Heavenly Father. We have been incredibly blessed, Heavenly Father knew this was going to happen, but he had this terrible thing happen in the best way possible. Here are just a few of our blessings.

• Family. If this would have happened in California, it would be a disaster. Here Emma is consistently taken care of by one of two people, and between Ben's family and my family, we always have the support of someone here at the hospital with us. We have had constant prayers, and support from our families. They lift us up when it gets hard.
• Friends. All of our friends have a encouraging words to say, and we have had many concerned phone calls, and many of them gave blood. They also spread the word about donating to the blood bank and encouraged everyone to pray for us. They help us out, and give us love. We appreciate them.
• We are staying with the parents of one of Ben's friends Analee Byers. He met her at WSU and kept in contact with her over the years. Analee is in Australia at the moment, but she reached out to Ben and found a place for us to stay. Her family is amazing, and are very generous hosts. Her dad is a pediatrician to boot.
• Ben was already on vacation, so it was planned that he would be away from his job for an extended amount of time. Also Amgen was shut down for apart of this time. Ben is also in the process of changing jobs to work for Boston Scientific, with the bump in salary we will be able to better pay our medical bills. It might be hard for him to switch jobs right now but he is going to fly up on the weekends, and in the end it's a blessing.
• Our awesome Nephrologist, Dr. Hernandez, is wonderful and everyone tells us that if they were in our position they would want him as their Dr. He also trained at UCLA for his specialty, so when we finally go home, he will hand our case to someone he knows and trusts for follow up care.
• Spokane Children's Hospital is a great place. The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit isn't huge, and some of the nurses have been here for over 20 years (which is unheard of) since they like working here so much. We also see our Dr at least once everyday. This is unusual, and we are grateful for his attentiveness. If we were in Seattle we would be attended to by Fellows that would report to a Dr, here we get the real deal. Also we have a nurse in our room 24 hours a day to monitor the dialysis.
  
• Ben works for a company that has a Nephrology division with nationally recognized Dr's in the field. If we really needed help we can use them as a resource. We also have our good friend Kareem's mom, who just happens to be a very good and experienced Nephrologist. We talk to her on the phone, and she likes to keep up with his progress.
• Emma had diarrhea before Austin had E. Coli. I personally think that this is why she did not get as sick, I think the E. Coli passed right through her system. I might be wrong, but one things for sure. We are so blessed that she did not have it, even though she exhibited most of the same symptoms.
• We were able to see Dr Milligan in Moses Lake who pointed us to Spokane, and we arrived here before he went into renal failure, which better his chances. Austin was not a patient of Dr. Milligan, but we knew him from Ben's parents ward. We couldn't get through to him earlier, and he had been on vacation the week before. I sat in the waiting room and when I saw him I flagged him down through the window. His timing was perfect as far as getting back into town, seeing us that same day, and sending us to Spokane Children's when he did.
  
• Every other person that goes to the blood bank in Moses Lake donates in Austin's name, and is blowing the other blood banks out of the water as far as numbers go. His story was even on the local radio station there. My dad was at the blood bank and was talking to a lady that informed him she had never given blood, but when she heard Austin's story she tearfully said "I just had to come down here and donate blood for that little boy!". We are touched that so many people have done this for our Austin and that many people will be helped because of him. It's paying forward for all the people that donated for Austin to have blood.
• Our friends Eric and Tracy Fuhriman came to visit us. They had the very difficult experience of having their beautiful little boy Kimball pass away after he was born with genetic/heart problems. They stayed at the hospital with him, and it was a very tough experience. We were able to have good talks, and they understood what we were experiencing so well. We appreciate them so much for helping us with their hard earned wisdom, taking us out on the town for a break, and the thoughtful goodies they brought us.
  

There are many more, and everyday I realize another blessing to add to the long list of things that could only have been arranged by a very thoughtful and loving Heavenly Father. He loves us and loves Austin more than we ever could. We are so grateful for Him and the care he is taking of our little family.