1 Chronicles 16:8 - Give thanks to the Lord. Worship him. Tell the nations what he has done.
That's just what I intend to do with this blog entry.
Give thanks to the Lord. Worship him. Tell the nations what he has done.
Well, maybe not the nations but at least my fellow blog readers and any one who cares to listen to me in the line at the grocery store or in the locker room at the gym.
About a month ago I noticed a wet spot on our family room carpet. It was clearly urine and unless it was one of the children, which at this stage, I highly doubted, it had to have been Bella, our 8 year old female Labradoodle. A little dismayed, I decided to clean the carpet really well to try to elimate any residue. So, I pulled up the carpet from one side of the room to the other to find that this wasn't her first offense. She had soiled nearly the front 1/4 of the room. Aside from being so irritable that I had to clean up the mess, I had a feeling something wasn't right with her. She hasn't had in accident in the house since she was a puppy. A friend suggested she might have a bladder infection which seemed very practical. So, I took her to see the Vet.
Before we got into her room, the nurse weighed her. She had lost 10 pounds in less than 5 months. I got a little pit in my stomach when she asked that we re-weigh her. They then tested a urine sample and found her white blood cells to be very high. The next step was to test her stool and run a blood test to determine what was going on in her body. I agreed and we headed home with a two week supply of strong antibiotics.
The next afternoon, the Vet called to confirm what the test results had shown. Her levels of ribillum were very high, her liver enzymes were very high as were a number of other things. She stated that it appeared that Bella was experiencing liver failure. She was calm, patient and thorough in her explanation. She said our next step was to detemine why her liver was failing. We needed to have an ultra sound, a partial xray and then be prepared to have a clotting panel run to make sure she wouldn't bleed to death if tumors were found and a biopsy was needed. She was giving me all of the potential complications, associated costs and necessary information to make an informed decision on what to do next. I was told that anything we would do to treat her would only benefit her short term and maybe give her another year of life. Things did not look good.
I hung up the phone and began to sob. In the 10 minutes we were on the phone, I had heard the terms; liver failure, cancer and death. There was no long term solution and it would be very expensive to just determine the cause.
Before I went to bed that night, I had talked and prayed with my family and friends on the phone. My brother-in-law, Jay called to offer his good friend and rertired Vet's phone number for a second opinion. He told me that night, that Dr. George was very practical, realistic with incredible experience and was so good to them when they had to put down their dog a few years ago. I intended to call him the following morning. Later, my good friend and fellow dog lover came to our house to bring a bottle of wine, talk about the situation and love on Bella. Before leaving that night Rachel, Doug and I sat on the floor with Bella and laid our hands on her praying that God would heal her. I believed that God had the power to heal her body but I also asked for the protection on our hearts if that was not his will.
I spoke to Dr. George the next morning and he asked that I send him all of her test results for him to review and he would get back to me by Saturday. Saturday morning, I attended the New Hope women's retreat. As the guest speaker, Beth Booram, began the day, she asked that we pray quietly and ask God to still our minds and speak to our hearts. All I could think of was Bella. I couldn't remove the image of her face or oddly enough the letters spelling her name from my minds' eye. I remember thinking, "Lord, help me to focus." I was praying that God would use me that day. I hoped to gain an understanding for his will for me in those quiet moments but was not getting any clarity or so I thought.
As Beth began, she displayed an image on the large screens at the front of the room. She was discussing the relationship between a shepherd and his flock of sheep compared to that of Jesus and his people. My jaw dropped....That sheep looked just like Bella girl. It occurred to me that perhaps the "clarity and focus" I was looking for was the same thing I was feeling distracted by...Bella. This would not be the first time my agenda wasn't God's agenda for me.
Sometime within the next hour, I stepped out of the conference room to take the call from Dr. George. He asked me to refresh him on why it was I took her into the vet in the first place. I told him I suspected a bladder infection because of the accidents she was having in the house. His remark was, "I think that's exactly what we have here...a very bad infection in her bladder." He was "not too concerned about her liver or the weight loss" and suggested we take a slower approach to her treatment. That meant increasing the dose of medicine she was currently on and watching her behavior. He thought she was probably already feeling better and I agreed that she was. He asked that I bring him a urine sample two weeks from then and we would re-evalate her status.
This was far from the news I had heard just days prior. I was over the moon. I walked back into the conference room and this was the image that Beth had moved on to...
OH MY... How was it that these images were so relevant to me and so specific to Bella? We had just gotten on our knees and laid our hands over our sick dog and prayed for her healing. I was praying for clarity that morning and He was giving it to me...Bella had been healed! I believed it could happen! It had happened!
God is so good, so faithful, so loving...so true. It makes my cry just thinking of how the Lord had his hand on her, on us.
Two weeks passed and this morning I took her urine sample to Dr. George. In his phone message to me after reviewing the results he said, "Everything looks great, better than normal. There is no sign of infection!"
Thank you God.
