tender mercies

The LDS representatives stopped by tonight and gave us a New Era.  They also offered to put Shawnie's name on the prayer roll after seeing her in her bed.  We read "The Tender Mercies of the Lord" by Elder Bednar together after they left, and after a long and draining day Keith, Shawnie and I were all touched as we recognized and were reminded of the importance of recognizing these tender mercies in our lives.
He said:

I testify that the tender mercies of the Lord are real and that they do not occur randomly or merely by coincidence. Often, the Lord’s timing of His tender mercies helps us to both discern and acknowledge them.

The Lord’s tender mercies are the very personal and individualized blessings, strength, protection, assurances, guidance, loving-kindnesses, consolation, support, and spiritual gifts which we receive from and because of and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Truly, the Lord suits “his mercies according to the conditions of the children of men” (D&C 46:15).

Recall how the Savior instructed His Apostles that He would not leave them comfortless. Not only would He send “another Comforter” (John 14:16), even the Holy Ghost, but the Savior said that He would come to them (see John 14:18). Let me suggest that one of the ways whereby the Savior comes to each of us is through His abundant and tender mercies. For instance, as you and I face challenges and tests in our lives, the gift of faith and an appropriate sense of personal confidence that reaches beyond our own capacity are two examples of the tender mercies of the Lord. Repentance and forgiveness of sins and peace of conscience are examples of the tender mercies of the Lord. And the persistence and the fortitude that enable us to press forward with cheerfulness through physical limitations and spiritual difficulties are examples of the tender mercies of the Lord.

 So today we focus on the tender mercies:
Shawnie had a great night of sleep last night.  This medicine has become such a great thing for us.  I'm thinking I should ask for a prescription to get us through the nights at home!  She hasn't been awake much today either, just sleeping, usually pretty comfortably on her right side, all day.  We were able to pull the catheter this morning which was good, and she sat up, reclined, in her wheelchair a couple of times and even went for a (really short) walk down the hall with us tonight.  This afternoon, our nurse talked the nurse practitioner into ordering a chest xray to see if her lungs were ready to pull the horrid chest tube.  We had to cart Shawnie downstairs to radiology in her bed because that's the only thing comfortable right now.  We got her down there, laid her on the hard table and her body was hurting so bad, and the tech couldn't get the machine to work.  So she re-started it and it still didn't work. Shawnie was laying on the table for several minutes because it was so hard to move her with all the cords and tubes. Finally, she got really frustrated because she was so uncomfortable and couldn't move without hurting so much, and she just started to cry.  She cried and cried and yelled and cried.  I couldn't even blame her or be mad at her.  She has been nothing short of amazing through this whole horrible ordeal so we just let her cry. We put her back on her bed and she kept crying.  Those of you who have seen Shawnie fall apart on her worst of days can imagine it. We wheeled her into another xray room. She kept crying. Hard and loud.  We took the xrays and headed back upstairs.  Still hysterical.  In our room, she was still completely falling apart.  She eventually calmed down and got comfortable.  Well, most likely because her lungs got such a great workout, they were inflated and clear and beautiful when they looked at the xrays, and they took the tube out.  If I had known what that extraction would be like, I would never have watched.  As it was I was completely woozie and dizzy by the end.  That tube portion that was inside her was the size, width and length, of those fat pencils that we used in kindergarten.  Not even exaggerating.  I was so alarmed and affected.  I couldn't help but feel a little bit of the pain that she's gone through because of that horrible beast.  It was such an incredible tender mercy to have it removed and we all recognized the impact that it made on her healing as we were able to finally roll her to the other side, very carefully, for a very short amount of time, which is something that she hasn't done at all since the surgery.
Tonight they closed the area of the hospital that we were on for lack of patients.  They moved us to a new room and we are soooo not complaining. Our room is huge and our bathroom has a shower.  I think we can stay here a few more days without getting too awfully homesick and claustrophobic. And now, we get to sleep a while.  Who wouldn't be grateful for that!