Yes … months. 

That’s what Beau was told yesterday could be our stay here in the hospital with La Petite Belle … not in Houston, but in the actual hospital. 

That’s the last news I got before I had a good-bye breakfast with K Belle before I left her in Australia.

That’s what was on my mind for the almost 20-hour travel back home by myself.

I spent a lot of time asking God how this was God’s best for my little girl. I don’t doubt Him nor His power. I don’t doubt His love or His goodness. I don’t doubt who He is at all. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that He is faithful. Do I understand this? No, not at all.

Because all I see is suffering. I see my daughter suffering. I see my family suffering. 

Imagine the hardest thing you’ve EVER had to do in your life. Now, imagine you have to do it again, yet with worse circumstances. That’s where we are right now. 

I will be staying every day and night in the hospital from here on out, as Beau will be doing more traveling back and forth because of work. We have been sharing an extra-large twin bed in La Petite Belle’s room because we no longer have a place to stay. Let’s not even talk about needing to do laundry. So, yeah … those minor details aren’t great at all, but they are simply that … MINOR … compared to the pain La Petite Belle is in. All we can do is continue to speak truth over her and pray for and with her.

We have a great bunch of people praying with us and supporting us through it and we appreciate that so much. But, truly, truly … this is not just hard … it’s harder.

I wish I could tell you it’s easier or everything’s just peachy keen. But, it’s not. There are plenty of blogs out there where you can read that kinda stuff. This blog has just turned into our own journey of our own hard.

Combine all our current life circumstances with leaving my oldest daughter behind in Australia for a year, and I was a complete mess all day yesterday. Thank God I was actually able to sleep a whole 10 hours straight on the plane. I guess I really was exhausted. And, an extra special bonus God worked out for me was that I had no one seated next to me, creating three seats I could lay across. Score! I was able to be weepy the whole way if I wanted to. But, I slept. So grateful for that.

I spent most of my time asking God questions I’d asked before, but mainly asking what He was doing in this. And, for Him to give me an enormous amount of strength. That’s my prayer every time I think “I can’t do this.” I simply pray for God’s strength to get me through.

As a parent, there’s literally nothing I can do to help my child. Nothing. Beau and I have done everything we can. The doctors and nurses are doing everything they can. That’s all we can do. God is the One who has control and heals. We have to just continue to trust Him.

There’s not much new medical news to tell you except to say the doctors add more meds, take some away, add more. But, she is getting everything she can right now, short of chemo (which they wouldn’t consider giving her because of the fact she had that mixture of cells). Now, we just have to continue to wait. We’ve been here what seems like forever, but it’s only over three weeks … four weeks on Tuesday … already a whole month. Unbelievable. We will stay here until her GI tract heals. She won’t even be able to eat or drink anything until her GI tract heals. It’s been almost five weeks since she’s eaten. She’s lost some weight, but she’s getting her nutrition intravenously. She’s bored. She’s hurting. She’s thirsty. She’s hungry. She’s over it. And, frankly we are too. Enough already. Trying to have patience through all this is one of the hardest things. The days are long with especially with slow progress.

Thank you for continuing to pray for La Petite Belle’s healing and for her pain to disappear. We know God is a Healer.

K Belle did get all settled into her apartment. The trip to Sydney had some great moments and some not-so-great moments, but I am happy that I made the decision to go. {I’ll have to post a more detailed post about that later.} 

Now … for more sleep. I woke up after a few hours of sleep, wide awake and hungry. So, as I write this, I’m sitting in the family room alone close to 1:00 am, sipping sleepy time tea, and working on getting back on schedule.