May 3, 2010

After a fairly lengthy night of wondering, Garrett had his checkup this morning. There were no changes. So the good part, is that there were no changes. The disappointing part is that there were no changes. After considerable improvement over the past few checkups, we were hoping the trend would continue. It didn't.

We talked at length with Garrett's primary cardiologist, who reassured us that he was not overly concerned about Garrett's increased heart rate. What he eloquently reminded us was that we are not out of the woods. That's why they're keeping Garrett close, just in case this spins out of control again. Garrett has come a long way in a short time, but it could be months before we see any significant improvement in his heart function. And while we were not given any disturbing news, it was the first time that they have suggested they might move up Garrett's biopsy surgery. It is the only way to know the extent of the damage to Garrett's heart. Through pathology, they can determine if the heart is healed, healing, still containing infected cells and/or developing antibodies against the donor heart. This is a waiting game of ups and downs. For now, they increased Garrett's lasix to help him get rid of some fluid he's retaining, and some nasty stuff he has to take to fight thrush he's developed.

Tonight Garrett's heart rate got into the mid 140's, which prompted another call to the transplant team. With no other noteworthy symptoms, they won't get too concerned unless the heart rate exceeds 170. Disconcerting, but it's what we have to work with right now.

Garrett's well aware of everything that's going on and got pretty mad that his heart rate keeps going up. So we talked about what we are taught in Corinthians, that "these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love". We discussed how our true faith is the confidence in our God, believing without seeing. Christ confirmed the blessings we receive for true faithfulness when He talked to doubting Thomas. Our faith works together with with hope, because we hope for paradise and being worthy of the promises of Christ. None of it matters without love. God showed His tremendous love for us, and we love Him in return. These three give us the strength to fight another day, to find victory in each day and to worry less because we know that God loves us more than we could ever love Him. This journey has given me, a daddy, so many opportunities to improve my own faith and to help my children develop their own walk. We will get better. Jesus' love sustains us. We have faith in Him, we hope to see Him in paradise some day and we thirst for His love to complete this unending circle.

Kathy tearfully told me tonight that all she wants for Mother's Day is for Garrett to get better. He will, mommy. He will.

For me, I long for the faith of the woman who only wanted to touch the hem of Jesus' clothing to be healed. That is strong faith.

Many thanks for the continued prayers for our little cowboy warrior and the family.

JD