Holland's Story

I was pushed back and about to fall, but The Lord helped me. The Lord is my strength and my defense; He has become my salvation.                                                                     Psalm 118:13-14

   I met Holland in January of 2012 while doing my preceptorship in MICU at Baptist South. Such a gorgeous girl with the prettiest eyelashes, a very outgoing personality & super bright lipstick! I started working in MICU in May of 2012 & we quickly became friends. We had a lot in common...we were about the same age, we were both getting married that year and we were both 'girly,' often talking about our newest hairdo, nail polish or makeup. Jean, our unit clerk, calls us the 'beauty queens in the unit,' and she doesn't mean that in a nice way. I think she thinks we missed our casting call on the movie 'Mean Girls.' Anyways, Holland & I chat on our off days & we love an occasional margarita after a crazy 12 hour shift at work! She is back in school part time to become a Nurse Practitioner & is doing amazing with that! With all that being said, the past 11 days have taught me so much about faith, preserverance, hope, patience, humility, friendship & God's plans.

   Two weekends ago, Holland & her husband, Nic, went to Atlanta to a Braves game and Hunter & I were in Pine Hill for Collins' 2nd birthday party. Needless to say, Holland & I didn't talk all weekend. On Monday, May 5th, I was at work & it was crazy busy, as usual. When I got around to checking my phone, I saw that I had 2 texts from Haley, Holland's sister. The first one said, 'Hey Tara it's Haley. Have you talked to Holland recently??' And the second text 2 minutes later said, 'Call me when you can.' I automatically knew something wasn't right so I called Haley from our break room. She told me that Holland had been having headaches so she went to the ER & they did an MRI...I knew what was coming...and that they found a mass on her brain. She was being transferred to UAB. My heart hit the floor & I wanted to vomit. All I could say was 'No.......' Haley was obviously upset & said 'Tara, what could it be???' I work in the ICU...of course I thought the worst. I immediately started praying when I hung up the phone. It felt like I had been gut punched & I can't even imagine how Holland & her family felt. From that very morning, Haley said, 'We serve a God that made the blind see. This is not too big for Him!' What strength that took....her baby sister had a mass on her brain & was facing the unknown, yet she put aside the questions of 'why?' and surrendered it straight to God from the very beginning. I want to be a woman of that kind of conviction! The next 24 hours were filled with CT scans to determine what the mass was....a tumor, vessel abnormality, infection/abscess or an abnormal normality (whatever that could be). My heart ached for Holland. Why do bad things happen to good people? I humbly prayed & prayed & prayed, just like everybody else that knows Holland did. Andrea (another girl we work with) & I went to UAB to visit Holland the next day. She seemed to be in good spirits but still had a pounding headache. We laughed & talked about everything, trying to avoid talking about the elephant in the room. Let me say this- Holland has an amazing THE BEST support group. Her room was filled with both her family & Nic's family and tons of snacks, flowers & cards. She is so loved! That night before we left, Dr. Okor, the neurosurgeon that we all grew to LOVE, came in & said that they narrowed it down to a tumor or an infection/abscess. There were talks of a biopsy but he just didn't feel comfortable doing that since he wasn't 100% sure that it was a tumor. As hard as it was being on the 'other side' in a hospital, I respected Dr. Okor for not jumping the gun when he really didn't know what he was dealing with. On Wednesday, they decided to let Holland go home with steroids, pain medicine & nausea medicine & planned to see her again in 3 weeks for a follow up MRI. 3 weeks....that would have been a LONG 3 weeks! The next day, Holland texted me & said Dr. Okor moved her follow up appointment up 2 weeks. Great, right?? That's 2 weeks of gut-wrenching nervousness that we won't have to endure! Wrong...I was a nervous wreck that he knew something that we didn't & 3 weeks was too long to wait. So...for the next few days, I turned into my mother...calling/texting Holland at all hours to check on her. On Friday she sent me a text that pretty much broke my heart....she said she felt like she was dying & she had no energy to do anything- she felt invalid. People joke all the time that they 'feel like death' or that they are 'dying' after too much to drink the night before, but this was a way different situation. What if she did have a malignant brain tumor & she was dying? I never said that to her but I was so, so afraid. That weekend, Hunter & I went to Atlanta to a Braves game with Ashlee & Matthew. We had a good time & sent Holland funny snapchats all weekend to cheer her up, per her request. Sunday morning when we woke up, I had a text from Haley that said Holland was throwing up again & really sick. They were rushing her back to UAB & there was more swelling on her brain. A million things were running through my head...why Holland? She doesn't deserve this. Is it a rapid growing tumor? How in the world did this  happen so fast? Once again, Haley, being the amazing person that she is, said, 'They are going to fix this with The Lord's help. What a testimony she will have for His kingdom!' Talk about faith, perseverance, humility & hope! That girl has it! Her heart rate started to drop & she was maxed out on pain meds but still in agonizing pain so they moved her to the neuro ICU. Her MRI that afternoon showed increased swelling, increased size in the mass, her front 2 ventricles had collapsed & she had a midline shift...WHAT?? If you work in the medical field, your jaw probably just dropped. If you don't know what that is, then let me tell you that it is BAD. It was an absolute blessing that she got to the hospital when she did because we could have easily lost her that day. That night, they did emergency surgery. When they got in, they found a brain abscess behind her right eye & drained 60cc of fluid. Holland said that when she got into the operating room, she heard Dr. Okor tell the nurses to only shave a tiny area of her head. THAT, along with the fact that he came into the hospital on his day off to do her surgery because he said that she was 'his patient,' is another reason why we loved him...he didn't make Holland feel like she was just another patient & he knew losing her hair was a big deal to her & it meant a lot to her that he cared about that. She spent that night in the ICU & I was up there the very next morning. When I walked in, I hugged her, she gave me a kiss on the cheek & held my hand....a 2 year friendship that felt like it had lasted a lifetime. She talked & laughed & told stories of the shenanigans that took place while she was coming off of the anesthesia after the surgery...WOAH...her poor nurses! It was SO good to hear her laugh & her be headache- free! The next day she moved to the step-down unit & she got to come home on Wednesday with IV antibiotics.

   What an AMAZING God we serve!! Haley was right...this wasn't too big for Him. After surgery, Dr. Okor told Holland that it's not about WHEN you finish the race, it's just about finishing it. This wasn't in Holland's plan, it wasn't in her family's plan...it was God's plan & he has already used it for His kingdom. Lives have been rededicated to Christ through Holland's story & I know numerous other lives have been touched. So many people have grown closer to Him through this, including myself.  Please continue to pray for Holland as she has big decisions to make about work & school and continue to pray for her family who hasn't left her side! Today I'm thankful for my sweet friend, her health & what she means to me!

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, according to his purpose.                                                                                                            Romans 8:28

Meet Micah!!!

     On August 13, 2013, 6 months ago today, my second nephew was born. He was born at 27 weeks & weighed 2 lbs 8 oz. While we were happy he seemed as healthy as a 2 lb. 8 oz baby could be & had 10 fingers & 10 toes, we couldn't help but face reality.  The reality was that he wasn't born into an ideal situation & didn't have a mom & dad that could give him the life he deserved. My mom & step-dad, Randy, were too old to 'start over' & raise a child & Micah's other grandparents already had enough on their plate since they were raising Micah's older twin siblings, Destiny & Des, who will be 6 years old this month. DHR was on the case from day one & we all knew he would ultimately end up in a foster home. Although none of us had the means to take him & raise him, we knew we wanted a better life for him. We wanted him to have a Mama & Daddy that would love him, take him to church, teach him right from wrong and even give him his very own nursery in a nice, warm house. I knew that a lot of foster children didn't have fairy tale endings & as much as I wanted Micah's story to be the exception, I was afraid it wouldn't be.
     Since Micah was in the NICU at UAB, we had to be on a list to see him. If you weren't on the list, you didn't get in the unit. Randy's sister, Betty Carol, was the only person that Micah's biological mom would put on the list. Betty Carol went to UAB on her lunch break nearly every day for 2 months & updated us. Against all odds, he seemed to be trucking right along! On September 3, 2013, I was at work & Mama called me. She told me that she had seen on Facebook that Bill & Alyssa Short were doing all kinds of fund raisers to adopt a child. Bill's daddy & Randy are first cousins & we thought that adopting a blood related child might be a tiny bit easier than someone that wasn't related to Micah at all. It was a VERY long shot but Mama went for it. She messaged Bill & explained the situation... 'I know this is completely out of the ordinary but I want to give you some information & you can do with it what you will...our wish & prayer for him is for some family to adopt him & give him a good home...I know you & your wife are in the process of adopting a baby already but I wanted to let you know about this baby, too....We pray that he can be placed into a good, loving, Christian home. Take care!' Woah! Can you imagine getting a random message like that? Apparently Bill didn't mind a bit because 20 minutes later, he replied with, 'That would be a blessing! Please call me.' Before long, Bill & Alyssa were involved in every aspect in Micah's life. DHR got custody of him & Bill & Alyssa were placed on the visiting list in the NICU to visit. Bill updated us daily with Micah's progress. Mama & Randy got to visit him in the NICU, too. At first, I don't think Randy wanted to even see Micah & I think it was because he felt guilty that he couldn't take him home & raise him. After he saw that Bill & Alyssa were serious about trying to adopt him & he knew that Micah would have awesome parents that would take care if him, he finally held him. Eventually Bill & Alyssa got temporary custody!
     On November 9, 2013, almost 3 months old, Micah was discharged & went home with Bill & Alyssa! Not long after he was home, I FINALLY got my hands on him! Such a sweet, tiny little thing! Earlier this month, Bill & Alyssa got full custody of him & now they can start the process of legally adopting him. It was an absolute miracle that Micah was a healthy baby & it was all in God's timing that Bill & Alyssa finally have the child that they prayed so long & hard for! Since they have full custody, we can now post pictures of him, hence the reason for this blog post!!! Meet Micah!!!

ALABAMA concert...

   For as long as I can remember, I have LOVED the band, Alabama! It reminds me so much of my childhood...the days when Daddy & I would ride to a Tommy Gregg's store at the caution light in Stanton to get a Grapico in a little glass bottle, while standing up beside him in the truck seat or sitting in his lap while he let me 'drive'...and the days of the many, many rides in the Talladega National Forrest when I was in high school & the dirt roads in Banks, AL, when I was in college in Troy.
   For the first anniversary, the traditional gift is paper (see the whole list of anniversary gifts here). Hunter got a 20 gauge over under shotgun in October that doubled as an anniversary gift & a birthday gift....and it took A LOT of paper to buy it. When he told me about the Alabama tickets, I was tickled to death & I warned him that I would be 'THAT girl' singing 'Dixieland Delight' at the top of my lungs!

   We hunted in Troy Saturday morning & drove to Maplesville around lunch. We went out to Uncle Clem's to put up a lock-on so we could bow hunt the next morning. We needed to leave by 5:00 to get dinner & be at the BJCC in Birmingham by 8:00 but of course we played in the woods too long & didn't leave until 6:00. So, we had a romantic dinner from the Jack's drive-thru in Jemison & trucked on up I-65.
   Hunter bought the tickets on stubhub.com back in September so we just printed them & took them to the door. When the lady at the door scanned them, she said, 'these tickets have already been used.' Excuse me, WHAAAT?!?!?! I didn't know whether to cry or scream! The lady at the door sent us over to the ticket office to see if they could figure out what happened. The ticket office ladies said that the lady that sold us our tickets on stubhub.com also sold our seats to other people! Now, I was under the impression that stub hub was a legit website, but I guess not! The ladies at the the ticket office said they only had 2 tickets left for the concert that night & that they weren't in the same sections. We could buy those or drive back to Birmingham for the next night's show & sit together. I explained that it was our 1st anniversary & my 'paper' gift was those tickets & that we lived in Montgomery & wouldn't be able to drive back to Birmingham for an 8:00 concert on a Sunday night. I knew Hunter didn't want to buy 2 more tickets, but I also knew that he knew how bad I wanted to see Alabama in concert & check it off of my 'Bucket List.' He bought the two tickets in different sections & we went on inside. When we got to the third tier (the highest up we could get), one of the usher ladies asked to help us to our seats, then said, "these tickets aren't even together!" Duh. I told her the whole story about it being our 1st anniversary & about the evil, evil person on stubhub.com. She said, "come on, let's go to guest services." She took us to a tiny elevator & we went down to the first floor. She told us to stay in a certain spot until she talked to a few people. We watched her walk by us a couple times to talk to people that worked there, each time saying, "don't move, I'll be right back." When she finally came back, she hugged me, told us Happy Anniversary, and told us to follow another lady that worked there. What a sweet, sweet lady!! She told me her name was Darlene. We followed the other lady & they sat us 20 rows from the stage in the handicap box! The show was amazing & I sang the WHOLE time! I'm thankful that Hunter helped me mark another thing off of my "Bucket List" & I'm thankful for Darlene!!!!

P.S. Hunter got a full refund from stubhub.com & a $90 credit towards any ticket!