Every Monday my nurse comes out to our house to take some blood, and to change the dressing on my arm where my pick line is. She mentioned to me that my white blood count is dropping with is good, meaning that the antibiotics are working and fighting the staph infection, however, I did find out that I will always have the staph infection, but at least it's making it go down at the moment.
Yesterday afternoon I went for my weekly CAT scan, and then went to my Neurologist Doctor this morning and he informed me that the spot in my brain is now slowly going down. It is now smaller than it was last week, not by a huge amount, but still has shrunk a little bit.
I firmly believe that the only reason I'm where I'm at is because of my God. He is bigger than all of this, and each report we get we will praise Him for the out come, all glory belongs to Him.
Thank you for your prayers, please continue to pray for me and for my family as we are on this journey to healing.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
You May Not Finish this Blog post.....part 2
That next day, Sunday morning, was a good day. My house doctor, came in to check on me, and said that I was looking good. He said that he needed to confirm with the neurologist, but as he looked at the new CT, there was no abscess in the brain. And that it was not a fungal infection, but rather a staph infection and all should be treatable with antibiotics.
I can’t tell you how excited I was and relieved I was to hear those words. Realizing that if I had waited any longer I could have slipped into coma, and things progressed even worse from there, the thought was so overwhelming.
Monday morning, the doctor’s came in and began the process to discharge me, and that night I found myself in my own bed, resting with a new look on life, with a new since of urgency, and a new since of what is really important.
Never before have I had anything crazy like this happen, Violet through out this entire ordeal was such a stronghold for me, being so positive, and reminding me that God has so much more for me to do.
Through this entire situation as I reflect on it, I never questioned my faith, I never became angry with God, but I found myself scared. I always thought that when that time came, I’d have a peace that surpasses everything, but truth is, I was scared. And then I thought of my family, and how I hadn’t prepared to leave them in a good position if I where to pass. I always said I have time to this or to do that, but truth is, I don’t, and you don’t. We are never promised time, we are never promised that will live to grow old with our spouse, or to see our children grow up and experience life, get married and have their own children. We are not guaranteed anything, except that will someday all pass away.
A few days before this entire situation raised it’s crazy head, I was reading, “Crazy Love”, by Francis Chan. And the chapter that I was reading was called, “you may not finish this chapter”, a relatively strange title of a chapter I thought, but as I read it, I was challenged, but still not ready for what would be ahead of me.
In the chapter Francis quotes Fredrick Buechner saying, “Intellectually we all know we are going to die, but we really do not know it in the sense that the knowledge becomes a part of us. We do not really know it in the sense of living as through it were true. On the contrary, we tend to live as through our lives will go on forever.”
That is exactly how I now feel. I can truly say that after this experience, I have been forced to examine my life in a way I have never had to before. A real reality check. I do know that some day I will die, when that is I do not know. But this I do know, the Lord has brought me through this situation, and continues to as I am currently still recovering, but the knowledge that I will someday die is now more real than ever, and that had forced me to live as if it were true, which in turn has moved me to a place in my faith that I have never been before, and I’m so excited to see where God takes us on our journey with Him. Things that He asked us to do before now don’t seem so scary.
I do know this, I want to live my life adoring my wife, loving my children, and knowing that whatever God has asked me to do, I did, and fear didn’t keep me from obeying Him. That to me is a life of no regrets, that’s having a sense of urgency, and that’s living knowing my time is short no matter where I’m at on my journey with Christ.
Please continue to pray for my healing. I have an IV in my arm every 8 hours on the hour, and have doctor appointments weekly, I have a road ahead of me, but the Lord has brought me this far, and I can’t thank you enough for all your prayers and support. They have been so encouraging to myself and my family.
I can’t tell you how excited I was and relieved I was to hear those words. Realizing that if I had waited any longer I could have slipped into coma, and things progressed even worse from there, the thought was so overwhelming.
Monday morning, the doctor’s came in and began the process to discharge me, and that night I found myself in my own bed, resting with a new look on life, with a new since of urgency, and a new since of what is really important.
Never before have I had anything crazy like this happen, Violet through out this entire ordeal was such a stronghold for me, being so positive, and reminding me that God has so much more for me to do.
Through this entire situation as I reflect on it, I never questioned my faith, I never became angry with God, but I found myself scared. I always thought that when that time came, I’d have a peace that surpasses everything, but truth is, I was scared. And then I thought of my family, and how I hadn’t prepared to leave them in a good position if I where to pass. I always said I have time to this or to do that, but truth is, I don’t, and you don’t. We are never promised time, we are never promised that will live to grow old with our spouse, or to see our children grow up and experience life, get married and have their own children. We are not guaranteed anything, except that will someday all pass away.
A few days before this entire situation raised it’s crazy head, I was reading, “Crazy Love”, by Francis Chan. And the chapter that I was reading was called, “you may not finish this chapter”, a relatively strange title of a chapter I thought, but as I read it, I was challenged, but still not ready for what would be ahead of me.
In the chapter Francis quotes Fredrick Buechner saying, “Intellectually we all know we are going to die, but we really do not know it in the sense that the knowledge becomes a part of us. We do not really know it in the sense of living as through it were true. On the contrary, we tend to live as through our lives will go on forever.”
That is exactly how I now feel. I can truly say that after this experience, I have been forced to examine my life in a way I have never had to before. A real reality check. I do know that some day I will die, when that is I do not know. But this I do know, the Lord has brought me through this situation, and continues to as I am currently still recovering, but the knowledge that I will someday die is now more real than ever, and that had forced me to live as if it were true, which in turn has moved me to a place in my faith that I have never been before, and I’m so excited to see where God takes us on our journey with Him. Things that He asked us to do before now don’t seem so scary.
I do know this, I want to live my life adoring my wife, loving my children, and knowing that whatever God has asked me to do, I did, and fear didn’t keep me from obeying Him. That to me is a life of no regrets, that’s having a sense of urgency, and that’s living knowing my time is short no matter where I’m at on my journey with Christ.
Please continue to pray for my healing. I have an IV in my arm every 8 hours on the hour, and have doctor appointments weekly, I have a road ahead of me, but the Lord has brought me this far, and I can’t thank you enough for all your prayers and support. They have been so encouraging to myself and my family.
You May Not Finish this Blog post.....part 1
The last few weeks of my life have been needless to say, a little crazy. Exactly 2 weeks ago today I had been having headaches for about a week and they continued to grow stronger, to the point I was vomiting and hardly able to walk. After leaving work to try and rest, and recuperate, I found myself in the ER at Banner Estrella Hospital. And before I knew it I was having a CAT scan and MRI done of my head. After being put in a room, a doctor came in and spoke to Violet and I, telling us that they found an abscess on my brain and they needed to transfer me to Banner Good Samaritan Hospital where they have Neurological Doctors on hand. Next thing I know Vi and I are in an ambulance headed to the other hospital and immediately put into ICU. It was there in ICU that my life would be changed forever. The doctor on call was waiting to address the situation, and to speak with Violet and I. “Mr. Conner, you need to know that there in an abscess in your brain, and it appears to be a fungal infection which is very serious.” “How serious are we talking?” “This is life threatening Mr. Conner, very serious.” “Well what are my odds, how serious?” “We are not going to talk about those right now, because they are not good.”
Now I’m not sure if you have ever had those words thrown your way, but this was all new to me. I was in shock. I was scared. That night I could hardly sleep, I’d wake up and hear my wife crying as she sat in the chair next to my bed and prayed all night long, and all I could think about was my amazing wife of 7 ½ years of being married, and how I always saw us living to be an old couple together, and also about our 8 weeks old daughter, I imagined how many first’s I’d potentially be missing, first steps, first words, day of school, even down to walking her down the isles someday. Now it may sound like I’d given up, but I hadn’t, I was just reflecting on what was thrown my way by the doctors. Pretty heavy stuff to run your mind over in such a short amount of time.
The next day my neurologist came in and told me that he was planning on talking to me about what kind of procedure we would be doing for my brain surgery, but instead after seeing my sinuses where so impacted he wanted to bring in a Ear Nose and Throat Doctor, and also an Infectious Disease Doctor, and see if we can fix the situation before making it worse. The next day I found myself going into surgery. For over 2 hours they cleaned out my sinuses and did confirm that the infection had eroded my bone and gone into my brain. However, they where optimistic that the abscess may drain and with the help of all the antibiotics would be gone. The next day in ICU is a complete blur, I don’t remember much, but that evening the doctor’s moved me out of ICU and into a normal room! One step closer to going home! This to me was a good sign, I can’t be as bad, I must be getting better right?!!
Now I’m not sure if you have ever had those words thrown your way, but this was all new to me. I was in shock. I was scared. That night I could hardly sleep, I’d wake up and hear my wife crying as she sat in the chair next to my bed and prayed all night long, and all I could think about was my amazing wife of 7 ½ years of being married, and how I always saw us living to be an old couple together, and also about our 8 weeks old daughter, I imagined how many first’s I’d potentially be missing, first steps, first words, day of school, even down to walking her down the isles someday. Now it may sound like I’d given up, but I hadn’t, I was just reflecting on what was thrown my way by the doctors. Pretty heavy stuff to run your mind over in such a short amount of time.
The next day my neurologist came in and told me that he was planning on talking to me about what kind of procedure we would be doing for my brain surgery, but instead after seeing my sinuses where so impacted he wanted to bring in a Ear Nose and Throat Doctor, and also an Infectious Disease Doctor, and see if we can fix the situation before making it worse. The next day I found myself going into surgery. For over 2 hours they cleaned out my sinuses and did confirm that the infection had eroded my bone and gone into my brain. However, they where optimistic that the abscess may drain and with the help of all the antibiotics would be gone. The next day in ICU is a complete blur, I don’t remember much, but that evening the doctor’s moved me out of ICU and into a normal room! One step closer to going home! This to me was a good sign, I can’t be as bad, I must be getting better right?!!
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Books on my list...
Reading is something that I've had to learn to love. I have to admit that reading to me at times is my "thorn in my side" as Paul would say. I say that because it does not come naturally to me, in fact it is very hard at times, but I love it when I do pick up a good read because I am usually so incredibly challenged that if pushes me to want to read more. Right now I'm reading probably the most personally challenging book that I've ever read, apart from God's Word. The book was recommended to me by a good friend who was mentored by Rob Bell. That alone intrigued me, but was even more my buddy talked about how much this book impacted him and his walk with Christ, so as soon as our meeting was over, I went back to my office and ordered it. The book is called, "the emotionally healthy church", by Pete Scazzero. And I can't recommend it to you more highly. Pick it up and watch your socks get rocked!
Books I'm reading and ones that are on deck...
1. "The Emotionally Healthy Church" by Pete Scazzero
2. "Crazy Love', by Francis Chan
3. "Vintage Jesus", by Mark Discoll
4. "Talent is Never Enough" by John Maxwell
Books I'm reading and ones that are on deck...
1. "The Emotionally Healthy Church" by Pete Scazzero
2. "Crazy Love', by Francis Chan
3. "Vintage Jesus", by Mark Discoll
4. "Talent is Never Enough" by John Maxwell
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
She's here!
It has been a few weeks since my last post, but good reason...I now have a beautiful baby daughter in my life. I can't explain how amazing it is to be a parent! Riley was born July 1, 2008 at 9:52pm at Scottsdale Shea Hospital, weighing in at 5 lbs 8oz, and 19 inches long. She was given the nickname, "peanut" by all the nurses because of how small she was, and is. But to Vi and I she is the most beautiful, precious, sweet, and amazing little girl in the world. God has blessed us with the opportunity to have her in our lives, and we couldn't be happier!
Violet and I want to thank so many people that prayed for both Violet and Riley during the delivery process, and for all the support, encouragement, gifts, and meals that so many have given. Thank you just doesn't seem like enough, but thank you.
There are several things that I've learned as a new Dad the top 5 right now are....
5. Laughing has kept Violet and I sane for the last 2 weeks while being sleep deprived
4. Poop can be projectile(didn't know that!)
3. Riley gets her beautiful looks from her Mom(I'm thankful for that!)
2. I can't give Riley enough love, or kisses!
1. God is so amazing! The entire birthing process was the most amazing experiences for Violet to have together, and also in our walk with Christ.
Here are some more pictures for now. Enjoy!
Friday, June 27, 2008
My world is about to be ROCKED!
On Monday of this last week, Violet and I had a routine baby doctor's appointment. Violet is now in her 36th week of being pregnant, and so we are thinking about 4 more weeks of preparation will be great, we can enjoy our time together and get a few things done around the house. Well, after that doctor's appointment, we found out that she will not be coming in 4 weeks. Instead she will be coming on Tuesday, July 1, 2008.
As we left the doctor's office, we where both in shock. Not really knowing what to say or how to feel, but left with a ton of questions that will probably get no answers, and in some ways I'm fine with that. I have to say that we are so excited about her coming! I can't explain how happy our hearts are. But at the same time, jumping from 4 weeks out to 4 days out, was something that I know we where not really prepared for, but we keep telling each other that the Lord wants her here early so that He can start to use her even sooner!
Please keep Violet in your prayers as we move closer to Tuesday, and please pray for Riley as well in the days ahead.
Can't wait to show off pictures of my daughter, and our new family!
As we left the doctor's office, we where both in shock. Not really knowing what to say or how to feel, but left with a ton of questions that will probably get no answers, and in some ways I'm fine with that. I have to say that we are so excited about her coming! I can't explain how happy our hearts are. But at the same time, jumping from 4 weeks out to 4 days out, was something that I know we where not really prepared for, but we keep telling each other that the Lord wants her here early so that He can start to use her even sooner!
Please keep Violet in your prayers as we move closer to Tuesday, and please pray for Riley as well in the days ahead.
Can't wait to show off pictures of my daughter, and our new family!
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