Toby's Pneumonia

The last couple of weeks have been crazy around here. Then again, with six kids, life is crazy all the time around here! There's always something happening and by the end of the day I wonder how in the world I could possibly raise six children without Todd. That's easy, because looking back over the past 5 1/2 yrs, it's been miracle after miracle for us....whether financially, sickness, accidents, house woes, or life and death! God has been our only strength! But that doesn't mean I don't still miss our earthly leader and provider, my greatest love, Todd.

So we've been going to soccer every Sat for the past months, and the last game for the season is tomorrow. The last several weeks have been COLD, with wind blowing across the fields and making your bones ache. Toby has insisted that she wear only her short-sleeved uniform, despite my pleadings for a jacket or coat. "But Mom, they can't see my shirt and number if I wear a coat." I tried something underneath (like the other girls), but still, "It makes me too hot. I'm fine." Toby's older sister has always been like that. Never liked coats and rarely is seen in one, so I figured she was like her sister.

Then the cough started. Then the sore throat. Then the headache. Then the fever. The fever spiked to 105.4 last Saturday, and I noticed she was breathing funny. She was breathing a lot like her older sister used to do when she struggled to breathe, nearly every night. I asked Toby if she was having trouble breathing..."sort of" was all I needed to take her to the ER. They took her right back, despite a waiting room half-filled, with even children who were bleeding! This made me even more nervous, and the nurses seemed to swarm her, taking vitals and asking questions. I don't like hospitals. I don't like ERs. I don't like the ER we took Toby to. It was the same one Todd went to where we heard that word "cancer." The memories just kept flooding back. It was like it all happened yesterday, but yet I had to focus on Toby and the NOW. After 5 hours of ER time, medications and X-rays, we took her home with a ton of instructions. We have to go back to her pediatrician next week again for another follow-up visit and possible X-ray. My seven year old has pneumonia!

I feel horrible about this. I feel like I let it happen. It's a mom's job, isn't it?, to keep their little ones healthy? I'm thankful she is doing MUCH better, no fever, breathing fine, with just a cough left.

So how does a single Mom of six children get everything right? I guess they don't.

So thankful for my heavenly Father. What would I ever do without Him?

I have come to love these verses from Psalm 116:

I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live. The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the Lord; O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul. Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful.6 The Lord preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me. Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.