“I do believe that when we face challenges in life that are far beyond our own power, it's an opportunity to build on our faith, inner strength, and courage. I've learned that how we face challenges plays a big role in the outcome of them.”
-Sasha Azevedo-
Friends and family,
I enjoyed the sentiment behind this quote and wanted to share it with you. I find that many frequently ask, “How can you really do this? What trials you have been through, I am not sure that I could do the same.”
I think the quote above best explains how I feel about what we have experienced over the past five months. I don’t really think anyone is ever ready for such an overwhelming challenge to face the terror of severe health difficulties but it is an opportunity to rise to the challenge and increase your faith, your inner strength and to build your inner courage. These are all things I find us constantly doing. Yes, some days I feel I have more in way of courage and my reservoir is plenty but there are days when life feels dark and progress seems little.
As I have always said the most important lesson you can learn is that you keep going, you keep giving, you keep praying and you keep hoping. You take that opportunity to reach far beyond your own inner strength and lean upon God to strengthen you and help you cross that extra mile and suddenly you find that the courage you never thought you had is suddenly there.
I am sure it will take years to put all of this experience into full perspective and I am sure I will continue to struggle at times with understanding why we were chosen to experience this journey. But at least I will know that God has been with us and that we tried as much as possible to face every day with courage.
I think that Noah decided he was not heading home without his brother because as soon as we started discussing his going home without Jonah he started lagging on his progress. His bottle feeding did not go so well this past weekend and then this past Tuesday he was showing some congestion so they placed him under an oxygen helmet to rest his septum from the cannulas. Of course he wasn’t thrilled about this at all. He cried nearly straight for two days and finally today they decided it wasn’t doing him near the amount of good it should have been doing because he was so upset.
He is so much happier today, it still appears he may have some congestion but overall his blood work is good and he seems to be ok. We are picking up bottle feeding again and hopefully we can start heading toward a good direction.
Jonah was taken off the ventilator Monday. He had horrible swelling for several days after surgery and is only just starting to look like himself again. He has been irritable the past two days and his surgery site is looking very painful, red and swollen so they started antibiotics again because they are worried of an infection. Hopefully with antibiotics it will clear and not require them to reopen him to drain out any infection. He was tolerating a very small amount of food over a half hour but they stopped feeds today because he was not tolerating anything so we know that something is indeed going on with his stomach. He is being watched very carefully.
I was unfortunate enough to get another round of the stomach flu this week and for the fourth time in the past five months I was sick. Thank goodness it was only a 24 hour bug and I feel much better today but I spent yesterday at the doctors and sleeping.
So we are back on track. Hopefully we will bring one boy home the end of March. At first this past weekend they were talking about Noah going home this week but I am certain he was not thrilled with the idea of leaving his brother behind.
These boys are much smarter then we truly know and twins are very connected.
Thank you all for your prayers. These past few weeks of the journey can be the longest as sometimes things like eating consistently can really take a long time and can be so frustrating because you know going home is just around the bend.
We love each of you. Thank you again for your support.
Love, Shane and Michelle
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