Til Eternity, My Friend

Many of you know what an intertwined relationship my family has with the Patterson family. From the moments Kelly and I first drew breath on this earth, we have been a part of that family and they of ours.

My dad and Dr. Doug Patterson have been best friends since grade school in Mobile, Alabama. They went to University of Montevallo together; they did ROTC together; they were fraternity brothers; they went to Vietnam together after they commissioned as active duty Marine Corps officers together.

When my dad went to be president of the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind, Dr. Patterson was his vice president. We grew up with their children - Lauren (their middle daughter) is my sister's lifelong best friend. They are like our siblings.

When we moved to Troy, AL in 1989, the Pattersons came too: he became vice chancellor while my dad was chancellor at the University. My parents were at the hospital when their oldest, Chris, and then Lauren and Natalie were born, and vice versa. There hasn't been a moment of my life that the Patterson family hasn't had an incredible presence, and I love them as if we shared the same blood. We lived within miles of each other. We played together. We vacationed together. We love each other.

About a month ago, Chris (who is several years older than I am) went on a cruise. While on vacation, he got sick. He tried to be seen by the doctor upon his return but the doctor kept encouraging him to treat the fever at home. The fever broke and he began feeling better, but only temporarily. He relapsed and was admitted immediately and placed into ICU.

For 3 weeks, Chris was on a ventilator, under heavy sedation and prayed for. His family rallied around his bedside and became prayer warriors for Chris. Natalie was able to come home from Florida State University, where she's a 2nd year law student and Lauren was able to make it home just less than a week ago from Ecuador where she's a professor.

We thought we had lost him last Sunday when his blood oxygen level dipped into the 30th percentile. But Chris came back and regained a 100% blood oxygen level the next day. They thought he might be coming out of the woods. We truly believed a miracle was taking place in his healing journey.

During his stay in ICU, he developed double pneumonia and ARDS. He also had 1/5 documented cases of Swine Flu (H1N1) that caused blood clots. The doctors had a terrible time trying to balance thinning his blood with treating the pneumonia.

My parents decided to come on out to Louisiana for Thanksgiving after going to Columbus, GA to see Chris and realizing he might be on the upswing. So we enjoyed a wonderful holiday but continued to cover Chris in prayer as a family from afar.

On Friday, 27 November, my family took me out for a delayed birthday celebration. When we returned to my and Dan's home, we got the call that Chris's blood oxygen level was below 10% and dropping. Within 10 minutes, Chris passed away leaving his family and so many people who loved him deeply with broken, shattered, shocked hearts. Yesterday (Saturday), we woke up and packed the cars and left for home as soon as possible.

Christopher Clarke Patterson was one of a kind. He was so much like his mom, Mrs. Lise: blonde, tall, handsome, quiet, funny. He was a man of few words but when he spoke, you listened and usually laughed. My first crush was on Chris when I was about 7 years old!

There are no words to explain the depth of pain that his precious family is experiencing right now. Everyone prayed SO HARD for Chris and we were confident he had pulled through. But we have to remember that God's ways are always higher than our ways. Yet that never makes the pain of losing a loved one more bearable. Never.

Tomorrow is Chris's visitation and Tuesday will be his funeral and burial. His funeral will be in Troy but they will bury Chris in Birmingham next to his grandfather who he adored and resembled so very much. We will bury a son, a brother, a friend, a great, great, great man who is gone long before we all thought it was time. This is so unnatural: parents are never supposed to bury their children.

Our world - for those of us who knew and loved Chris - is very sad right now. There is a pain surrounding all of us that will not soon depart. Even if you didn't know Chris Patterson, I ask you all to please pray for his mom and dad and sisters, Lauren and Natalie. It is their hearts that are truly breaking now and will break for days, months and years to come.

Maria

After a very roller-coaster-like weekend, I took my husband into his post-op appointment. That was after having the "boys" come this weekend, having my in-laws here this weekend (BLESS THEM!) and having a very insane 20 month old on my hands. I just had not been paying attention to the animals.

When we got home from New Orleans last weekend, I was fixated on the fact that I had food poisoning, not on the fact that our 9.5 year old cat had puked all over the house. And over the past week, I hadn't paid super close attention to the fact that Maria (who ALWAYS ate at 7 am and 5 pm on the dot) hadn't eaten much or touched her milk. She'd just slept and not done much else.

However, today when we got home from Dan's post op appointment, I noticed a supreme foul odor coming from my "baby girl." So when I looked in her mouth and realized that there was an abscess, I called her vet immediately. They said to bring her in right away.

I got there, in the middle of this incredible down-pouring of rain and brought my sweet kitty inside. Our vet ran some tests, sent me back out to pick up Dan's post-op prescriptions and told me to be back in a half hour.

When I got back, he told me that Maria's renal numbers were off the chart... in a deadly way. He told me that had I not brought her in, we would have had her start seizing at home within 24 hours at best and dead soon after. She'd developed serious ulcers in her mouth and was starving but couldn't eat because of the sores. She was anemic and dehydrated. He couldn't find a vein to draw blood from. It was awful.

I began to weep openly. I asked to call my mother-in-law, Carol, who was at my house with Noah and the boys. She had gone through this with their dog, Ebony, only a couple years back and I couldn't bear to say goodbye to Maria by myself. I had only left to get her checked out, not to put her to sleep.

The doc was super sweet and allowed me time to make the phone calls to Dan and my mother-in-law. But he stressed that every moment I struggled with my decision, Maria was hurting.

I came back in, said "do it NOW" and signed the paper work... after paying $200.00. Wow. $200 to kill your cat. Painful charge to approve. Before I had a chance to say goodbye and tell her what a precious addition she'd been to my life, the doctor had begun the process. She was THAT bad.

I asked to be with her in the process. But because she was so dehydrated and anemic, he couldn't find a vein. So he would have to stick her in the heart which would take about 30 seconds to make her die. I asked for sedation for her and he agreed. So, once I said "I love you" to my cat of almost a decade, he had a gas mask on her and began her final transition. I miss her already. She came to me at a time when I felt really alone - I was stationed in Texas by myself and was really struggling. I miss that warm body and sweet white face with the brightest blue/green eyes already.

To say that God is pressing us to trust him is such a challenge to accept - He's pushing me beyond all physical and emotional boundaries I ever expected possible at 29 and 3/4s. He's asking me to endure the rain and trust Him more than I ever have had to. That is HARD - so HARD and I am struggling. Even to put one's cat down in a time of complete struggle is such a sacrifice. When does the challenge to surrender stop?

I guess once I have totally surrendered.... I thought I had.

Friends and Fun Times

God has really blessed us with precious friends. Just when you need your friends and those who love you to pull through for you, they always do.

For example, Dan and I went home to Alabama last weekend and got to spend some much needed time with my family. Our dear friend Rob Beckenhauer (one of our groomsmen and one of Dan's childhood best friends) was in Montgomery at Squadron Officer School and he got to spend the weekend with us. Then not 5 days later, his sweet wife Lindsey, their daughter Allie, his mom and dad and their dogs came through Louisiana to spend the night with us on their way to Alabama to see Rob. Noah and Allie are 2 months apart and seeing them together at this "toddler" age was PRICELESS. We had such a wonderful time spending incredible time with the Beckenhauer family.

Another example of a great friend being totally selfless despite what is going on in their life is my friend Barry. Barry has a ton of things bogging him down right now, but you better believe he's calling me on a regular basis just to pray for me. I feel so humbled everytime my phone rings and I know it is him just calling to say he loves us and have him pray for us. In addition to his selfless friendship, Barry has begun collecting phone cards GALORE for Dan to take on his deployment to use to call back home from Afghanistan! What an AWESOME gift - thank you Barry! The Bealls love you.

And just when you need "pick-me-ups" by way of telephone calls, God always provides. This week has been reallllly hard for me - I am realizing minute by minute how scary our situation is and I have needed my friends. My precious friend Derek called me out of the blue the other day and even though he had sad news to tell me, he chose not to so I could cry to him and he could be there for me. He's allowing me to just be myself and weep to him and he NEVER tells me "Oh, it's gonna be okay" or "You are so strong, you will get through this." He says, "You know what: this sucks and you are dealing with a lot. But WE are going to be fine because WE are going to get through this together." AWESOME and much needed. He made sure that I heard WE because it isn't just me in this - it is everyone who loves me, Dan and Noah.

I just want someone to hear me like Derek did - this is a horrible situation and I don't want to be strong, I don't want to just "pull through." I DO want to cry about it for a minute and be sad and have a 5 second pity party because I haven't yet done that. So, I ask that you allow me some moments of selfishness because I need them right now! Then, once I am over it, I will pick back up and be strong again. But right now, I don't have the energy. I need my Derek and my sister, Kelly, who will look me in the eye and say "WE are pulling through this because WE love you and WE love Dan." I am a blessed girl.

Here are some great photos from our last week of fun time with friends in Bama and our Beckenhauer visitors here in Louisiana.

Ave Maria

My beautiful Persian cat, Maria, has been in my life for years and years now. She's the most beautiful cat: solid white with silver tips and the most piercing teal blue eyes you've ever seen. She's a Chinchilla Persian so it looks like she's always wearing eyeliner. She's registered as "Ave Maria" but we've always called her Maria (I didn't choose the name; her previous owner did).

Maria's moved with me from Texas to Alabama to South Carolina to Hawaii and has been such a trooper. She turned 9 just this month and has always been healthy - always. I adopted her many years ago from a breeder who used Maria as a showcat and then as a breeding machine. She was entirely too little of a Persian to have as many kittens as she produced in her early life. So I got her fixed and brought her home with me when I was stationed in Texas.

She has loved every minute of living in Hawaii these 3 years because she has so many windows for her to lounge in the sunshine for hours on end. At 7 a.m., she's ready for her breakfast and at 5 p.m. on the nose, it is her dinner time. She often lingers around after dinner in the hopes that I will give her a little taste of milk. Maria loves to play at the most random times - usually it is in the wee hours of the morning when she jumps on my head, purrs loudly and starts meowing at the top of her lungs to get me to play with her. She loves to drink water whenever and wherever she can find it. She loves dripping water in the sink, Piper's water bowl, her own water bowl and especially any toilets that are left open.

Noah chases her from one end of this house to another and squeals in delight in the off chance that he might catch her. He says "e-ow, e-ow" and "itty, itty" over and over to her. He adores her as much as I do but she's a total "mama's girl." Never has she been a lap cat on your terms. But she loves me (and now Dan) so much that she will slip onto our laps from time to time.

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I just returned from taking our overly anxious dog, Piper, and Maria to the vet for their health certification that they must recieve in order to fly. Piper goes on Continental on Sunday to arrive into Pittsburgh on Monday and Maria goes on Northwest Monday to arrive into Alabama on Tuesday. We will be separated from them for about 6-8 weeks and are very sad. But they cannot travel all over the country with us so we are very blessed to have family members willing to take care of them while we are apart and getting settled in Louisiana.

Piper got a clean bill of health and I just expected Maria would do the same. She has always weighed 5 lbs on the nose but today, she weighed about 4.7 lbs - meaning she's lost 6 ounces in less than a month... not good. But I didn't think anything of it till the vet started feeling around on her midsection and pulled out a huge mass of skin and said "What's this?" My reply was that it was just a matte - she's constantly shedding her 2 inch long coat. But the doctor made me come feel it. Well, it was her right kidney which is currently about 3-4 times bigger than the normal sized kidney she should have. Her left kidney is about the same size.

Going back to the stress levels I am already experiencing, that was more than I could bear. I held back the tears long enough to find out that Maria has renal disease and her kidneys are on the downward spiral. The doctor asked about how much water she was drinking and I told her the same thing I just wrote about - where there is water, there is Maria drinking it. She said she's doing that because her kidneys are enlarged and are putting out the water she intakes too quickly for her body to absorb any. So she's dehydrated constantly.

The vet immediately pumped her with an antibiotic and an i.v. bag of fluids. She said she would allow Maria to travel but that this will need to be her last flight. I have to take her back to the vet before she boards her flight Monday for more fluids to be pumped into her and that my mom should immediately take her to the vet for further testing on her renal system because she's at some stage right now of renal failure.

Once they took Maria out to get the i.v. and it was just me and Piper in the room, I broke down. Yes, this is just a cat. But she's MY cat and she's been MY companion for many years now - through some of the hardest years of my life when I was stationed alone in Texas while Dan was stationed in South Carolina for 3 years. And to find this all out after I paid $500 a month ago for Piper and Maria's annuals and for many antibiotics for Piper, then another $150 for more antibiotics for Piper's ears, then another $200 today for this appointment, and a total of $650 for both Maria and Piper's flights out on Sunday and Monday, I wanted to scream.

I am so sad about my little cat quite possibly near the end of her life and what lies ahead for her if her kidneys are already too damaged. And I am mad that this is something we are finding out right before we move and my life is turned upside down already. This might just be the nail in the coffin for me and the amount of stress that I can handle. I need prayer because I cannot take much more emotional and physical draining than I am already experiencing.