A Story Full of God’s Faithfulness
By Harold and Bette Gillogly
It wasn’t a “dark and stormy night,” but it sure was a long and scary one. Our first night home after Bette’s knee replacement surgery was very strange, as well. Her temperature spiked, which caused the scary part, as she experienced delirium…she was convinced there was a bird sitting on her forehead. Sounds funny now, but it certainly wasn’t then – especially for Harold who thought she might be losing her mind.
By morning, the bird had flown and Bette was thinking more clearly. The high temperature and low blood pressure were still hanging around however. We called our grandson, the doctor, for some advice on what to do next. He advised us to go to the ER or walk-in clinic ASAP and to present the primary issue as delirium. He told us which panels should be done, including a urinalysis as he suspected a UTI. Sure enough, they took those very tests, but when they took her blood pressure at 80/40, they called the ambulance to take Bette on into Vanderbilt hospital ER.
It took most of the day at Vanderbilt, but they finally diagnosed her with a raging UTI and sent us home with antibiotics. Thank God, the UTI started to abate, her blood pressure sort of normalized, and this became simply a small glitch in the whole recuperating-from-surgery process. At least for the next two weeks….
Over the weeks to follow, Bette had three more UTIs. When severe lateral pain erupted in her surgery knee, her PCP got concerned that the UTI infections had gone into her blood and advised her to go back to the ER. This time, she stayed in the hospital for three days and had a whole lot of tests. Praise God, she was sent home with the fourth UTI resolved and no blood infection. She was taken off all her blood pressure meds which she had been on since her 2010 open-heart surgery. This has gotten her BP to stay in the low-normal range. The intense pain in her surgery knee was diagnosed as an inflamed tendon, which she was advised to completely rest for five days. That seemed to do the trick, so, by the goodness of God, we were moving forward instead of backwards once again.
Bette has just completed two weeks of physical therapy and her knee is doing well, healing and increasing her range of motion to almost normal. We are so grateful for this! We are also grateful to be seeing the urologist again this week (June 8th), and after a plethora of tests, getting some real answers about the urinary issues. Things are definitely looking up!
Through this whole health saga, we have found God to be completely faithful and good (Lamentations 3:23). He has never once left us or forsaken us (Deuteronomy 31:8). We have experienced His kindness and care (1 Peter 5:7). We have known His peace (Isaiah 26:3). And our hearts are full of gratitude to our God!