Learning to Walk In The Dark

Sonia and Sophie have complex health problems, some we know about, others we cannot see. As I prayed this morning, I told the Lord that I felt as though I was walking in the dark.

Yes, and you are getting better at that. Am I not teaching you well? An interchange between God and Moses, drifted into my mind.

'So the LORD said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the LORD? Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.”' (Exodus 4:11-12).

Just as he was Moses mouth then, he is my eyes today. This morning, Sophie's had a greyish tinge to her skin. The oxygen probe on her foot read 99%.

She needs more oxygen.

When her tissues are 99% saturated with oxygen?

The blood gas will be your proof. But first, turn up the oxygen.

Now, before anyone gets worried about me, please note that the conversation above is in italics, not speech marks. I am not hearing voices. I am conceiving thoughts in my head. I believe that those thoughts are God-breathed.

I increased the oxygen and drew a blood sample so that I could run a blood gas. This showed that Sophie's blood oxygen levels were low and that she was retaining carbon dioxide in her lungs. By the time I left the NICU, Sophie was pink again, she was stretching her limbs, batting her arms and crying in her incubator. It was feeding time!

Our i-STAT machine allows

us to monitor the blood

chemistry of critically ill

infants.

My eyes are not all-seeing; his voice leads me in the darkness.

I strongly suspect that Sophie's circulatory system is not functioning normally at all. I pray that if she also has underdeveloped lungs, that she does not have a lethal genetic syndrome. I still have hope that Sophie's problems can be treated, or that she might 'grow out' of them and be able to come off of her CPAP.