..ahh.. health care

So, I'm avidly against socialized health care - just so we're straight on that.

We're having a difficult enough time getting health care NOW for Big P and we have the best insurance, as well as close access to 2 different children's hospitals, on the planet. My little brother and I will go in circles on this one so I'll just stick to what's going on with Big P and leave the style of health care issue behind us.

So I've been making roughly 3-7 daily phone calls to children's hospital since Big P and I got home. He has large growths in a few places that are painful for him, as well as having "episodes" (I'm pretty sure they're seizures but not positive). Now, if I were a health care provider and someone walked in with an 11 yr old newly adopted child with major health issues, I would roll out the welcome mat and offer to help them with anything they need. In the least, someone could at least answer my questions about how to deal with a child who has "episodes" while he's having them. Is anyone in a hurry to help me? That would be a no.

Quite the contrary. So, fed up with watching our son live in constant pain, my husband carried him for a visit to our local ER. For a quick $25 (our ER co-pay) the doc performed a biopsy, a CAT scan, and got us an appointment for tomorrow at a different children's hospital (mary bridge) for surgery. So this morning I called the new hospital to see if Big P should not eat before his set appointment.
"Why shouldn't he?"
"Well... I am under the understanding that one shouldn't eat before surgery...."
"Surgery?"
"...Right?"
"Uh... looks to me like the doc wants to see him before he makes any decisions."
"Even though the ER docs diagnosed him, biopsied him, and CAT scanned him last night?"
"I'm not the doc, ma'am. I'm just the scheduler."

I hung up the phone and tried to remind myself (as I have been trying to lately) that it's all in God's hands. I can do what I can do but regardless of what I do, it's all in God's hands.

Shortly thereafter, children's hospital (the 1st one) calls and says that no one has reviewed Big P's MRI yet but someone will eventually. Right now they're deciding at what meeting his case should be presented. Then, the docs will talk about the MRI and decide what to do from there.

God's got Big P since before the beginning of time. Before I ever laid eyes on him, before his biological parents considered his conception, before any of these docs was ever born. It was so easy for me to set Big P into God's care when he and I were in Liberia. After all, Liberia couldn't do anything for him so I didn't bother placing any hopes or expectations into their health care system. Rather, I hoped in America's. I hoped in God's choice of placing me in the US. I hoped that God was using that citizenship to bring Big P into our care, and thus our health care system. I expected that the docs here would quickly want to help us figure out how to discontinue my sons chronic pain and "episodes." I, mistakenly, hoped in the wrong thing.

So, once more, I put my trust in God as a last resort. I've got to quit doing this. Why isn't He my first option?

All that I know for sure is that this boy is God's child. God's got it.