Suffering Produces Perseverance.

“We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that

suffering produces perseverance;

perseverance, character;

and character, hope.

And hope does not put us to shame…”

Romans 5:3-5

 

Romans 5:3-5 is my scripture verse for 2014.  It’s my anthem.  My promise.  This is the year that the Lord told me “HOPE DOES NOT PUT US TO SHAME”.

But 2014 was preceded by a lot of “glorying in my sufferings”.  And today I want to share with you a little about how suffering produced some character in my life not so long ago.

It has to do with a small, skinny “Burning Fighter” I’ve come to know…

I was on the “5 year plan”: Get married & 5 yrs later have kids.

But 5 yrs later I was living in Europe, far away from family, and my plan, rather specifically, had included grandparents.  So I waited.  By year 8, we were still here and I was growing restless.  We decided to do this, even if it would be on our own and in some place foreign.

Healthcare in Germany can be amazing (and I got my money’s worth that year).  In all, I had 23 ultrasounds (no joke).  And, after getting over the shock that I was having a boy, a possibility that had never occurred to my very pink lifestyle, everything looked perfect.

Or, nearly perfect.  Surprisingly, I developed gestational diabetes.  Despite a great diet and active lifestyle, I couldn’t get my sugar under control no matter what I did.  I needed insulin.

It’s recommend to pre-register at a hospital, so this became my mission.  I visited everywhere.  In all, I registered at SIX hospitals!  I may be the only woman in the history of this city who has done that.  But time and time again, I left feeling like, “this is not the right place”.  Steve got used to my phone calls after the many hours invested in each visit – “Nope, it’s not the one”.

FINALLY, we did find our place.  There was just one downside, it was the only one that had special rules for diabetes.  If the mother had been on insulin, regardless of the child’s health at birth, the baby had to go to the NICU for 24 hours.  I knew those first hours are crucial between a baby and mom, so this was a hard pill to swallow, but we prayed and went with it.

Now the name debate was in full swing.  One day Stephen came home with something brand new: “Brenner”.  It’s a German last name, but it’s most commonly associated with a large highway between Germany and Italy called the “Brenner Pass”.  Strangely, we both fell in love with it.  But I was curious to know what it meant.

My research found it refers to a “Bunsen Burner” – like you’d use for cooking.  Yeah, not exactly what I was hoping to name my son.  However, when we chose his middle name, “Kaden”, I thought we’d lost our minds.  The combined meaning of the first and middle names was an odd pairing — to say the least.  I remember calling my mom and asking if naming your kid “Burning Fighter” is a very bad idea?  She just laughed.

So, the face on all my ultrasounds finally had his name:  “Brenner Kaden – Burning Fighter”.

While having lunch at a wonderful authentic Italian restaurant, my contractions began.  Late that night, on Dec 12th, 2008, after a perfectly simple labor, he was born.  Everything checked-out.  But, as we’d agreed, he went to intensive care and this brand new mom and dad went blissfully to sleep.

It was the next afternoon when everything turned upside down.  Our lives started a spiral into the darkest days I NEVER could have imagined.

Brenner seemed sick.  The NICU thought maybe it was a virus.  A few hours later, they felt it was something more.  And that’s when the tests began.

He never made it to my room.

By day 2, a specialist was called in for an ultrasound on his heart.  His lower body was pale and the concern became blood flow.  I leaned on an uncomfortable radiator as my uterus was already contracting and the pain was sharp.  But my focus was fully on trying to understand the German conversation the doctor was having with the resident.  When the words “possible surgery” came out, I was grateful for that radiator, as it was the only thing that kept me standing.

We learned he’d have to be moved to a heart hospital, but it was late, Brenner was stable, and the decision was made to move him in the morning.  Steve went home to get some needed sleep and pack more things.  Physically and mentally exhausted, I finally closed my eyes too – but I was filled with fear.

At 2am that morning a nurse came in and said, “Mrs. Yoder, would you like to say goodbye to your son?”.  It was the scariest question I’ve ever been asked.  This was one time when the translation to English didn’t work well enough.  Brenner had gotten worse and they had to move him immediately.  I was led down a long underground hallway, beneath a sleeping hospital, with nothing but emergency lights guiding the way.

It was the longest walk of my life.

When I came into the NICU there were a dozen people working feverishly.  He was already in a huge incubator that looked to me like the bed Michael Jackson slept in.  In the background I stood, watching in horror.  Finally, a nurse saw me and made everyone clear the way so I could get close.  I said goodbye to a baby I’d only held a few short times.  Then he and his team of doctors were gone.

Immediately, I called Steve.  He threw things together to come back.  I had to find a way to get cleared for discharge, and was told that 5am was the earliest I could be seen.

When I think about that beautiful hospital room that we were so excited to have, the only picture that comes to mind is me standing in a shower, in the middle of the night, head pressed against a cold tile wall, alone, water pouring down my face – over my tears – as I begged God to save my son.

The next 3 days were a blur, but every single second is etched forever in my memory.  Steve and I fought to get to the “Deutsches Herzzentrum” as soon as possible.  It’s the premiere heart hospital in Germany which “happened” to be in our city.  When we ran in, the Chief of the hospital, along with his team, were already with Brenner.  They’d confirmed the problem was a narrow point in his ascending aorta.  Blood flow to his lower body was restricted.

At home, I had a beautifully prepared nursery.  I’d spent weeks hand-painting friendly woodland characters on the perfectly soft blue walls.  The plush comfy cream chair and ottoman were pieces I’d fought hard to have shipped from America.  I’d planned to rock my son there day and night, if necessary.  Every last detail was ready.

Instead, I now sat in a sterile hospital room with a young and very sick mentally ill girl – left seemingly abandoned in a caged crib – as she relentlessly banged her toy on metal bars, and threw her pacifiers at the back of my head.

I stared ahead at the tiny bed in front of me, where this impossibly small person now laid.  An IV was stuck in his forehead, pumping prostaglandins into his body in order to keep every vein wide open.  The area around the port had become almost “Super Villain” like with swollen, red/blue pumping veins spidering out all around it.

How was I here?  I was supposed to be in that nursery.  I was supposed to be toasting our son with the Dom Perignon I’d had chilled and waiting for the last 9 months.  But this cold, hard metal chair became my new lonely home.

On Dec 17th, Brenner underwent a catheter in hopes to enlarge the narrowing with a balloon.  It was Steve’s birthday.  And while he found a parking spot, I ran up ahead and posted the sign I’d made in the middle of the night.  It read “Happy Birthday, Daddy. I love you with all my heart – Brenner”.  For hours, we watched our 5-day old son, who hadn’t eaten since the night before as he screamed a raspy, near silent, scream.  We weren’t allowed to pick him up.  Instead, we pulled the string on a stuffed animal we’d bought for him, and listened to the sound of that music play for 30 seconds at a time, over and over and over.  It was the only thing that seemed to help calm him.  To this day, the sound of a music box makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on edge.

Steve would tell you that day was the hardest day of his life.

The balloon was not a success.

They learned that his aorta was not just narrow, it was slammed shut.  The only thing keeping our child alive was a “disorder” called PDA (Patent ductus arteriosus).  It’s a bypass the body uses in gestation to deliver blood to the body.  While in the womb, your blood is not yet oxengynised so the aorta isn’t needed.  During birth, or within a few hours, the PDA is closed down forever.  In Brenner’s case, 5 DAYS after birth, it remained open, and was the only reason his lower body and organs were still receiving any blood at all.  Had it closed, he would have died.

We had previously been told that IF surgery was necessary he would be put on a waiting list.  There are many serious cases in this hospital from all over Europe.  It was expected our wait would be about 2 weeks.  However, after the catheter, he was scheduled for surgery the very next morning.  He was an emergency.

The chief surgeon of this most prestigious hospital cooled our baby’s body to freezing and opened his chest to create a patch in his aorta using gore tex.  In the rewarming processes, we later learned, he went into cardiac arrest and was brought back to life with a defibrillator.  He was too swollen from the invasive surgery, so they packed his chest and left it open while he sat sedated in the NICU for the next days.

In the meantime, I had a blood clot pass through my right eye which landed me in another hospital.  They felt it was a precursor to a stroke and wanted to admit me for the weekend.  Steve and I disagreed, though, and I signed away my rights as I left that hospital to be with our son that lay fighting in an Intensive Care Unit on the other side of the city.  I also developed a double breast infection from all the irregular pumping.  Things were crashing in on me.  My feet were moving, but I didn’t feel them anymore.

Steve regularly called home to update the 100’s who were praying.  Normally, I talk through everything with my parents, but it took me more than a week before I could get on that phone and speak to anyone.  I didn’t know how.

Each day that we arrived, I had to read the name on the bed to know if this was my child.  It killed me. It embarrassed me.  A mother should know the face of her own baby.  But he was so swollen and attached to so many machines, I just couldn’t see it.

One evening while we sat quietly in the NICU, the most beautiful St. Nicholas I’ve ever seen came to visit with the children.  Brenner was sedated, but Santa still came in our room, gently shook my hand, and gave us a stocking filled with fruit and nuts.  The FC Bayern soccer team came, “Clinic Clowns” and Mickey Mouse also came… At Christmas time, if you wanted to find the most pathetic children in Munich, this was the place to volunteer.  We had a psychologist in our ward who was assigned to the parents of kids like ours.  She was meant to help talk us off our ledge.

This was not my life.  I was never meant to know any of this.  My son was never meant to be here.  In fact, 23 ultrasounds had ensured me he wouldn’t be.

We rung in Christmas and New Years alongside dying kids with parents who never left their rooms.  We had no words – no one did.  We just waited and prayed.  Alone.

BUT this is where I get to tell you that the surgery WORKED.  He lived.  Did you hear that?  HE LIVED!

Still, when they finally released us to take him home, I was terrified to leave.  Without the machines to sound the familiar alarms warning us he wasn’t breathing fully or his heart wasn’t beating properly, I was sure he could still die if I wasn’t watching all the time.  It took a while before I really believed our hell was finally over.

One year later, Brenner brought in his first birthday back at that same hospital.  Scar tissue had formed and caused a re-narrowing.  We walked those hallways again.  Another surgery.  Same process. Same doctors. Same recovery.  Discussions of pacemakers, permanent medications and other concerns came up that visit.  But, when we left, he was given the clearance to live life normally – fully.  Absolutely NO restrictions.

God named our son.  He was a Burning Fighter before we ever knew he’d have to fight a single day of his life.  There are many details, things you might consider “minutia”, things that I haven’t shared here.  Things that are miracles.

What I most need you to know is that my son is alive because God took a small-town Pgh girl, moved her to Germany, and orchestrated the rescue of a lifetime.

“Suffering leads to Perseverance”.  That was the year I learned about persevering.  And I learned that we don’t do it alone – Suffer or Persevere.  My God carried me/us through.  He cried on the floor of that hotel room with me.  His hands placed that patch inside my son’s chest.  He FOUGHT against the ruler of death and darkness to rescue a life He’d destined for greatness in His kingdom.  Brenner is a precious gift that God chose to entrust to me and my husband.  And He equipped us with the ability to persevere in our suffering.

Today, my son is a child that has more life in his pinky finger than most people ever know.  He runs everywhere – no walking allowed.  He doesn’t “talk”, but tells grand stories no matter what he’s relaying.  He has spunk – Fight!  He KNOWS God.  He keeps us on our toes, and harnessing all of that energy is something we’re still figuring out.  But, mark my words, he will be a mover and shaker.

Last night when I put him to bed, I ran my finger down the long scar in the center of his chest and asked him if he remembered why he had this.  He didn’t.  I told him it’s because he was very sick and I was very scared, but God saved him.  “WHY?”, he asked.  “Because He has great surprise to give you one day”, I said.  He giggled and hugged my neck.

My son lives.  He TRULY lives.

But enough about suffering.  I’m moving on to hope.