“This stinks!”

Mom would say it while guiding Christi’s hand to smack the bed. Christi would laugh. “Mom gets it. She sees me.” 

It’s hard to honestly. Imagine life without the ability to see, speak, or coordinate movement changes so much of perception. Would I recognize useful discomfort? If not, would I even continue to try?

Christi’s world is sound and touch - and pain. Too often for my heart - lots of pain, especially in situations like this.

We’re in the hospital now because of the two numbers in the bottom of the frame. The first one is too low - it’s a measure of blood oxygenation. If it stays there or continues to drop, damage occurs. The second one is her heart rate and that’s too high. While good for working out, it’s not good or common for sleeping. It’s one of the very few ways she can tell us she needs help.

After tests, scans, labs, and imaging doctors tell us it’s both a virus and a bacterial infection this time. Christi and mom were right, this stinks.

Christi’s care has been steadily escalated to the point where she is now on a ventilator in the ICU. The ventilator really stinks. 

With so many things outside of her control in her life, she guards and prizes the few things she can control. Her own airway was one.

I was her helper too. For over a decade I have slept either on a beanbag outside her door or a foldable mattress pad on her bedroom floor. When she coughed or struggled I could hop up and help her clear secretions. I'm not allowed that now either. That stinks

"And...the master of the vineyard went forth, and saw that his olive tree began to decay; and he said: I will prune it, and dig about it, and nourish it, that perhaps it may shoot forth young and tender branches, and it perish not." (Jacob 5:4)

Nourishing Nephite olive trees meant "dunging" them - loosening the soil around the base of the tree and mixing in manure. Manure stinks - but it also helps the tree get the nutrients it needs to grow.

Christi is relentless though, and that's what gets to me. She knows from countless trials that when she coughs, I catch what she coughs up with the plastic catheter tip and then pull it out of her mouth - she get her airway back with my thanks and a kiss on her cheek. So she's been coughing and coughing and chomping down on the rigid plastic that has taken her airway from her. Does she understand when I tell her? Does she get that it's meant to help, or just that it stinks? As I hold her hand and watch as her body tenses and her breathing quickens I wonder.

I believe in a loving Father in Heaven who is the Master of the vineyard of our souls. He adds enriching and nourishing elements to each of His precious children's soil blessing them with surroundings and circumstances that, like manure, just plain stink. 

I also know He provides personal and meaningful comfort and help through His Only Begotten Son. And while I am eternally grateful for His ministry to me in my need, I might be even more grateful for His ministry to her. He gets it. Like no one else can, He sees - and helps her. So grateful!