It’s seven-thirty in the morning as I am writing this, and I haven’t had any sleep yet. I am now here in the ER of St. Luke’s Medical Center, waiting for the attending doctor to sign Mika’s discharge orders. I requested for them to allow us to go home first, since Mika already fell asleep and there’s not much that they can do for now but to observe her. That’s really all they can tell us for now— “Let’s observe her.”, and that’s precisely what we have been doing since we got here.

At this time, Dennis is seated beside me, asleep (or at least trying very hard to be able to). Mika, too, is sleeping soundly on the bed they have here. Alyanna, on the other hand, well….Alyanna is there in our house sleeping by herself. I am praying she doesn’t wake up until we are back home.

Oh, I forget. I haven’t even told you yet why we are here.

I don’t really know how to describe the events leading up to the time when we had to bring our second daughter Mika to the ER, because there really hasn’t been any “symptom”, as you would call it, that seemed significant enough on its own. I guess I could start from early this week (Tuesday), when Mika all of a sudden lost her appetite. If you have seen Mika eat, you would know that she really eats. She enjoys eating. She got that from m-…uh…DENNIS. Since Tuesday she would refuse to eat proper meals and would always ask for water. I attributed the sudden loss of appetite to probably teething (molars), and the thirst to the heat. No cause of alarm there. Then came Wednesday morning. After breakfast as Mika was walking all of a sudden she vomited a lot of what seemed like her entire breakfast meal. This happened four times, consecutively, so I’m not sure whether to count it as four or as one event, but at that time I considered it as one so I didn’t think it was a cause of concern either. That day, there was still no change in appetite. She then took a nap from 2-6:30 pm. She slept late the previous night, so it made sense for me to think it was because of that.

Thursday came, and I had to leave her over at my in-laws house for the day. They said she didn’t eat much except for a few spoonfuls of rice and some crackers. They’ve seen how she normally eats so they pretty much had a good point of comparison. They also noted that she had no energy the whole day, and that she has lost a lot of weight (they last saw her Sunday). I only saw her that night but already I could agree with them. I also noticed that she had loose stools when I changed her diaper in the morning and that night. Thursday night I thought I should be observing her health more closely.

Yesterday, it was better. She ate more than she has for the past few days, though still not as much as before. All she ate for the day were pasta, rice, some bread, and potato. No meat, no veggies– she refused them. Her stools were very watery and grayish, and quite frequent. (By this time, I already decided to take her for a checkup the next day).

Two AM this morning, Mika all of a sudden vomited out everything she ate since lunch—the rice, pasta, potato, bread….all came out. She had a hard time breathing since they were all still in their undigested form, meaning, how they came in through her mouth was exactly how they looked like as they came out. It was not even watery. It was a good thing that she threw up at the exact moment that Dennis woke me up and asked me to move so he could have more space. I knew it was God who woke both of us up, or else Mika might have had difficulty breathing in her sleep and she wouldn’t have known it. She then made poopoo twice within 30 minutes after her vomiting episode.

We decided to bring her to the ER.

So here we are. Forgive me for having to give you the details of her whole week. I think I’m writing this more for my sake, so in case there’s a need to recount the progression of symptoms, it’s all here. Thank you anyway, for sticking with me up until this point.

Later today, Dennis will be preaching at two of our services at the Fort. We have no nanny. We have two events that we’re supposed to go to. What I’m saying is a good night’s sleep is something that both of us could really use today.

That didn’t happen, so now what do I do?

I do not have much control over what will be taking place the rest of the day. I do not have much control over Mika’s condition. I do, however, have control over how I am going to respond. I could use the lack of sleep as an excuse to be all jumpy and cranky; I could use the stress as a reason to snap at my husband and my children. I could, but I choose not to.

Today, I choose to have joy. I choose to rejoice in the fact that no matter what happens, my God is faithful and sovereign. The God who holds my family knows what He’s doing. I can rest secure in the fact that my God loves me and my family…and that’s just the beauty of it— despite not having any sleep, I can rest. I can rest because my God is on His throne, and He’s watching over me.

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