OK, so the title didn't fit...

I tried to upload a picture of my three boys and hence the title of my last post. It didn't work and I didn't change the title :) Sorry to confuse anyone. Today was a more difficult day for me and Isaac would say for him too. His spirits are down. He's tired of his "diet" but with the latest flare-up we are going it slow and adding foods one at a time. We are listening to his body more closely. He did eat more than usual and after the initial upset in the morning went on to correct 4 math lessons and complete all his other school, play legos, watch Prince Caspian again and stay up until almost 9 p.m. His only BM today had changed some so that was encouraging in a way. The blood is still there. We are seeing less BM's though and that is a great praise. This week we even saw several where there was no blood at all that we could see and that just isn't normal. Keep the prayers coming because I am positive God has healing planned for this kid. It may take time but he is working, we can see it! I say it was a difficult day for me because I used to give Isaac pep talks a couple times a day and now it has increased to more than 10. I turned to God's word a few more times today for counsel and that helped "calm" me. If he was my only child this would be so much easier but I have 7 others who need me. If I could find a live-in maid/cook for a time I would have it made plus maybe she could do math and English too. We will get through this and be stronger for it. Someone said that soon I will just barely sway in the wind. Please pray for strength. This is getting harder than I anticipated. Isaac needs prayer to keep up his spirits. I have quoted him the verse "A cheerful heart is good medicine but a broken spirit dries up the bones." He's not so appreciative of that when all he wants to do is eat everything. I keep reminding him of the goal: good health without pain. Thank you for your prayers! God Bless You for thinking of us.

My Three Sons

Today, Isaac is doing fairly well. He again put in a fair amount of liquids and felt good most of the day. He didn't have a "stomach" ache until evening. I say "stomach" like that because it really is more is large intestine that gives him the pains, it just feels like a stomach ache. He played computer, watched the new Narnia movie again, Prince Caspian. I like it but I agree with other people who have said the first was better. Prince Caspian was much more violent! Still, it was a good theme, we can try to do things on our own without God but it doesn't usually work out so well.

I cleaned out Lena's closet of all the newborn baby clothes and size 3-6 months. She is officially 6-9 month clothes now. I also packed away the baby boy clothes that took up a good portion of her closet and dresser. It was sad to think of the "might have been" but also I know God is taking us down a different road right now. I still have hope that adoption will be a part of our future but God has told us "not right now". I am so thankful for Lena. She gives me that extra boost when I am down. She's so perfect and sweet and when I talk to her she smiles the most beautiful smile. She really give the whole house a peace. I praise God for giving her to us at this time.

Christmas Blessings!

I tried updating Tuesday but updating on Isaac was getting to be so painful. I already write down every ounce, every BM, every everything that I decided to take a break from it. For two days I didn't write about it on here or on paper. Yesterday was a wonderful day for Isaac. He was able to take in more than any day previous and I think he could tell the difference. He had more energy for longer. He is improving in many little ways. We see less blood in his BM's (Oh, what a praise to the Lord), less pain with the BM's and after them, and a general feeling of everything is going well. Nighttime is still the worst for Kevin and I, especially me. Each morning dawns bright and shining and full of hope but with the night comes the fear and anxiety. I am working through it with lots of prayer! We are incredibly blessed with the prayers others are offering up for Isaac and we are thankful. Whenever I tell him of someones call saying they give him a hug or are praying for him, he smiles and feels encouraged.

Again, through the Lord's guidance and leading some neat things have happened. We have received bags of apples and carrots and celery. A strainer for the juiced carrots, more yogurt, a gift certificate to buy more carrots and apples from Wal-mart, plus more. It is amazing to us and humbling. When we got the juicer Kevin planned to send those people money for it but then we got another care package with the exact amount of money he was going to send to them and that answered it for him, he was going to have to accept this as what the Lord intended, God meeting our needs again!!!

These are things we are praying for with Isaac now; to see the blood in his BM's gone, to see less pain with them, for God to continue the healing process in his intestines and for Isaac's body to absorb his nutrients to give him more energy and wellness. Thanks again for thinking and praying for him and our family during this time. God has been doing mighty things in our hearts and in our lives through all these things so we can only give God the glory right now.

When I am down...

he will lift me up. I am reading the Psalms out loud to Isaac or out loud to myself. They are so perfect for troubling times. I am encouraged by them and enjoy being in the Word. I feel like I could write my own Psalm crying out to the Lord in my sorrow and troubles. We continue to call on him for strength and peace.

Isaac was running down the hallway today just because he had so much energy. He was smiling and happy today. He played downstairs and was up most of the day. We are much encouraged. His evening turned a bit on the downside with some cramping and pain. We have seen some signs of healing in his body though and will continue to praise the Lord and call on him for continued healing. Please pray for Isaac as we work at nourishing his body with healing foods and supplements to help clean out the stuff that is causing his problems. We see some of this coming out now and are thankful his body is working this way. Pray for strength for all of us. These days can be emotionally draining and we all need some extra rest. We are thankful for the naps Kevin and I got to take today. We are thankful that God provides what we need and sometimes without our asking for it. Thank you to all who are praying for Isaac and our family. We know many of you are sharing this prayer request with others and we are grateful for that. With so many people petitioning for him we know God will be glorified.

God's working...

God has shown his loving kindness to us in a new way. Isaac is going through what I call an episode or a "flare up". He is having a lot of stomach cramping and other things. We believe it may stem from the iron pills he takes. They may be irritating his system. We've been praying for him as usual but we do pray more when he is having troubles like this. When he has an episode it is difficult to know what to feed him that won't irritate him and that he will want. The next morning (Friday) after a night of praying our phone rang. It was someone we have met 2-3 times. She lives a few hours away and had information to help someone in Isaac's condition. She heard about our situation from a mutual friend. She gave me the number of someone who had Isaac's condition for several years and is now free of all that. This woman's advice was so helpful and I can only say that God sent down his love for Isaac by putting these people in our lives. The first lady had a care package of yogurt, juicer and several other things to help Isaac. Through a network of friends in their area Kevin drove and met someone last night around 1 a.m. to get these things to us before the coming snow.

We are so blessed and are saying thank you to the Lord for this direction. I have wanted someone to come into our life that could relate. From talking to this lady, she is what we needed. She wants to help us through this and her heart is turned to Isaac in prayer and caring. The first person was going to borrow us her juicer for a time since she doesn't really use it much but instead of doing that this morning I opened up a brand-new juicer. Their heart said they needed to do this for us. I can tell you we are humbled, thankful and so very encouraged that God would answer in this way. Isaac is not healed but these may be the very steps that we need to get him well again.

He is sweet, he said he'll smile at Christmas even if he has a stomachache like today's. He is very excited for it to come. Keep praying for God's healing on his body. God is so good to us. We read Psalm 30 and 31 today. Verse 2 of 30 says, "O Lord, my God. I called to you for help and you healed me."

It just keeps on being a different season for us...

I packed up all the children and took them in to have a strep culture. I suspected three more kids had come done with my strep throat. This is the thing though, I was planning on leaving Bekah at home with Jordan and only one kid tested positive for strep and you guessed it, it was Bekah. She's now isolated for today, until she is on antibiotic #14 for 24 hours. I had wanted them just to put us all on antibiotics because this is stressing me out trying to keep them separated, hands washed, don't touch anything, etc. The doctor wanted to only give antibiotics for a positive test, so everyone had to be in close quarters with the sick kid in the van, sit in a waiting room with possibly 20 other sick people and go in a small room with the sick kid!!! :O I could have screamed for the stress of it all! I keep praying for protection from the strep for the other members of the family and anything else that we could have picked up at the clinic. The parking lots were completely full. I had to go to a different parking lot than the clinic one. That tells me a lot of people are sick right now. Should that make me feel better? :)

My husband is taking this all like a rock. He is so sick but he's at work. He's missed so many days taking Isaac in and helping me when I was sick that he really doesn't feel he can take any more days off right now. The coughing at night has slowed way down with the children so we are thankful again for that.

I hate to continue on the "sick" saga but this is my life. Christmas is coming, the kids are getting excited and I pray it lives up to their expectations. Spending time with family will be a welcome after all this time spent at home.

Born in '08

7.9

Hi, just a quick note and I'm off to bed. We just got home from the infusion. Isaac's number is 7.9. Praise for that. I have Strep throat not mastitis. Please pray for no-one else to get it!!!!!! So, we went and got antibiotic #13. I have to take two pills 4 times a day, yikes. I'm praying it works and it doesn't recur for Jordan or me.

7.4

Isaac's hemoglobin was 7.4 yesterday. We are happy with the increase. He has one more infusion, I thought he only had 7 but I guess we heard wrong. He's very tired today but yesterday he woke up around 7 a.m. and it was a very long day in town. He ate a cheeseburger from Hardee's and yesterday had a lot of gas and diarrhea and unfortunately some blood too. After he ate there he said "I guess this food doesn't agree with me." I guess he has to find that out for himself. I figure this way he can tell the doctor it doesn't agree with him and it isn't my fault for not giving him anything he wants :)

I hate to list all the things going "wrong" around here but I know some of you like to pray for specific requests. I have a breast infection and my uterus prolapsed way down low the other night after coughing, blowing my nose and sneezing much of the day with my cold. I am taking mega-vitamins to help all of it but please pray for healing on my body.

#6

Isaac had his sixth infusion. And his hemoglobin came down from the last time. It was 6.9 and now it is 6.6. We didn't talk to the doctor about it so I'm not sure what she thinks. If it doesn't come up on it's own then he'll have a blood transfusion. I was really hoping it would be much higher this time. It could be because of his whooping cough which has reached the worst stage right now, cough until you throw up. We have one more infusion left and we'll see what happens then. He does feel great and looks great. He is up early and eats a lot again and plays most of the day.

I ended up with a head cold and cough. I'm trying to lick it with echinacea and vitamin C but it isn't getting rid of it yet. It would help if I actually got more than 2 or 3 hours of sleep a night.

I am very thankful for my wonderful husband. He knows how little sleep I am getting so he took the morning off to take Isaac to his infusion. It lifted some of the burden of the day.

6.9

Isaac's hemoglobin was 6.9 today. It started out 5.2 (I think) in the hospital over a week ago. He has 2 more infusions to go and then they will decide if he needs a blood transfusion too, to boost it the rest of the way to 12.

Jordan felt much better today. She stayed in the basement until about noon when she had been on the antibiotics 24 hours and then joined us for most of the day.

Coughing at night has eased for the most part. Bekah has sure got the "whoop" part of the whooping cough.

Thanks for the prayers and support. Pray for good, restful, healing sleep for all of us :)

On the twelfth visit to the doctor he prescribed to me...

another dose of antibiotic. This time it is for Jordan who has a raging case of strep throat. We haven't had that before now. Jordan has only left the house (except for Thanksgiving) once in a whole month and she gets strep throat from it!!!! Wow! She first came in my room this morning and said her neck hurt. I was awake fast. She saw the "look" on my face and asked "what"? I'm thinking fast and say "nothing, just thinking" (Just thinking meningitis, sore throat, fever, neck ache). Well, it wasn't thankfully. My mom came and got 4 kids. Em stayed with Rebekah (couldn't think of having her hold down the fort two days in a row). Now what???? Will anyone else get it from her, have they already gotten it???? I don't know what is happening in my house!!!!!

The pharmacist recognized me from the 11 other prescriptions for antibiotics and three for cough syrup and asked "How is it going?" Wrong question, wrong time. I started bawling. I was mortified of course. I asked how catchy is this, like in the same room catchy? Maybe not, if the person washed their hands, no sharing utensils, cups, etc. Jordan thankfully said she had been washing her hands a lot. Please, dear Lord protect the rest of the children from this. This is Jordan's second round of antibiotics. I pray it works well for her. I have her sequestered in the basement watching movies (Jane Eyre).

Positive note: When I said Isaac could go to Grandma's he jumped up and down. He hasn't jumped or ran or even walked fast in a long time :)

Thanks again Aimee. I was checking labels today for some good iron-fortified foods for him. Doctor told him yesterday to eat anything he wants whenever he wants! (wants him to gain some weight) I let him have some high calorie foods (ie. a shake) and he threw it up. After he had a hotdish last night his stomach hurt like it hasn't for awhile. I guess the diet he was on, was working so I'm not going to quite let him eat anything he wants. The doctor says there is no such thing as junk food, all food has some value. Well, when your kid gets physically sick to much of what's out there, I'd say not all food has some value for all people. We'll have to respectfully disagree since he's not here with me cleaning up after him :)

We saw the specialist...

Hi, what a long day. I ended up with a migraine before we got to the specialist's office so that was a downer for me. Good news is the check he did of Isaac's lower part didn't show anything wrong. It was all clear. His bowel movements are normal looking now and mean that his systems are working right. He was most concerned about the low iron (anemia). He really wants to get that up to a higher level faster than it is going. They did double the amount of the iron in the infusion today. His hemoglobin was 6.1. Last time it was 5.6. He wants to do endoscopy and a colonoscopy when his hemoglobin is up higher. He has to be put under for those and needs to be in better health to handle it. Thanks for checking in on us. Pray for these infusions to work on Isaac as it is a more natural way to raise your iron. If these last three don't increase him a lot more he'll go in for a blood transfusion. Our doctor seemed to be trying to avoid that. I need to feed him a more iron-rich diet, which he was with the Maker's diet so at least we have a head start on that. I'll be researching some different iron-rich foods.

Pray for Jordan, who has come down with fever, chills and sore throat.

Sleep..blessed sleep

I woke up at 8 a.m. and realized I may have woke up once or twice in the night but never got out of bed. Wow! I was dead tired and still didn't feel rested but how wonderful to know my body got to sleep about 8 hours. Here at 1 p.m. I feel like going back to bed. I've been wrapping up some school so I may have to nap today.

Tomorrow we go in for infusion #4 of 7. We also have an appointment at noon with the pediatric gastroenterologist!!!! He was able to find room for us so quickly. Please pray for answers to be found. We still pray for healing and if they end up not finding anything wrong in his intestines I'll be glad as long as the bleeding has stopped. Sorry if this is gross to anyone but he had 2 mostly normal BM's yesterday with no visible blood. We remembered to stop and thank the Lord as we keep asking for them to be like this.

He's very tired today but I have gotten him to do about half of his school work.

Infusion #3

I do not know why this picture worked and the one sucking her thumb didn't but here is our little sweetie pie (maybe not so little).

Thanks Aimee for your prayers. Yeah, we are starting to realize it will take time. The bleeding causes us the most concern but we met with the doctor today and she isn't really concerned with that, not as much as getting his hemoglobin up. His oxygen, blood pressure, heart rate and temp were all in normal range so even with a low hemoglobin he is doing fine, not in any real danger. We have an appointment with a gastroenterologist specialist for pediatrics on Friday at 11 a.m. At this point we want to know what is causing the bleeding. If it is nothing serious then we can rest a little easier at night. Some other tests came back, celiac was negative again (unfortunately I thought so and our insurance doesn't cover much of this test :( I'm trying not to think of the cost of everything. His allergy panel showed a slight reaction to corn, barely on the chart. He's eating a good, healthy diet with no preservatives, additives, not much sugar or high carb foods. He is enjoying eating again and isn't so very tired. He wasn't dehydrated, which I wondered if he was going that way again because of the constant coughing. Once when Kevin had bronchitis he lost 10 pounds and the nurse said a persistent cough will deplete you and you need lots of fluids.

There are times when we feel such concern and helplessness and then we wake up in the morning looking at things with a new look and I feel things are looking up. Nighttime is the worst. It gets me thinking all manner of things. We are drawing strength from the Lord. Kevin and I are praying together much more than ever and God is using all that is happening here for His good. Thanks for your prayers and concern. The whooping cough has eased off at night for two kids, thank you Lord. Two others are getting into the "whoop" stage of this cough. Oh, how my chest hurts when they can't catch their breath.

Sweet baby...

I have been trying to upload this picture of Lena for two weeks. She found her thumb one Monday and it is so sweet. It has been a blessing. It keeps her from her 2 am feeding, it will comfort her a little longer. She gets up to eat around 6 a.m. and then back to sleep. She is such a good, good baby. She rarely gives us a fuss. I guess I'll try another day. It has rejected me about 9 times now.

Isaac is much the same. Tired would most describe him. We haven't seen any significant energy changes with the iron infusions but I imagine it will take awhile. The cough keeps him up most of the night too. We still having the bleeding issue. We are considering taking him to Rochester. We hear they won't let him go until they find out the problem.