Eddie and Martha Marie Smith

The physical therapist just came in to do some exercises with Martha Marie.  Martha Marie is wably and is not ready to go home today.  She took just a few steps outside the room and was ready to go back and lay down.

The physical therapist did not have any hesitation about us going home tomorrow, but did not feel that today was the day.  Martha Marie will need to eat more and gain more balance before she can go home.  The physical therapist said that the factors keeping her from walking well are from her head swelling (which is normal after brain surgery), medication, lack of circulation, dizziness, lack of balance, and lack of food are all working together against her.

The physical therapist gave her some exercises she can do to get her circulation going and other instructions to help get her back on her feet.  We will have another physical therapy session tomorrow morning.

They have changed pain medicines to Phenergen.  We are praying that her headache will go away so she won’t have to take as much medicine.

The physical therapist also mentioned that we may need to do some outpatient physical therapy once we get home.

Pray she can come home tomorrow.

Martha Marie still needs to eat more and have some physical therapy before she can go home.  The chances of coming home today are very slim.

She is still feeling nausious.  We found out that she needs more food on her stomach when she takes the medicine than what she has had.

Please pray for her appetite to increase and for her physical therapy walking sessions to go well so she can go home.

The doctors have said that it is possible for Martha Marie to go home tomorrow.  It just depends on how she is feeling and her progress.  We just do not want to go home too soon when it would be best to stay in the hospital rather than leaving too prematurely.

Martha Marie has eaten a banana and a few crackers.  She needs to eat much more before she can have enough strength to leave the hospital to be able to move around.  This is hard for her since she does not have an apetite.  Once she eats enough she will be able to have the IV taken off.  She is drinking very well.

The doctor will come back around tomorrow to let us know what he thinks about whether she can go home or not.

Please pray that her apetite will increase and pray for wisdom for us and the doctors on the proper release time for Martha Marie to go home.

Martha Marie had a great night of rest last night.  She slept well and has had little pain.  She ate some jello this morning and said that made her feel queasy.  She is walking great.   Her left eye is swollen almost completely shut, but the swelling should start to go down today.  A doctor came in this morning and said that she could probably go home tomorrow depending on how she is feeling.

I forgot to mention that the size of the aneurysm they found was between 10-12 mm.  It was originally estimated to be 7 mm from the MRI, CT Scan, and angiogram.  Dr. Barrow said that you really can’t tell sometimes by those imaging tests compared to actually being inside the body no matter how good our technology is.

Martha Marie no longer has as many gadgets and wires hooked up to her which makes it more comfortable for her to move around.

She has gotten up twice already to go to the bathroom and is doing great walking.  She has been very coherent and has been talking with us in between her time of resting.  The medicine knocks her out for a few hours when she first takes it.

She does have a headache still and will have one up until we leave the hospital.  Her eye is also swollen.  The doctor said that both of these are completely normal.  He also said tonight when he stopped by around 6:30 p.m. that her eye will get worse tomorrow, but will get better after tomorrow.  He said that her progress is excellent and that she looks great.  He mentioned tomorrow will be more walking and sitting up.

Martha Marie still hasn’t eaten anything since Monday night.  Her headache is causing nausea and no appetite.  The sooner she eats, the sooner she’ll get stronger, and the sooner she’ll go home.

The kids have been in great care with Jason and Kelley Tegen and will continue being spoiled by Grandma (Martha Marie’s mom) and Nana (my mom).

We give glory to God, Who is our Hope, our Salvation, our Peace, our Healer, our Comfort, our Joy, and our Everything for what He has done from showing us that the aneurysm and abnormal artery was there in the first place, to finding the perfect doctor, a great surgery, and for the progress He has allowed.

We thank our readers, supporters, and pray-ers for being the hands and feet of Jesus for us during this time.  There is no network more powerful than the body of Jesus Christ who is the family of God!

Martha Marie has been moved to a regular private room around 2 p.m. today.  From here she will be in the hospital for 2-3 more days.

She is resting very well, but she still hasn’t eaten anything since 8 p.m. Monday night.  She is drinking well however.  The quicker she eats, the quicker she will gain strength and the quicker she will be able to go home.

The doctor came by last night and shared with Martha Marie that the aneurysm that he clipped was very large.  We are so thankful to be able to have caught it when we did!

Yesterday
Yesterday’s drive down to Atlanta was a testimony of the power of prayer.  We had a great worshipful time of peace and the presence of God in the car on the way down.  Martha Marie was very calm with only a few moments of “Oh my gosh!”  We were able to listen to some great songs of worship from a CD that was given to us by several people.  Thank you to those that prayed and those that gave the CD!  A few family members gave Martha Marie an ipod as well that has some powerful worship songs on it as well.  The times of worship with the CD, ipod, and prayer ushered an awareness of God’s power, presence, and peace.

If you do not experience God’s power, presence, and peace on a daily basis, know that you can!  It is possible!  God wants to give this to you!  Whether you have known Him for a long time or whether you have never known Him personally!  You can start today, this hour, this minute!  Let Him into your heart by allowing His presence into your day (through worship music, His Word - the Bible, prayer, talking with others about Him) so that you can experience His peace and watch His power turn you into a new person daily!

Martha Marie and I have so many flaws (I have much more than her), but God continues to chisel away our flaws as He renews our minds daily (Romans 12:2).  We are not perfect, and never will be until we are in heaven, but we experience new freedoms in Christ every day because of Jesus’ commitment to us!

This Morning
Martha Marie seemed so very calm this morning when she was in her hospital bed even before they gave her the first dose of anesthesia.  The peace of God is such a wonderful thing!  God’s peace is so strong even in the midst of a storm!

The Doctor’s Report
One of the doctors said, “Everything went very well, we took a complex problem and we made it well.  She responded to everything.  Everything went perfectly.”  Thank you Jesus!

The Dr. said that she will have a head ache for 2-3 days.  She had a terrible headache earlier today, but they found a good medicine dose to give her.

Tonight
Martha Marie is sleeping very well right now.  Melissa (her sister) and I are staying with Martha Marie around the clock tonight in ICU in case she needs something and just so we can be with her.  We were able to get some rest this afternoon so we could be ready for tonight.  We are going to take turns watching her and we have somewhere to crash in between hanging out with her.

Tomorrow
Tomorrow they plan to get Martha Marie moved into a normal room and have her up and moving around.  Technology has improved so much!  We should be in the normal room for 2-3 days and then back home for a 6 week recovery after that.

Thank you for praying!

We arrived at the hospital this morning at 5:50 a.m.  They took her back shortly after we had prayer together.  I was able to see her twice before she went into surgery.

Martha Marie finished with surgery around 11:05 a.m. and was moved to a recovery room.  After recovery, she was moved to a private intensive care room.  This is normal practice after a major procedure.  She is expected to be in the ICU room for about 24 hours.  Following her ICU room, she will be moved to a regular room.

We were able to see her at 1 p.m.  after she was moved to her ICU room.  She is sleeping peacefully now and will continue to be medicated while in her ICU room.  She does have a headache, but we were expecting that as routine for this procedure.  She may sleep most of the time or also may wake up from time to time.  I am still waiting to hear from the doctor to see how the process of surgery went and to hear his perspective of what recovery looks like for her.

I will update more when I hear from the doctor.

How do I even start this?  How do I begin to express how thankful I am for my dear friends and family that have supported us through some really dark days?  How do I begin to express all the emotions that I have dealt with this week?   This post is definitely going to be all over the place, but that’s exactly how I’m feeling right now….I feel like I could come unglued at any moment as I realize that we leave for Atlanta tomorrow…..I have so dreaded Tuesday but at the same time I’m ready to get this behind me.  I will say though that today I keep thinking how amazing our God truly is….there’s no other way to put it.  I’m so thankful for Him…His grace, His mercy, His love, His compassion….and He’s shown us all of this through all of you.  Every encouraging word, prayer, hug, note, call….it has all been Jesus way of telling me He loves me.  Thank you all for being Jesus with skin on……He has used you all in a phenomenal way to minister to us during this time.

I told Eddie that life is going to be very different from this point on, and he completely agreed.  My mindset is so different even from what it was a month ago.  I feel like I have a new set of eyes to view things with…..the biggest thing is that life is not about me!!  It never was, but the more I understand that then I believe the better God can use me.  I want to live on purpose….I don’t want to waste one day!  Our time on this earth is soooo short!!  We have this time to impact our world and that is it!  We don’t get second chances at this thing called life, and we will answer for how we spent our time on this earth!  Whether we spent it pursuing money, people’s approval, whatever…..from this point on I want my life to be about pursuing Christ above all else!  In the past I’ve tried to do this, but now I see so many ways I can do it better.   Honestly as much as I don’t want to go through this surgery I have to admit that I am thankful that God has allowed us to go through this journey, because maybe it was the only way I would’ve begin to see  things so much more clearly. 

One last thing I want to share….whenever a person is facing major surgery they definitely think about what happens if it doesn’t go well….what happens if they don’t wake up.  Well I believe 100% I would go to Heaven if that happened even though again I truly believe I’m going to come out of this completely well.  But in thinking through this I have realized that there are many reasons I’m not ready to go to Heaven yet…three of those being my two kids and husband, and there are still so many lost people that I want to tell about Him, but there is another major reason and it is very humbling to admit, but I have made it a point to be real on this blog, so I’m going to be real on this.  The reason I don’t want to go to Heaven yet is because if I were to see Jesus now I know that I wouldn’t really recognize Him the way that I want to.  Honestly the lack of time I’ve spent in His word…in prayer…..how can I truly recognize my Lord if I’ve spent such little time getting to know Him in His word?  He gave us His word so we could know Him…know His heart….know what He’s passionate about.  I would be ashamed to go to Heaven now and have to look Him in the eye and realize that I could’ve known Him so much better if I would have gotten my eyes off the meaningless things that has such a way of sidetracking us and really truly pursued Him.  So that’s why life will be different from this point on….and I’m so excited about what’s ahead after this journey because of that one fact!

Of course we covet your prayers this week in so many ways…..as we say good-bye to our kids tomorrow morning.  How in the world am I going to do that????  As we wake up Tuesday morning and face what’s ahead……as the doctors put me to sleep and do the operation…….as many family and friends wait for the surgery to be over…..as I go through the six weeks of recovery.  I know I am going to be ok….but I still am very scared and don’t want to go down this road.  I have to remind myself though that God’s way is always, always, always best no matter what and so for that reason I’m going to hold on tight to His hand and put my trust in Him because He cares for me!  Please pray specifically that all of us at the hospital on Tuesday will feel God’s presence very strongly…..I’ve not felt that in the last few days like I have at other times, and more then anything that is my desire for this week!

I love all of you!  Talk to you soon on the other side of this!

We have been so humbled by the prayers, emails, and comments on our site!  Thank you for everything!

Many have been asking how they can help.  Most of the time we are so scatterbrained we don’t know what we need.  Someone helped us to think of something that will help…

Someone has volunteered to coordinate meals for us since there will be a 6 week recovery process.

If you are local and interested in helping with a meal, please email meals@eddiesmith.com and someone will coordinate with you.

Thank you in advance!