Confounding the Mighty

Anita has done such a marvelous job of blogging and keeping all of our dear family and friends updated on happenings here at the Hurons! I am giving her a much deserved break today and will attempt to relate the latest so that you may share our hearts and view of this side of Heaven…….

What a joy it was to bring Santi home this morning! When Anita and I arrived in the van, he and Daddy were waiting outside of the front doors. We loaded the van with a futon, a nice fluffy feather mattress and piles of pillows. I had a feeling Santi wanted to ride up front instead of lying down and I was right. He relished the outdoors, but began nodding after a while. He was able to lie down and had a good nap for the remainder of the ride home.

He seems to require so little pain medication…..it makes me think of the verse in I Corinthians one….verse 27: “For God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty….that no flesh should glory in his presence.”

Santi is confounding! His strength comes from his weakness….and God has chosen him to remind us (the mighty ones?) that bravery and health and intelligence and…..(you fill in your “good” thing) is really nothing.

I accidentally bumped his halo as we were transferring him to the bed and he quietly said, “Ow”. I felt so terrible. The first thing he wanted to do when we wheeled him into the house was ride around and visit Cilicia in her room. After his visit, we realized we were late on his next med dose. He didn’t want to take any, but we knew we had better keep the schedule……confounding…..

Now for some technical talk: Santi’s halo is attached to his skull with 7 screws….quite large ones. They make me squeamish. This morning just before discharge from the hospital, a doctor had to “torque” them all. This made my husband squeamish. When Santi is seated in the wheelchair, weights are attached to a pulley running from the top of the halo down behind the chair. He is now pulling 6 pounds; we are to add one pound every other day until we reach the maximum pull of 16 pounds! Try sitting up with 3 bags of sugar plus one pound pulling off the top of your head….it hurts…..

Now we must take Santi back to Shands once per week for x-rays of his neck to make sure the traction is adequate….that is, not too little and not too strong. We are very thankful for the wheelchair and that he is actually able to go to church and other selective outings…..we are being especially careful just now to protect him and the rest of us from an apparent flu bug. We will be home-bodies for a while…..

Again, thank you for praying for Santi and for your notes of love. He really loves hearing the blog comments. He is able to be wheeled up to a computer and play with the word processor….he loves to spell the names of our family members. After this week, I will resume his phonics lessons and continue with as much normalcy as we can.

Cilicia is doing well, though moving slowly. Nausea is still a problem and so she is not her usual perky self. Continue to pray for her healing and physical nourishment. She turned down my yummy chicken soup! This reminds me to thank all of you for the meals coming to our house! What a blessing! The cooking staff around here has been delegated to round the clock nursing and so they appreciate the break…..

Are you mighty or weak? Are you base or despised We glory in the Lord!

Thoughts from Ana a.k.a. “Mama”