The following weeks after Sam's surgery were very hard....full of post-op complications and I had hit rock bottom emotionally. I think the staff even wrote about it in Sam's reports.....that's how bad it was. I had a hard time accepting all of Sam's complications. I knew they were real, but there was no way that I could accept the fact that Sam was going to be in the hospital for another 12 weeks.....I couldn't do it. Rod and I watched other families with sick babies try and cope as best they could.....until you are in this situation it really is just somebody Else's life....it is not real. I was longing to hold Sam and just be his mom and watch him grow and smile and hold my finger. All of those simple little things that we take for granted were just not possible for us at that moment. After we had heard all of the bad news I went home and sat in Sam's nursery and stared at the empty crib and just cried.
Sam was getting stronger, his heart was healing, he was on IV meds for the infection and he had a chest tube that was draining fluid from around his lungs. They were beginning to wean him off of some of the medication that he was on and when he was 3 and half weeks old they took him off of the breathing machine. He was just on oxygen. All of this was good news. I was even able to start to hold him again.....all of which should have been enough for me, but it wasn't.....with the chest tube still in and draining off fluid.....they told us to prepare for another 12 weeks of being in the hospital. We had 3 other boys at home who were living a very different life. Rod had to go back to work....I was thankful that CBC gave Rod quite a bit of time off after Sam was born. We tried to come up with a plan that worked for us....so between visits to the hospital and trying to be parents at home, it all became very exhausting. I could tell it was starting to affect them...especially Kyle. I had sent my mom back home to Saskatchewan because I wanted her to be able to come back when they released Sam from the hospital....whenever that would be was anybody's guess. It was at this point that I went home one night after being at the hospital and was totally exhausted, but very much trusting that God was going to hear my prayer......I just wanted Sam to come home. There was one nurse...actually she was more then a nurse, but I forget her title, anyway we didn't always see eye-to-eye. She was always the one who delivered the bad news to me and she was very cold about it when she did....I know it was her job, but she always gave worse case scenario and they was never any room for hope or the possibility of a miracle. I really felt strongly that God was going to answer my prayer. I didn't know how because there was so many obstacles that Sam had to overcome that the mountain seemed impossible to climb.......in the days to come it would be this very nurse that gave me such a hard time that God would use to make a miracle happen......when all seems lost God is still there!!!
