Wednesday morning I arrived home from a 12 hour shift just long enough to kiss Lane good morning, grab breakfast, and give Lane’s oncoming attendant caregiver some specific instructions for the day ahead. Within an hour I was off to an annual employee performance eval for my RN work. Little did I know what would unfold that day, but looking back, I am so glad I didn’t.

About 5 minutes from my evaluation being done I felt my phone vibrate several times. Picking it up I saw that it was Lane’s caregiver, so as soon as the eval was done I called her back. “Lane just had a seizure and is feeling dizzy and nauseous, she said. I timed it, took his vitals, and ensured nothing was in his mouth like you asked us to do. He says he’s feeling ok now but would like to see you as soon as you can get here.” Recognizing he was stable, I grabbed a McDonald’s coffee on the way home knowing I probably wouldn’t want to sleep anytime soon. The rest of the morning Lane’s doc just told him to lay low but let them know if anything else went on. Later in the afternoon he began to feel dizzy, nauseous, and simply “cloudy.” This lasted for another 3-4 hours so I decided to take him in to Sparrow ER. His symptoms were not a whole lot different than when he had acute kidney failure so I’ve learned to act quickly. We arrived and got checked in and within minutes he was telling me he felt like he was going to seize again. If anything this got him back to triage and his ER room quicker, thankfully. As soon as the nurse introduced herself to him and I his head/gazed fixed to the left and he began to sweat profusely. His seizure lasted a minute or so, then they transferred him to the bed where they began hooking him up to various monitors and started an IV. When the doctor came in I told him about Lane’s recent med change, but also that he’d gone 10 months without having a seizure while on the previous med. Within the last 2 weeks he’s had 4 with dizziness and nausea in between. He said he would get blood work as well as a CT and chest X-ray done to rule anything out.

By 11pm we had been told that nothing abnormal was revealed in any of the scans or bloodwork but that they wanted to start him back on his old seizure med and stay the night for monitoring so the MSU neurologists could see him in the AM. Around 11:45p we were in Lane’s Neuro step down room, both ready to sleep for days.  After an uneventful night (except the lights being turned on ever 2 hours by the nurse to turn him :(), we were very ready to go home. The neurologists had stopped by and gave us an excellent explanation of why the seizures were occurring and what they wanted Lane to do with his meds from now on. We arrived home around 4p yesterday, physically and mentally worn, but grateful.

Grateful that even though Lane had the 4 seizures, nothing abnormal was causing them. Grateful that the doctors were quick to listen to my concerns and did the CT/blood work. Grateful that Lane’s seizure on Wednesday am didn’t take place while I was on a 12 hour shift. Grateful that the Neuro docs recognized what’s been going on and started him on a (hopefully) more efficient seizure med. Grateful that our NTBI family was quick to understand and reschedule our chapel presentation that was suppose to take place today. Grateful that even though Lane and I have been physically, mentally, and emotionally drained the past few days, Christ alone has sustained us with His peace, grace, and strength that is fully sufficient.

Thank you for your prayer, love, and support dear friends. Please continue.

Encouraged and upheld by our Savior today,

Emily (for Lane too)

“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” John 14:27

As we sat around the dinner table yesterday with our Davis family (we missed you Bargerons!), Lane and I couldn’t help but look back at last year’s Easter celebration. First of all, he couldn’t yet leave Mary Free Bed, so we celebrated there. Secondly, he was on a soft foods diet, so everything he ate had to be within this soft foods category (jello, deviled eggs etc:). He was SO thrilled to be out of the hospital eating meat and regular food yesterday! But what didn’t change and never will regardless of our circumstance is the reason we celebrate Easter, the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Yesterday our Pastor at FBC spoke on one of the greatest fears of mankind, death. He spoke from Hebrews 2 and the reason we as believers have no reason to fear death, because our Savior defeated it by His death and conquering of the grave. What a beautiful reminder, as none of us know what our tomorrow holds. We pray that each of you, dear family and friends, know Christ. If not, email us. We’d love to share more about HIM with you (lanemily12@gmail.com).

Update on Lane’s therapy/health: Therapy is going great and he is adjusting really well to the Therapy facility here in East Lansing. His sleep is gradually getting a little better since a recent med change, which we are grateful for. There’s still lots of room for improvement though.

We are also looking into a possible massage therapy (craniosacral massage) that is suppose to be really helpful for insomnia and fatigue etc, or any TBI’s in general. Unfortunately since Lane’s seizure med has recently been changed, he’s had 2 seizures (the past two Sundays). The first was an absence seizure and the second involved some tremors, both lasting around 35 seconds. His Epileptologist (seizure doctor) knows about both and will be getting back with us today about what she wants us to do. Please join us in praying that no more seizures will occur and that this new med will simply eliminate them. Also that nothing else (change etc) in the brain is causing these seizures.

In just two short weeks we celebrate 2 years of marriage. Can this really be?! Some days we honestly tell each other that it seems we’ve been married well over 10 years with all that has gone on…but other days we can’t hardly believe 2 years have passed by. Lane and I figured out today that since the day we were married he has been in inpatient hospitals/rehab facilities more than the time we’ve lived at home. On our anniversary (May 4th)  we’ll have lived at home for 9 months and 26 days (pre and post accident), while he was in the hospital for 14 months and 2 days. Looking forward to the day our “days together at home” will outnumber inpatient facility days!

 Thank you for your steadfast prayer and support, dear friends. We still so desperately need it.

Love,

 Emily (for my hard working champion)

PS. These pictures were taken yesterday, the top is Lane and I with our niece Alice, bottom is our sister in law Jenny with she and Ivans daughter Heidi, Emily’s sister Elizabeth, and her friend Faith from college. Middle is Lane with the new son of our good friends, Stephanie and Preston Nichols (Trenton Lane:).

Just received Lane’s sleep study results! The really good news is that Lane’s breathing and oxygen levels are not what is disrupting his sleep. They said it’s considered sleep disrupted breathing when the person completely or partially stops breathing 5 times or more an hour during the study and the most Lane did was 0.9/hr. Lane’s oxygen levels also averaged 96% and his lowest 02 saturation throughout the night was 92% (on the low end of normal). Like I said, this is wonderful news, but we still have no idea what is causing his lack of sleep. We’ll be addressing this with his PCP and physiatrist soon, but our guess is that the culprit is simply his TBI:( His sleep doctor did prescribe a med that is starting to help him sleep deeper, which we’re praying continues to work and improve.

We’re stoked that the weekend is here after a long week of work and therapy for us both. This spring weather we’re starting to have is a HUGE perk too. And this spring we’ll actually be able to go outside and enjoy it:) Thanks for your continued prayer and support. It means more than you’ll ever know.

Gratefully,

L&E

“You will keep him in perfect peace who’s mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, for in YAH, the Lord, is everlasting strength.” Isaiah 26:3-4

Well our day didn’t go exactly as planned yesterday, but we’re learning to roll with the punches as Lane would say. We left over 30 minutes early and got stuck in traffic for over 45 minutes on 96 because an over sized load tipped over ahead of us. Big bummer especially with the distance we have to travel to these appointments. By the time we arrived at Saint Mary’s the Pulmonary office had closed, thus no pulmonary function test took place:( There was some good that came from this though, as we were able to grab dinner and stop by MFB for a few minutes to see some old Nursing staff friends. As Lane and I ate dinner overlooking the GR skyline at St. Mary’s (one of our favorite GR views),  we were reminded once again ALL that God has faithfully done throughout the past 16 months. Just 9 months ago we were overlooking this same view with an IV pole in tow, a heart monitor on Lane’s chest, and Lane’s CCU nurse behind us in case anything went awry with his acute kidney failure. Even at Lane’s sickest moments we tried to get away to this beautiful view and spend precious time in the word—which put every bit of our momentary suffering in perspective.

8 o’ clock rolled around and it was time for the sleep study prep to begin. They set Lane up with his leads and by about 10:30p we were both sleeping. Around 5:30a we heard Lane’s tech announce overhead that she had successfully kept track of him sleeping over 6 hours. This was honestly the worst part of the night because we had to pack up and leave :/ She also said she wasn’t allowed to give us the technical results but it was apparent that he had no/minimal apnea or periods of hypoxia because he didn’t need any CPAP/BIPAP devices or supplemental oxygen. Praise God! We’ll know the full results in 7-10 days. We are praying the doctor will give us tips or wisdom as to what we can be doing to majorly improve Lane’s sleep.

Thanks for praying and have a wonderful Saturday!

Emily (for Lane too)

Tonight we are off to Lane’s long awaited sleep study.They actually set up his pulmonary function test right before too so we don’t have to make separate trips to GR. We are praying we’ll receive some answers as to why he has slept horribly since October (when he left Mary Free Bed). We’ve done everything from switching/adding/taking away meds to changing mattresses to moving therapies around to accessing oxygen levels and eliminating any caffeine and light in the room at night. Unfortunately many brain injuries have a part of the brain effected so their brain simply doesn’t shut off or turn on as it used to with their sleep/wake cycle. But wondering why it would’ve just started in October!?!! His routine/meds were exactly the same at inpatient Hope than they were at MFB. We are both SO ready for a good nights sleep. Recognizing the importance of sleep and how much lack of sleep effects both of us, please join us in prayer for this study and test tonight.

Incredibly grateful that He is our strength when we are weary. Thank you for praying, always.

Emily