Day 36: Giving Glory to God

December 23, 2020, written by Mama

I want to share a story in order to give glory to God and to thank St. Anthony publicly.

On Tuesday evening, it was discovered that there were zero more small filters for Thomas's continuous dialysis machine. He is the only child in the hospital on continuous dialysis who uses the small-size filters. The nursing staff searched and firmly believed there were zero small filters in the entire hospital. They were already brainstorming where the warehouse is in Charlotte and how we might get more filters during Christmas week, no less. I was already pondering on a human level all our contacts within hundreds and now thousands of friends, surely we would know someone in the medical supply industry who could FedEx us small filters!

When the Nephrologist came on shift Wednesday morning and found out, she was very upset. "Heads will roll until I have filters!"

She brainstormed all the contingency plans for what to do if Thomas's dialysis machine clots off, which his does every 24-48 hours, more frequently than typical because he may not have any anticoagulants due to his bleeding status. The Nephrologist was calculating how many hours he could remain safely off machine, the fact that they would have to cease his TPN nutrition (because it has potassium in it, cannot be processed by kidneys), and then as a last resort they would have to switch him to intermittent dialysis earlier than they want (because we all think his body is not ready for it).

The typically imperturbable Nephrologist left the room in an emotional state I've never seen her in and I sat to pray to St. Anthony to find us filters--something I had not remembered to do all overnight. I thought I was praying for him to find us filters somewhere in Charlotte, and then I was promptly going to write a Caring Bridge special prayer request for all of you to pray the same. Within five minutes, maybe less, the Nephrologist came back in and said 12 small filters had mysteriously been found within the walls of this hospital when they could not be found by the night staff.

Thank you, St. Anthony! Praise God!