Gratitude

Since Thanksgiving has come and gone, naturally my thoughts have been about the blessings I see in my life. In the last few weeks, I have been mostly grateful for medical doctors. I felt like writing this post because I think that the medical community can get a bad rap at times. I hear people grumble about how their doctor overlooked something and their child got really sick, or that doctors are just out to get our money, etc. And all of these stories are probably true. But I think our family has been especially fortunate to find good, conscientious doctors. It started with our OB doctor I decided on when we found out we were expecting Caleb. Today, almost seven years later our little group of medical professional support now includes a neurologist, pediatrician and orthopedist. It's experiences like the OB catching a potentially life threatening condition I developed when I was 38 weeks pregnant, to a doctor who was observant enough in his questioning me about Jake's seizures. Through his questioning we realized that one side of Jake's body seemed to be more affected than the other and that it just wasn't a sickness-related seizure--this helped in leading us to get certain tests that perhaps we might have thought were unnecessary.

And these past few weeks, I have been reminded again why I am grateful for good doctors. I had asked my OB (the same one since Caleb's birth) about my pelvis, back and hip pain that I have been experiencing and she immediately referred me to a good orthopedist who got me in that day. This orthopedist has helped me cope with my pain, helped me learn what activities I can and can't do and has helped me with exercises that have even helped improve my condition. A condition I read would only be resolved postpartum and for the meantime I thought I was just going to have to put up with it. I'm grateful she was insistent that I not be put on bedrest because she felt it was better to work around the problem and strengthen my body so that I would have a better recovery. And my OB has been helping with the condition suggesting certain things I should try that I was probably a little too stubborn to try without her encouragement because I thought it wouldn't work, but in the end it did.

I know this may seem like a funny post, it doesn't seem to be related to our family much, but really it is. It is because of good doctors that Jake has been seizure free for over seven months, that I am now not on bedrest and can get through most days without too much pain and discomfort and help take care of the kids. It is because of a good doctor that Caleb and I may be alive today since most doctors wouldn't have run the type of tests she ran. She determined my blood platelets were dropping and I could have bled to death during Caleb's delivery if she didn't act soon.

And one last thing, of course it isn't just good doctors that helped us through all these medical related trying times. It's family and community/church support that have also helped pull us through. Family and friends have helped with childcare and emotional support when we needed it. It would be terribly lonely to try and face all of this alone, but fortunately, we don't have to.