Thursday, March 12, 2015

Medical update - Rob & the car


Many of you have heard that we brought Rob into the Emergency room on Sunday evening due to some severe headaches that he had been having. Since we thought it was sinus related, he self-medicated with antibiotics. Since that did nothing to relieve the pressure, we brought him to the hospital. The doctor was very concerned with the vomiting and this being “the worst headache of his life.” She took a cat scan that came back completely normal but his blood tests showed unusually high white blood cell count which indicated meningitis which is swelling of the brain and spinal fluid. They took a spinal tap to confirm this but admitted him to the hospital until they could confirm if it was viral or bacterial. Because of taking antibiotics, the doctors were concerned that it was skewing the test results to show it as a viral infection instead of bacterial. After three days the doctor was confident that it was only a viral infection and released him Wednesday morning. Rob is feeling a lot better and the rest of the family is well. The doctor indicated that this was likely caused by the stomach bug that the family has been passing around the last couple of weeks. He said it manifests itself differently in everyone and it just happened to make its way to Rob’s brain. He had no concerns about the health of the rest of the family.
We are so thankful for your prayers and notes of encouragement. We would like continued prayer as we deal with getting reimbursed by our international insurance company for Rob’s 3 day “spa getaway.”

Once again, God’s amazing grace and provision has been evident. On Friday, we set out for our 2 hour drive back to the city through the winding roads of the rain-forest where there are no gas stations for over 50 kilometers. The 24 year old SUV started acting up and stalling out whenever we shifted gears. We nursed it along praying that we could make it home to our mechanic but it stalled out and wouldn't restart when we were very close to home. Rob was able to let it coast onto a side road where it died. The oil gauge indicated no oil. Fortunately, there was a man selling trinkets at that corner who happened to speak some English. He was very helpful in directing Rob to a location where he could get oil. While he ran the 2 miles to get oil, I sat in the car with the kids and dog and a couple of nice men offered to push the car to a location out of the way of traffic and took a look at the engine. The man didn't see how oil was the issue but unable to communicate with me, he went on his way. Rob came back with the oil, filled her up, she started and we made it back to the condo with plans on bringing it to the mechanic in the morning. Come morning, she would not start so some Tico friends gave him a tow to the mechanic. That means a strap tied from their truck hitch to our SUV. Hmmmmm. Terrifying. The mechanic fixed a $24 part in the electrical system. Nothing to do with the oil. It should have never started up for us after Rob added oil but God was helping us out.

After all was settled with the Vehicle, Rob’s headache started ramping up. We were supposed to start back to the Ranch on Sunday afternoon around 3pm but decided to let Rob try to sleep it off and leave at 5am Monday to get the kids to school on time. God gave us that wisdom so that we were able to get him to the near bye hospital which happened to be the best in the country. God made sure that we had a functioning vehicle to bring him there and he provided us with a built in babysitter with Jaylyn staying with us for the weekend at our condo. It gave us peace of mind to know that there was an adult home with the kids and there was no rush for me to leave Rob at the hospital.

Through it all, Rob’s workers were able to continue to get work done at the ranch while he was laid up and we now have the ranch houses wired with enough power to install the oven and dryer. We have decided to stay at the ranch this weekend to prepare for the team that is arriving on Monday, and hopefully have some relaxing family time. Please pray for Rob to continue to build his strength and not to overdo it.

In His grip.
Yvonne

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