Tina Lawhon TINA LAWHON

Welcome to Tina Lawhon's CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support, prayers and words of hope and encouragement. The entire family has seen the benefit of your prayers and we are so thankful! Please continue to intercede, not only for Tina, but for Gene, Lauren, Brian and Kathryn as well. In addition, continue to keep Kathryn in your prayers as she heals from her heart procedure, which was on Tuesday, May 12th. We believe a beautiful story, beyond our comprehension, is being written for the glory of God! Thank you for visiting.

BACK STORY: 

In the last few months, Tina had been experiencing fatigue and joint pain; more recently she was enduring excruciating back pain, shortness of breath, fever, chest pain and abdominal bloating. Through the course of a few hospital visits, Tina was diagnosed with a blood infection and an ulcerated aorta–shocking to us all. The doctors had hoped they could treat the blood infection for about six weeks before repairing her aorta. After being released from ICU on May 2nd, Tina was readmitted to the hospital on May 8th with pain in her sternum, discomfort in her abdomen and continued leg spasms. Upon discovery of a new ulcer in addition to significant growth of the previous ulcerations, Tina’s medical team decided that the aorta would need to be addressed immediately-no option to wait. Surgery was scheduled for Monday, May 11th. Unfortunately, just prior to surgery, Tina had a fever again so the surgery was postponed to Wednesday, May 13th. I think we can all agree that the wait was very difficult as our emotions were on a roller coaster! 

During the eight-hour open heart surgery, Dr. Conner ended up replacing Tina’s entire descending aorta, saying it was “very disorganized.” There was also infection in her aorta wall which was not able to receive antibiotics. With all the risks involved in this type of surgery, we are more than grateful that Tina came through it, limbs are fully functional, and she’s on the road to recovery! The road is long, but it gives God plenty of time to write this beautiful story—a script that we would never have dreamed to write. A story that will magnify His name...using an ever-so humble servant, Tina Lawhon and her family and friends as her witnesses!