Thursday, September 11, 2008

God Is Good

A week ago my nephew, Rob Fairchild Jr, had a stroke caused by a hemorrhage somewhere deep in his brain (apparently the left hemisphere since his right side is impaired). He has been in a heavily sedated sleep for the past week on a respirator and a feeding tube. Daily they bring him up to a light sleep in order to test his reflexes and he fights the tubes, succeeding in pulling them out at one time. Anyway, on one day they actually woke him up and removed the respirator for an hour or so. He appeared to recognize his parents and his siblings, turning his head toward their voices, winking at his sister and trying to pinch his brother. However, they discovered that he is unable to breathe sufficiently on his own at this time and returned him to the respirator and took him down into deep sleep again. Then on Wednesday they did surgery putting in a trache tube and a feeding portal. This evening they will wake him up and begin trying to determine the degree of permanent damage to his brain and give the family a prognosis for recovery. Please remember Rob and his loved ones as you pray, that God will grant him healing and recovery, but more importantly that He will bring them to the realization of their need for salvation. He has been near to them all week and my sister told me that she is beginning to realize that God may be trying to give them all a wake-up call.