Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Prayers for Rachael Kligmann

Prayers for Rachael Kligmann

Some of you may not have heard of the family whose 12-year-old daughter was hit by a car one night when she ran a stop sign.. I am speaking of the Kligmann family. Rachael Kligmann was riding her bike with her sister, and was hit and thrown from her bike. I’m not sure if she was wearing a helmet or not, but she suffered serious injuries to her brain. She is in critical condition right now. She is on Life Support, but they don’t expect her to live very long.

Her family has been keeping a journal for her on CaringBridge.org. These entries are from her journal -

WEDNESDAY, JULY 02, 2008 07:58 PM, CDT

Rachael can’t survive her accident. She is dying. We will update here as we know more.

I know a lot of people have had their faith shaken to the core. We have trust that the Lord knows best and we are trusting that He loves us and Rachael is okay and we will be someday.

TUESDAY, JULY 01, 2008 08:19 PM, CDT

The MRI results were very hard.

TUESDAY, JULY 01, 2008 12:04 PM, CDT

Still waiting for MRI results.

Rachael moved her thumb in response to my asking her to squeeze my hand and then lifted a finger when I asked her to. Then I touched her left leg and asked her to move it and she did. The nruse witnessed the leg part. I let her rest for a few minutes and then asked her to lift her hand off of mine, which she did.

And YET…the nurse would not tell us anything about the MRI, the drs want to meet with us and anre conferring so I think they are going to tell us bad news about it.

And YET…if you don’t look inside a closed box does it change what is inside it?

This is by far the worst rollercoaster ride we have ever been on. I think next time we should just go back to Disneyland.

Pete and I are wearing down fast. Jodi (our pastor’s wife) promised us that this is the hardest thing we will ever have to do.

As soon as they tell us that she is likely to live through the night we can at least go home and sleep for a few hours and begin trying to figure out what our lives will look like from here, but she is still in critical condition.

It just keeps getting harder in lots of ways. But she is still alive.

TUESDAY, JULY 01, 2008 12:44 AM, CDT

I am so tired tonight. Early today was tiring by being good and later today was just tiring.

Rachael is *overbreathing* her ventilator by quite a bit now. But she is working SO hard to breathe that it exhausts me to watch her. Also she is running a really high fever; 104 + .

She had to have an MRI this evening. Poor little thing was having a hard time with it.

She cries. When something has been hard for her today several times I have seen tears from both eyes that seemed appropriate to what was happening. It seems like a cognitive sign to me.

Waiting for the results of the MRI is hard. They are trying to tell us what the range of expectations would be for her. This is hard on several levels. First of course is that it might be bad news… but even if it is…then it makes it hard for me to just believe that God might be doing something… and then on the third hand I am trying to guard my heart… and then on the fourth hand I am trying to be realistic… and then on the fifth hand…you get the idea.

I also really only got a couple of hours of sleep last night. I have been very emotional toight.

I want to go home. I want to spend time with my kids. I want to cook dinner. I want to just be normal.

Lord I do believe. Help me in my unbelief. She is not dead she is asleep.

Please pray for our finances as well. No one will tell me what exactly, since my son and daughter in law took over our bills (and they are very sweet to do so), but apparently there is a specifc need that they are praying for.

MONDAY, JUNE 30, 2008 09:27 AM, CDT

I barely slept last night. I was so afraid that I would miss the neurosurgeons rounds. But we didn’t.

When we went into her room this morning and started talking to her she started moving immediately. I watched her for a few seconds first and she was resting until we started talking.

Her arm started moving on my side where I was standing on her left. I asked her to squeeze my hand and her fingers started moving and her arm started twitching and moving. She started to “blink” her eyes even though her eyes are shut. fter a little while I lifted her eyelid for her on her right since I am not sure if she is blind in her left eye (they don’t know yet) and her right eye moved ever so slightly toward me.

She is initiating about 2/3’s of her breaths, not enough but certainly not nothing either. The ventilator senses when she initiates the breath, continues is and records it. Very cool. She is on only 35% oxygen now. Her pneumonia is doing much better.

She started coughing and it is just miserable for her to have her lungs suctioned. Afterwards I looked and she had tears in the corners of her eyes. Was it from the coughing itself or from emotion? I don’t know, but I do know that it broke my heart.

Just after that the neurosurgeons made their rounds. He talked to us afterwards and said that she had made purposeful movements but that she still has quite a bit of the pentobarbitol in her system and he is cautiously optimistic (too strong a word, but I can’t remember his actual word there…less than optimistic but in that neighborhood.) He also said he does not know yet where she will land on the brain-damaged-spectrum. Which is again my phrase not his.

What he did not do, which he had told us on Friday could easily come today, was talk to us about allowing her to die.

He also said that she is still at great risk for all of the other “ICU complications”; pneumonia again, blood clots, kidney issues, bowel issues etc. All of those things are dangerous for her too.

He wants to remove her ICP monitor and just leave in the catheter that is still draining a little tiny bit of fluid. After that is gone they can do an MRI and have it be more accurate which should tell them more about her initial injury.

Can you believe this is the first time they have even started to try to evaluate that?

I am starting to allow myself to barely become more hopeful that she will live.

My goals for today: Earphones and music for Rachael; seeing my kids; maybe leaving the hospital for a few minutes or even something like lunch. I *may* even try to run home and just look at my own house for a minute. Maybe, maybe not.

Pete is badly in need of a change of clothes though. :)

Today feels better.

After last Thursday almost anything would though.

This is the work of the devil. He doesn’t want her to praise God with her life. He wants to kill, steal and detroy her life. Please pray with me for Rachael’s recovery. The gates of hell shake every time we lift up a prayer for someone. Let’s shake them good now, let’s shatter them, brake them and detroy them. Pray for her and her family as they go through this time of trial. They need our prayers, they need them with a great need. Please, I ask you again, pray with me. Pray for her healing, pray for her protection, pray that she will live and glorify God with every day of her life. Pray also that her family will be comforted. PLEASE PRAY.

I know that if one of my sisters was hit by a car, and could possibly die, I would not be able to bear it. The thought of losing one of my sisters or my brothers makes me sick to my stomach. But this family may lose their daughter, sister, and granddaughter. Please, please, please pray for her.

I am praying. Praying hard. I trust that the Lord can heal this little girl’s body. He can!

Still praying,

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