Update on Mum’s Recovery – Sunday 6.3.2022

Dear Ones,

A short dispatch to tell you that we are experiencing God’s grace and love.  Mum still has challenges to sleep through the night, so we solicit your prayers for rest (and for us too!).  The physiotherapy is moving forward, sloooowly.  Mum can now sit propped in a chair for some period of time – without head support for about 30 mins.   She has begun short periods of balance while sitting without support.  But her back needs much strengthening.   She sort of dreads the Bipin our Physiotherapist – but works very hard to try and do the exercises he gives her.  And then she asks ‘it is time for him to go?’   Bipin is very glad for her eagerness to do the exercises.  But we can see the strain for her.  

Currently a core prayer issue is her right arm.  Mum has virtually no movement at the shoulder, wrist and finger level.  A little movement at the elbow joint.  Please pray that her brain with ‘recognise’ her right arm again and help her start getting strength in it again and begin to move it – rather than have it hanging limply like now.

Overall, it’s been a quiet day for which we are grateful.  “All good things around us are sent from heaven above, so thank the Lord, oh thank the Lord, for all His love!”

Blessings from Andi and Sheba (on behalf of the extended family)

Update on Mum’s Recovery – Friday 5.3.2022

Dear Friends,

You many have noticed a small but significant change in the title of this daily prayer guide for our mother – Christa Eicher.   We have replaced the word ‘health’ with ‘recovery.’  Each day is a miracle, for each of us.  Who knows if you or I will wake up tomorrow?  But we have very thankfully moved away from the terrible days just over a week ago when we just did not know whether Mum would pull through.   We are now in another season of grace where we are hoping Mum will regain the use of her limbs and be able to stand and sit on her own again… and of course walk!

Today was a brilliantly clear crisp winter day in Mussoorie.  The sun streamed in the windows and the azure hills melted into the deep blue sky.  Mum did not sleep much last night – but was in good spirits all through today.  We thank the Lord for His deep love for us, and for these days of grace.

Having completed a day here we are so glad that Mum can be ‘in her home.’   It is truly beautiful and crammed in every corner with some plant, some photo or picture of years gone by, some antique or book just calling out to be read.  

But one thing is crystal clear.  Mum cannot just ‘get back to normal.’  She is lying in her bed, in her room, but cannot turn over in her own strength.  She needs care 24x7 for the foreseeable future.   She told us last night ‘I want to go up to the prayer room’ – but without someone carrying her up the stairs, that is not possible for her.   Our dear neighbour Sandy came over today to help Sheba give Mum a bath.  A major undertaking.  

Having said this, it also doesn’t mean that Mum ‘will always be this way.’  We are so glad for the daily physiotherapy sessions that Mum is getting.  She sort of dreads Pritam’s arrival, because of the exertion that she knows is in store when her physiotherapist arrives.  But that exertion is the result of her earnest hard work.  She tries so hard and with such eagerness.  We just wished that we could push a button and suddenly Mum would be doing her normal 1 hour walks each day up and down the steep Mussoorie hillsides.  Instead, she is in bed, working hard to raise and lower her legs, straining to open and shut her right hand…  Today at one point she jokingly tried to bring her hands together in a “namaste” – to end the rigours of the session by saying goodbye to Pritam!  There is much hope, but the road ahead is a strenuous one for her.  Thanks for your prayers – and will you especially pray for her right arm and hand.  She is really struggling as she is unable to use the arm at all at this point, let alone the hand…

In late afternoon Sheba and I were able to go out for a walk.  We found ourselves walking along the spectacular ‘eye-brow’ path – and spent some time praying for the next steps:  Mum’s recovery, our plan to have her with us in Odisha for a few months, our work at Asha Kiran, our children and extended family, our house construction, our fellowship…  We are weak, but He is strong, and wants us to follow Him.  What a wonderful Saviour we serve.  How much He loves us.

Please pray for Mum’s on-going healing and restoration.  We are currently planning to get an early-morning flight from Delhi to Vishakapatnam on the 11th of March.  There is much to do between now and then, but we are grateful for the path that is opening up for us.   At present we hope that care for her for a few months and then come back to Mussoorie with her in summer.  

As we said, each day is a miracle.  We end off the week very, very grateful.  Tomorrow is the Lord’s day.  All glory to Him as we celebrate His resurrection – and His amazing victory over sin and bondage by the Man of Sorrows, who is well acquainted with grief – and by whose wounds we are healed.  

- Andi and Sheba Eicher (for our big family everywhere)

Update on Mum’s Health – Thursday 3.3.2022 and Friday 4.3.2022

 Dear Ones,

These notes of the day are written… at night.  And after a fairly good sleep on Wednesday night, yesterday’s version was one where Mum was restless the whole night through.  

The Bible tells us that “He gives His beloved sleep” and we know how precious rest is.  Will you please join us in praying for Mum that tonight’s sleep will not be like yesterdays – drifting off into small naps – but waking up again agitated.  What thoughts and half-ideas are pressing in on her now?  We know that she is frustrated to not be able to move around at will.  Is she fitfully drifting in and out because she doesn’t think she will be able to walk again?  

Amazingly enough, we have come to the end of our stay at Landour Community Hospital.   Yesterday Mum did not use oxygen during the day or the night.  Her last dose of antibiotics went in intravenously in the morning and in the afternoon the drip was stopped.   We have been ‘sitting’ her up in her bed for her food.  She sips from a straw to drink and we are encouraging her to use her left hand to guide morsels to her mouth.

What a blessing to have been ministered to by our ‘green angels’ – the hard-working LCH nurses and nurse-aides whose normal white uniforms are swathed with COVID-19 protocol green smocks and of course the ubiquitous masks.  We are grateful to Drs. Alem, George, Raja, Alam and Shibin for their wise counsel and curative arts.  And to the support staff as well.  Sheba and I camped out in the hospital room where Mum was for the past 9 days – and we were so well looked.  Meals brought up with a smile, cleaning staff sweeping in and out twice a day, coffee available from the on-duty watchman even at odd hours of the night.  And the many, many prayers we received from staff and the stream of visitors who came to be with Mum.  Food from Neeru and Stefan for Mum.  Our brother Manoj showing up yesterday unannounced from Nepal.  We are so very grateful.

And so this morning we started packing.  Mum was going to be discharged and shifted back to Shanti Kunj.  

Then the big event: 12 days after she had her fall, we brought her back to Shanti Kunj at noon today.  Sheba cradled Mum in her lap on the drive up to hill. It was then surreal to be carrying Mum down the path from Sisters Bazar on the same stretcher she was taken up on a dozen days earlier.  Thankfully there was no crowd this time, just 4 carriers and Sheba and our dear Paul Hamilton who drove us up from LCH in his jeep.  We had heated up Mum’s room before-hand and so we navigated the stretcher through the beauty of plants and antiques of Shanti Kunj.  Before we knew it, we were able to lay Mum back down in her own bed. 

Mum had her lunch – we were able to ‘sit’ her in a chair (with support) and feed her rice and vegetable curry.  It was good that Pritam, Mum’s physiotherapist, arrived promptly at 2.15 PM.  He did a short session with Mum – who was quite tired – esp. after her restless night.   Mum then took a nap and we unpacked and tried to get ourselves grounded for the next few days.

Our current plan is to spend a few days helping Mum orient herself and begin the hard work of rehabilitation using physio-therapy exercises.   We are hoping that she will join Sheba and myself on a trip to our home at Asha Kiran Hospital in Odisha on Thursday next week.   

There are no easy steps for Mum as she begins this new phase of her recovery.  She has clearly had a stroke.  Besides the initial fall that we assume was stroke-related, Mum has lost power and control of all 4 limbs – but thankfully it looks very possible for her to regain her strength over time and with therapy and grit (and prayers of course).   But due to the fall she lost a lot of blood and also spiralled into a serious acute illness storm, where her kidneys were not functioning well, she had a pneumonia, was drifting in and out of consciousness, while also having an enlarged heart which points to a long-term heart failing.  And did we mention that her psychiatric meds also needed a revamp?  

Tonight, in the quiet of Shanti Kunj, we are thankfully out of Mum’s initial crisis.  She has come out of the valley of the shadow of death.   We now request your prayers for Mum as she moves to the next level of care.  That the Lord will give us His patience and wisdom about how best to help Mum heal and flourish.  

Sheba and I told Mum this afternoon that she had suffered a stroke.  She was shocked.  She has a long way to understand the implications.  A few minutes after arriving she asked if she could go up to the ‘prayer room.’  Sheba and I looked at each other.  We gently had to tell Mum that the only way up there now was for us to carry her there.  Oh, she said.  

Mum needs so much help for her to recover all levels including: 

1) healing from trauma and fear linked with her fall and subsequent events, 

2) understanding her current situation as a person who is at least temporarily paralysed, and not giving into despair, 

3) growing in strength and muscle coordination to enable her to do her activities of daily living, 

4) learning to adjust to upcoming changes to a fairly independent past 5 years of her life, 

5) understanding what our loving Jesus is telling her about how she can minister to Him in this phase of her life.

I just peeked into Mum’s room – and it looks like she is sleeping.   We so much hope she will sleep through the night.  It’s a whole new world for all of us– and urgently ask prayer for the entire extended family.   Pray to be given wisdom, good humour, patience, insight, hope, and discernment of what God wants us to do – and how we should do it!

- Andi and Sheba Eicher (on behalf of the Eichers world-wide)

Update on Mum’s Health – Wednesday 2.3.2022

Dear Friends,

Mum slept deeply last night – which allowed Sheba and I to have our best nights yet.  Tonight Mum’s sleep started well, but as of 11 PM, she seems a bit restless again.  She just told me “I am trying to get out of this bed, but can’t.”  And that she is very thirsty.  We found that Mum has a very dry throat as she sleeps with her mouth open and we heat the room with an electric heater.  But when Mum drinks water at night there is always a danger of her aspirating.  Being tired she drifts into sleep while sipping her water and then wakes up coughing to our distress.   Mum’s life is now one where even tasks that seen so easy for many of us can be so complicated for her. 

Tonight, for the first time in 8 nights, Mum is sleeping without an oxygen mask.  She did not use oxygen for most of the day and has acceptable oxygen saturation values (given the 2 km altitude we are here in Mussoorie).  She was also given her last dose of antibiotics today, and took a medication to help replenish her iron stores since Mum lost a lot of blood in her fall(s).   These steps show that we are nearing the end of her hospitalisation – and transitioning into a period of rehabilitation. 

The big step forward for Mum today was a visit by Mr. Pritam, a young and dynamic physiotherapist.  Mr. Pritam is a contract staff at the medical centre of the Lal Bahadur Shastri Administrative Academy.  This is where our Indian Administrative Service officers are trained and lies almost as far away from Landour as you can get in Mussoorie.  But we were so glad that Mr. Pritam came this evening and spent an hour with Mum.

Mr. Pritam first assessed the extent of Mum’s immobility.  He was happy to note that even in her flaccid right side, her limbs are show at least faint responses to brain control.   This is really good news and holds a lot of hope for restoration.   Mr. Pritam told us that the task is now to help the brain recognise the limbs and their various sub-parts, and work on re-igniting contact between them and the brain.  There is actually the possibility of rewiring going on in the brain where new areas take control of the motor movements of the limbs.  Amazing stuff to imagine.  And the remarkable thing is that the means of teaching the brain to do this rests in the simplicity of repeatedly moving the currently less-responsive parts.  Parallel to this, we want to work to try to and help Mum’s brain to move them – first in simple ways, and then with greater coordination and dexterity.  

And so Mr. Pritam started to do some basic physiotherapy – rotating the fingers, then the hand, then the arm (similarly with her feet and legs).  These movements were being taught to us to be done regularly for Mum - to help Mum’s brain recognise these parts. 

After this, Mr. Pritam worked with Mum, asking her to do try and move various parts.  Mum responded willingly and was able to do so with various levels of success.  You could see how hard she was trying to move her right leg up.  Having seen it basically useless for the past week, it was a joy ­for us to see her being able to bend it to an almost normal level, though she was exhausted with the effort.  That particular exercise now needs to be repeated many times so that it becomes second-thought stuff, instead of an act where Mum pours all her will and emotion into moving a limb in a way most of us never think twice about.  

On her left side, the ability to do basic tasks with her limbs is better than her right, but there is a lack of coordination and strength.   Mum is basically unable to feed herself at this point, but after this session, we encouraged her to use her left hand to put a few morsels of food in her mouth.  She did so with some difficulty.   We know that there is still a loooooong way to go, but we were glad that Mr. Pritam has helped make a big step forward.  He was also happy with Mum, and said that because she had been so, her body did not suffer so much from the stroke – and that her chances of regaining full motor control are so much better than many of his other patients.  We are so proud of Mum responding so determinedly to all his instructions.  She did not complain or say ‘I cannot do this,’ even in the times when after trying she has not do a task (like moving her thumb on her right hand). 

Mum’s first physiotherapy session showed us a whole set of exercises and basic physiotherapy actions.  And more exercises will come as she (re)gains some of these basic activities.  We now know that Mum has to learn again to hold her head up (to strengthen her neck) and sit up (to strengthen her back).   As we hope to move Mum from the hospital bed into the world outside – it is one in which Mum has to re-learn much what we take for granted. Today was the first day into uncharted territory for us, where Mum will have to work hard in body and mind and soul.  We are so glad for her determination and have already seen a small improvement in her being able to flex her right leg more than she has before.    

Please continue to pray for strength (and rest) for today, and bright hope for tomorrow.

Thanks for your love and prayers.

- Andi and Sheba Eicher (on behalf of the various scattered Eichers)

p.s. If you wish to stop receiving these updates – please just drop me a line – it is no problem to remove your name from our list! 

In the meantime – thanks to all who have sent whatsapp messages and mini-recordings which we played to her.  Mum has so appreciated hearing from you!

Update on Mum’s Health – Tuesday 1.3.2022

Dear Ones,

The room is in darkness, a yellow glow from the oxygen concentrator’s panel and the orange column of the electric heater offer a bit of light, with the light from the door showing two sleeping figures.  Sheba in the far bed and Mum in the middle one, deep in sleep (even though dog is barking noisily below our window) thanks in part to one of her new medicines (and lots of your prayers).

We have crossed into March for which we are very grateful and have now completed a week at Landour Community Hospital.  Mum continues a process of restoration.  We are so glad that she was so sharp mentally today.   She recognised visitors, asked about their children, made jokes, prayed, cried, received a few short phone calls (including from Premila).  A number of times Mum expressed just how grateful she was that she was being cared for by the extended family.  We see all of this as evidence of deep grace. 

Just 72 hours ago Mum’s condition was so touch-and-go…  today she ate oats in the morning (and shared an egg-bujia toast from our breakfast), drank a mid-morning juice, had a few grapes, had rice, dal and veggies pureed with fresh squeezed orange juice for lunch, ate a whole ice-cream cone in the afternoon, and a special vegetable curry for dinner made by Neeru.   We were actually able to lift her out of the bed this morning and sit her in a chair for some minutes in the morning as the sun streamed in the windows.  Then in the afternoon we did the same thing – only this time in a wheel chair and took her outside into the sun for some time.  All of this, plus a steady stream of visitors, meant that Mum was tired at the end of the day – but we did saw very little of the drifting in and out of sleep / consciousness that had been the norm earlier.

Mum is still very tired and needs rest and recuperation.   And yet she is deeply touched when people come to visit.  How to tell people not to come? So many are dear ones who have been blessed with her, or who have stood by her so much in the past.  Hospital staff pop in and ask her in Hindi “how are you doing Aunty?”   She normally does not respond with the expected “I am fine,” instead Mum says “I am getting better.”  Today she cried a number of times as she interacted with visitors.   We had many prayer sessions in this room of ours are LCH – thank our dear Jesus for His on-going mercies.

We have been having the first conversations around her remembering the traumatic experience of her falls and the emergency steps taken.  Mum told us that she remembered feeling so alone, lying in the bed in a pool of blood, waiting for someone to come, calling out to God for help.  And seeing the expression on Vickey’s face when he arrived. And the room soon filling up with men who took her up to Sisters Bazaar.  Of seeing the trees and sky as she was being carried in a stretcher. Of the crowd waiting at the top, reminding her of Dad’s last trip up the hill.  “I thought that this meant I will die” said Mum to us today.   Well, Mum is still alive, but the challenges of processing these hard days will take much time.  Your prayers are cherished for Mum as she works through these issues.

We also have to remember that at this point Mum is functionally paralysed.  She has very little ability to use her right arm and leg, and limited functionality in the left set.  Mum faces that deep challenge of being cared for in all her activities of daily living.  Our next steps for her… are to see that she can take steps.   And that is likely to take…. Weeks? Months?  We really don’t know as we have not gone through this before.  Please focus your prayers on bringing functionality back.  So that she can get out of bed, walk around, make herself a cup of coffee, read her Bible up in the prayer room etc.   Currently all she can do is lie in bed and has to have others do almost everything for her.   This is an incredibly hard situation to be in, especially for a tough, thin German lady who used to do an hour walk everyday up and down her beloved hillside in Landour.  Please pray for Mum as she begins to realise her current situation.  She said yesterday that she feels like a ‘dead fish.’   Pray for restoration of strength, patience and perseverance to help her in each small increment of rehabilitation, and for hope and joy to pull her through.  

Amazingly, we will be reaching the end of Mum’s hospital care in a day or two.  Her courses of antibiotics are coming to an end.  Her sutures have been removed.  She is due off oxygen any day now.  The question of where Mum should be for her next stage, one of rehabilitation is looming large.  Please pray for us as we examine the possibility of her being cared for at Shanti Kunj, as well as the other option of her coming with Sheba and myself to Asha Kiran Hospital (which would include a mind-boggling journey across our beloved land).   We all yearn to hear from God what He said through His prophet Isaiah: ”And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it”  (Isaiah 30.21a).

Thank you again for walking along with us on this road.

- Andi and Sheba Eicher (on behalf of Eichers everywhere)

Update on Mum’s Health – Monday 28.2.2022

Dear Friends,

It’s been a week since Mum had her fall(s) at home in Shanti Kunj.  We look back on this week with our heads still spinning as she was in such a critical state just a few days ago.  By God’s abundant grace, the has come out of the ‘valley of the shadow of death’ and has returned to the land of lucidity as well.   

We have now spent the better part of this week in ‘our room’ at the Landour Community Hospital.  Mum has stabilised in so many ways and is almost off oxygen.  She had her naso-gastric tube removed earlier today and is now drinking liquids with a straw and eating her meals.  She is almost off oxygen and her kidney function as improved.  We are thankful for each step of grace that she is receiving.

What is slowly dawning on Mum is that she is bed-ridden, and cannot at this point care for herself.  The stroke condition she is in at present means that she cannot move herself around in bed – let alone get out of it.  She has minimal movement control in both her legs and arms, with the left-side limbs marginally better than the right-side ones. 

Please pray for Mum in this situation which is so opposite of who she has been for so many years.  As a woman with a big heart who cared for so many others, she now has to be cared for.  As an active soul who loves the outdoors and had a daily prayer walk of at least 1 hour up and down the hillside, she now is confined to her bed and needs help to be shifted from one side to the other.  As a person who would set her times and go up to the prayer room at Shanti Kunj for her morning devotions, she now is ‘at the mercy of’ the hospital rhythm of blood tests, feeding times, bed change times, blood pressure and oxygen saturation monitoring. 

Mum’s nights have been hard the last 2 days – as she has regained much of her consciousness, the restlessness has increased.  During the day there is a rhythm of feeding and people coming to meet, but the nights are long. 

As I write this at 2 AM on the 1st of March (!), Mum is struggling to fall back to sleep after having slept for a good portion of the night so far.  She asked me for water, and asked whether she can leave her bed for a few minutes.  Along with the nurses, I helped change her position, and while she was drinking water she drifted off to sleep, but now she is ‘hell-wach’ (wide awake in German) and is finding it hard to sleep.

We met with our wonderful psychiatrist Dr. Raja this morning and he has suggested for Mum to express her feelings about her current condition – as a “Psalm 151” – Christa’s psalm.   Speaking out to God from the heart about how she feels, and also reminding herself of who God is during this time.  There is a lot of processing that all of us need as we walk through this valley.  We know that our Good Shepherd knows the way forward, but the way seems so hard at times.    

Thank you for your prayers.  We started to read to Mum some of the comments that you sent to the Whatsapp group and on her FB page.  Her face lit up when we would share your name – and what you wrote to her.  For those who recorded messages and sent them by whatsapp – we were able to play them which she enjoyed. 

And so we close the chapter on February 2022 and step into March.   What will this month hold for us?  Only the Lord Jesus Himself knows.  He knows how weak we are as sheep, and in His great love comes after us to find us.  Your prayers continue to be cherished as Mum ‘walks’ into a new chapter of her life – while (at this time at least) not being able to walk at all.   We need our Lord so much during these days.  Thank you for standing with us.

- Andi and Sheba Eicher (for the Eichers near and far)

Update on Mum’s Health – Sunday 27.2.2022

Dear Friends,

As we close the day at 10.52 PM, Mum is in bed, wide awake.  She called me and told me that she just cannot sleep, and asked me to pray for her.  I gladly did.  And I am so grateful because this was conversation with Mum was just not possible just 36 hours ago when Mum was glassy eyed, tossing and turning in her bed.  She still needs to fall asleep, of course, but she is increasingly self-aware, able to communicate, and gradually understanding some of the complexity of her situation.

Today was a day of much progress for Mum – and some further clarity on just how long the road ahead will be.   Thank you, every one of you, for your faithful prayers.  Mum started to drink water from a cup (albeit held for her) and also started eating some simple foods like suji, dal, and mashed banana & curd.   She was lucid for almost all of the day, and has begun expressing her desire to go home to Shanti Kunj.  

We had a stream of helpers and Mum was loved and cared for by loving hands.  It was so nice to have Stefan and Neeru and their 3 wonderful kids come to minister to Mum the first thing in the morning after Neeru and the kids had arrived from Delhi late in the night.  We are grateful that Neeru was able to stay the whole day to serve Mum.  Bison and Ruby and there 2 were also present during the day.  At the end of the day, Mum told the nurses that she has been looked after by “so many wonderful, loving people.”

The three markers of progress today for Mum were as follows.  Firstly she has started to have real conversations, recognizing people and speaking behind her oxygen mask.  Secondly, she also started drinking orally and eating some simple food orally (while she still has the naso-gastric tube in).  Thirdly, we were able to begin a process of rehabilitation for her limbs.  She is unable to lift her left arm, but can squeeze her left hand.  She can lift her right arm, but cannot ‘aim’ her hand and so it flops around jerkily.  And Mum ‘sat’ in a wheel chair for a short period too.   She still cannot even turn herself around in bed, and has to be shifted every 2 hours but we are grateful for every step in the right direction.

All told we are again so thankful for steps being made in the right direction.   We are slowly moving out of ‘life-saving’ into ‘regaining life skills’ territory.  Please pray for Mum as she starts to fathom that she will not just be able to stretch herself and walk back up the hillside.  We have still not had a conversation about why she is in the hospital, and how long she was in an altered state.  The frustrations of being largely dependent on others – at least for the near future - are just about to be tackled by Mum.  

Your prayers are cherished for this hard path. 

Today was the Lord’s Day and we met at the end of the day around Mum’s bed.  She said that she wanted us to sing “The Lord’s my shepherd” which we followed up by “Yahowah Charwaha mera” (same psalm in Hindi).   Mum recited Ps. 23 and we walked through it thankfully, seeing just how much God has taken her through the valley of the shadow of death.   Sheba shared from Rev. 1 where John sees Christ in all His glory – what a hope for us to know that He was dead, and is alive, and is alive forever more.   And that He is the Beginning and the End.  That our times are in His hands and that He loves us all very much. 

And so on to the next steps.  Thank you for your prayers, messages, and whatsapp recordings! So much appreciated.

-        Andi and Sheba Eicher  [on behalf of the far flung Eicher clan]