The doctor’s voice pierced our ears with news we did not want to hear. News that we were not expecting to hear but here he was saying theses awful, hopeless words. It was Lauren’s week of intense therapy that just so happen to fall on the same week has her Cerebral Palsy Clinic, this is where we meet with all her team; the orthopedic surgeon, neurologist, pediatrician and the rehabilitation team. We sort of had ourselves somewhat prepared for the week because we knew some things weren’t going right with Lauren. As it is with Cerebral Palsy, every day is different and each day brings new challenges.
To begin the day we sat in the assessment room waiting for Lauren’s Orthopedic Surgeon to enter the room, wanting to lock the door and not have to listen to what he was going to say. We suspected that something wasn’t right with Lauren’s already troubled hip, she said ‘it hurt’. She already had reconstructive surgery done on her left hip, but we were expecting the problem was with her partially dislocated right hip. The doctor entered and the look on his face was not good. He knew what our aim and goal was for Lauren; which was a rhizotomy surgery in Montreal and both hips were required to be in perfect working order. The rhizotomy surgery was our one and only earthly hope of Lauren ever having any form of mobility outside a wheelchair. We looked at him and said, “you have bad news”. He did not deny it, but why couldn’t he, it was what we wanted; to be wrong.
He looked at us with a defeated, hopeless and helpless look and said, “the left hip that she had repaired is totally out of socket again.” The left hip? That one was repaired, we thought the pain she was complaining in was from the hip that wasn’t done. And he said,”the right hip is 50% out of socket.” So where does that leave us; we need two good hips to even be considered for the rhizotomy in Montreal. And now neither hip is in good standing. “There is nothing else we can do here at the Janeway for Lauren, get her to the Shriners Hospital as soon as possible.” From his standpoint Lauren would be confined to a wheelchair and we would need to start accepting that fact. Our hopes were crushed, the only hope we had was now gone. We cried our way through the process because here we were looking at a little four year old girl who’s greatest hope was to walk. “But I want to walk Mommy”, “But I want to walk Daddy”, “It hurts”, “I want to do it”.
We just wanted to go home, but first we had to see the Neurologist because her seizures were still not under control. Nothing was working, medication was only making her sleep more often. So we waited for the neurologist to plead for help to stop the seizures. Our fear with her having so many seizures was that more brain damage would be done and that we did not want to happen. Lauren is so intelligent and bright and we want to keep it that way. Her neurologist said, “there is no quick fix, no cure, just trial and error.” So now we try another medication and “please God” this would and will work.
Lauren’s physiotherapist came in while we were preparing to leave and we told her we just needed to go home and to cancel the remaining appointments for the week. We thank all the team for their concern and support, they really do care and love Lauren. But we just had to go home and let all of this just sink in and deal with the hurt and feeling of loss and hopelessness. There is a grieving process that goes along with this traumatic news.
We arrived home and just sat and looked at each other; defeated! Once the initial shock had worn off, it was, “okay what do we do next?” Get in contact with the Shriners Hospital in Montreal. So Lisa called Lauren’s doctor there and left a message to get back to us as soon as possible. While Lisa was doing this, I was sitting on the sofa playing with Lauren, when my phone rang. Hello, the man said, my daughter received a text today about a little girl who the Janeway had given some bad news and that she needed to get to the Shriner’s Children’s Hospital in Montreal as soon as possible. He said, “is any of this making any sense to you?” To which I said , “yes, I sent the text to eight of my siblings today to inform them of our devastating news concerning Lauren, who is our four years old little girl who has cerebral palsy. Well he said, “this is no coincidence, but divine intervention, because I’m a Shriner and I will do whatever I can to get your little girl to Montreal. My heart leaped within me, when I felt so low, angry and no hope in sight; God had sent us a sign that He is right by our side and it’s going to be okay. This was no coincidence. What are the chances that this text and I have no idea how it could have been sent to her; I only sent eight texts and they were all to my siblings, so how could this girl, who’s father just so happened to be a Shriner from Gander, receive my text, it was nothing short of a miracle. And my texts were all out of province. God will move, He will intervene.
So after such a stressful and defeating day, God had intervened once again. Sometimes it’s in the little things, when our faith was so small and we had more questions than answers ; God was still working on our behalf. So if you are reading this and you are discouraged, hurt, going through the storm of your life, in the valley of despair; God is there, He will intervene, just never give up! “He may be four days late but He is still on time.”