Oh my...

Lions and tigers and lice, oh my... I guess that's not how it goes but that's our life right now. We got the call from friends that they had it and that we probably do too. I checked heads and found a live one in poor Rebekah. Four girls had their heads bathed in oil, wrapped in plastic wrap for three hours, washed in dish soap, washed in vinegar and then checked. Poor Rebekah, this time it was three live ones I found so she got oiled and plastic wrapped and bagged and put to bed that way and in the morning they were all dead. This morning I picked nits off three girls because I just can't find a single one on Moriah's head. I didn't before the oil and I didn't after or today but she sleeps with Rebekah sometimes so I thought we better take precautions. I'll keep checking and picking until they are all gone. We are taking some other measures by drying in a hot dryer all bedding each day. I didn't find any in the boys' hair or Kevin's or mine. I feel I have them but three times someone has checked me and can't find a one. I'm thinking of oiling tomorrow to just feel better.

There always seems to be some drama around here. Yesterday, Kevin was bummed because he lost a hubcap, Isaac came down with the fever and headache some other kids had, and we found we had lice. I was trying to get my garden produce put away but had to divert my attention to checking heads. Do you know how long it takes to check a girl's head whose hair goes way down to there :) A long, long time! The first day I did it more than once. Yesterday felt impossible and stressful but today was more manageable. I feel we got them and if we didn't we have a plan to keep on top of them. Please pray we did get them all eradicated. Life goes on!

Praise that Isaac is feeling much better today. His fever is gone. He's still gaining weight! Praise that God has given me the strength this week to handle all that's happened.

A New Focus...

We were able to have great weekend camping and visiting with all kinds of people we love to be around. On Friday, I met a family who are missionaries in Brazil for the last 32 years. I visited with the mother some and she gave me some verses to help me focus on what God would have for me (us) during this time of challenges. 1 Corinthians 10:31 Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. I shared some of my fears and how can I keep it together to go through this and again she is very wise and said it isn't about you and what you can do to heal him or find the right diet but all about if the way I am acting and being fearful pleases the Lord. His Word repeatedly tells us to "Fear not" (Psalm 37) and "trust"). 2 Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind. (Thanks Sharon for this one) I actually memorized this one Friday night. I use so may excuses why I can't memorize scripture so am going to try a little harder to put some good words in my brain. The missionary helped with that a little since she gave me verse after verse after verse without needing a Bible or any help. Another woman who went through some health issues gave me a booklet that helped her through and so far it is real good (entitled "God's Medicine").

Isaac continues to improve and to do fine on his meds. The hospital called today for an update and he's following a good pattern of improvement. She helped me to understand what's next with the meds and what to expect.

Isaac loves it...

I have let Isaac go off the GAPS diet and he loves it of course. I'm having panic attacks about it every now and then. He ate a HOT DOG yesterday!!!! It was at the AWANA dinner and I hadn't planned for the eventuality that there would be hot dogs at the dinner. You know the verse about if you know what to do and you do not do it then it is sin. I feel like it is a sin to let him eat this way. I went online today looking up information on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet which follows the GAPS diet pretty closely and after reading the stories of success healing his exact disease I feel I need to regroup here and make a plan. While he is on the highest dose of prednisone we are letting him have a little fun. He really loves food, who doesn't really and it is nice for him to be so happy but if it is making hamburger of his intestines then I can't in good conscience keep it up. I need some time (don't have any) to make a plan and work out some menus that are high fat and high calorie on the diet. He is gaining weight and we need to keep that up.

Please pray for direction on the food issue. If God would heal him completely before I start the diet I would be so thankful and praising Him but I know that may not be His plan yet so I need help deciding what exactly is the very best for Isaac. I tend to get it all mixed up with what I think the very best for me is and of course that is healed completely so I don't have to change my life too much. We are all born thinking of ourselves. If anyone knows of someone who was healed naturally from Ulcerative Colitis send them my way. I'd love to talk to someone else who had this (past tense had).

Trying to stay on top...

I have several calls to make to organize follow-up visits for Isaac, get Moriah's stitches out, and other things and I decided not today. Although school got a late start due to a very late bedtime we did get through it all and have our sanity in tact. I need to correct some math lessons though. I did send the boys outside for some air. I sometimes get annoyed at being asked the same question too many times. Isaac wants to call Grandpa and ask when he can go out to pizza with him. Kevin and I haven't quite said yes but while he's on the full strength of the drugs we are considering letting him just once because once he starts to taper off the one drug we will want to watch what he eats for flare-ups. I don't have him on such a strict diet as before because the drugs are supposed to help him with reactions but one week ago his colon was extremely flared and oozing pus (their words to describe it). I have such trouble believing he can eat anything (their idea also). I'd rather err on the side of caution.

Good to be home???

Is it good to be home? I'm trying to sort that out. I came home exhausted from not much sleep to being responsible for 10 people again and not just a few. Meals at the hospital were fairly easy and I had about 1 load of laundry a day. Life is a little different here. I was feeling overwhelmed by it all on Saturday night. Thankfully, Jana brought us a meal so I didn't have to prepare that. Thank you! Today we are trying to achieve some sort of routine but still haven't gotten to school work. I am determined not to do anything else until each child has most of their list done.

Isaac is doing great! He is continuing to gain weight and feels fine. He feels really the same as when he went in with some minor things that are different. He is getting the "moon" face that you get from one of his drugs. Please continue praying for his healing and for the drugs to work well for him so that he doesn't have to switch. Pray for his body to absorb the nutrients from the foods he eats so that his body can be built up again with the things he has been missing. Pray for Kev and I as we feed him as healthy as we can.

God is so good. He keeps showing me others who have had ulcerative colitis and have not had a flare-up in over 20 years. Yesterday, in church the man behind us told me about his friend from college who has been free of it for 35 years and in the hospital we met a man who at the age of 20 had ulcerative colitis and dealt with it about 2 years and now has been 22 years free of it. Hope! God gives it to you when you least expect it :) I have to live day by day with what we have now though and pray that someday those stories will be Isaac's and he will be able to give hope to someone else.

Coming Home...

We are coming home today. We have to go over the meds and supplements and we will be off!

No go today...

Isaac needs to stay another day. His bm's aren't what the doctor wants to see him go home. Please keep praying for them to change. He's doing good, playing computer now. We are going out to the courtyard to get some sun for awhile. Praying tomorrow is the day! :)

Hi...

We are still at the hospital and are getting ready to leave. Keep praying we can go home tomorrow. Isaac is responding well to the meds so it's a positive thing right now. I had an extensive conference with a specialist who guides parents in going home with a child with Crohn's or Colitis. She helped me to understand his meds more.

Pray for Wendy whose mother passed away today. She was taking care of three of our kids. It's a hard thing for her to lose her mom.

Almost there..

Isaac has gained back over 3 pounds and his blood numbers are all in normal range (not the hemoglobin yet but they were looking at other ones right now). Yeah! Praise the Lord. One more requirement to go: a more normal stool. Please pray for it to firm up today!! and it's very possible we can go home tomorrow. At 2:30 p.m. we are consulting to go over the meds he'll be on and what we need to know about them. I had a bit of a sleepless night (Lena keeps crying out and I was thinking quite a bit of the meds. Gotta go, a nurse is looking for me.

Please pray...

The doctor has a few requirements before Isaac can go home. Please pray for these and see if we can help speed up the process with petitions to the Lord!

1)Gain Weight (they want him to eat over 2000 calories a day. This is hard for me because I think if he makes more waste it will irritate is very swollen sore colon even more. They want him to each a lot of food and say nothing will irritate it with the drugs he's on??????? I'm having trouble swallowing that.)
2)Blood (His numbers all need to improve in this department; hemoglobin, white blood cell count, platelets to go down, and some other things)
3)Stools to change to more firm.

All these things the doctor predicts will happen by Friday. I'm praying this is so and even sooner just so we can go Friday for sure. Thanks for checking and praying. Isaac is doing excellent. Just like he was at home; active, eating, playing computer, etc.

Not much new...

Isaac had an MRI this morning to look at his small intestine. The preliminary look is clear. Tonight all the labs should be in and we should have a consult with all the doctors on what's the next step. Isaac is doing well but not liking his food yet. I'm keeping it juicing and soft foods and by supper he can have a chicken breast with soft cooked veggies. The dietitian was OK with it but wants to see substantially more calories and more fat choices. I know I'm a little strong headed about things but I don't want to push it when his colon is so bad. Their thinking is that his small intestine is clear and he'll digest it before it gets there. I'd rather treat him like he has just had surgery which he did in a way with biopsies being taken. We just need to come home to cook for him. The kitchen here is so limited, no knives, no real silverware, no pan smaller than a large stock pot. We are roughing it! :) I'd make him soups and all kinds of good food at home.

Pray for wisdom and that I'll know when to give in and when to stand my ground.
Pray for wisdom in the doctors treatment plan, that it would be the best thing for Isaac long term and that he will respond to it well.
I'm not doing well today emotionally. No sleep is probably why. It is getting to be trying being here; so expensive and so long from the other kids and so much unknown left ahead of us.
Pray for Shawn who is 9 years old and has been doctoring here since he was 1 year old and his second kidney transplant is giving him troubles. His mother is a strong Christian woman who gave me some encouragement. She said they went through a real hard time about two years ago when he had cancer and they made it through when she didn't think they would.
Also, met a home school mom of 6 here with her baby who swallowed a plastic sticky note and had surgery to remove it last night. He's going home today though. She was fun to talk to.

Some news...

Isaac is done with the scope part of his stay. I knew it wasn't the greatest news when they came out of surgery a little sooner than they told us it would be. The doctor wasn't able to scope past a very little part in his colon because the inflammation was so severe. She believes it to be chronic Crohn's but won't officially diagnose him until the biopsies come back tomorrow. There is another test they want to run that they can do until 10 tonight. They want to keep him until at least Thursday to see how he reacts to food. He will be given IV anti-inflammatory medication as soon as there is a diagnosis. Isaac is upset. Back in October we speculated it being Crohn's and we did a lot of research on it and he knows it isn't something he wants to have. Pray for the rest of our time here. Pray for Isaac to have peace and feel hopeful that his life can be normal.

The longer you are here the more hopeful or thankful you can be. I'm sitting across from a woman (she's on another computer). She came to the Cities to visit her aunt and while here her 9 month old baby boy got sick and now needs a heart transplant and they don't want to move him to Chicago where she lives because he's too sick. Then you meet the dad of a 10 month old whose not been home since January and the dad already buried a daughter at the age of 1 year and 7 months who died of the very thing his son has. Then you meet a 15 year old who hasn't left the hospital in three months because of the cancer she has. It is not an uplifting place. Thankfully Isaac can be mostly treated from home.

We continue to juice for him and are very thankful they let us be in charge of his food and even bring in our own. I bought him some real eggs for tomorrow. We are taking it easy with juice and broth today since he had biopsies taken. Pray for healing.

Sunday...

Today, Isaac is being cleaned out for the colonoscopy tomorrow. He decided to forgo the tube down his nose and throat and drink this solution all day. I wasn't here for it but he drank the first glass without flinching and the staff watched him and their jaws visibly dropped open. Isaac proclaimed that he'd drank worse. My poor, funny, and strong child. He has endured a lot. Tomorrow I hope is the worst of it for the rest of his life. I can't wait until he comes home and I can work on nourishing him back to health. It still looks like Tuesday afternoon.

Since there wasn't much going on Em and I took Lena to the Mall of America. Emily especially wanted to see the American Girl store. Fun but spendy! We ate Chinese, ice cream (twice) (we shared one each time) (made the mistake of giving Lena a bite and she was hooked so really all three of us shared one twice). Emily bought a couple things. There are a lot of places to buy a lot of things we don't really need. We are staying somewhere about 5 minutes from the hospital. Very nice people (they go to John Piper's church for any Piper fans out there). I slept OK considering Em and I shared a hide-a-bed couch and Lena was in the room. I brought ear plugs and was surprised because Emily doesn't snore anymore. My chest cold is a bit better, not getting worse anyway.

Thanks for praying and keep praying for healing to keep going on inside Isaac and for the doctors not to find much when they poke around in there. A miracle would be OK with me :) Make the doctors question God's existence a little and not their own power. Whichever way it's going to be God will see us through it. I have incredible peace right now. It helps that Kevin is so steady. A nurse is going in Isaac's room, bye.

Whoa...

Fast internet at the hospital! Yeah! I didn't think I'd update until I got home. Tests will be back before noon on Tuesday. Pray for the results to be conclusive! Then we can come home. I juiced carrot, apple, kale, spinach, parsley and pepper for him and he was happy to have it. They gave him some "nutritional" juice and the first thing Isaac told me was that it had 30 g or mg? of sugar and it had red dye. I said "you're kidding". Kevin was a little surprised they considered that good for him but that's why mom is here now and we can juice some real food for him. He looks great and is in great spirits. Emily came to help with Lena. We plan to stay close by at a sister of a friends.

Pray for healing and for things to go well tomorrow with the tube down his nose and throat to clean him out before Monday's test. Thanks!

Twists and Turns...

Still on that rollercoaster theme! Isaac has been admitted to the U of M Medical Center in Minneapolis. He will be there about a week. They will run a bazillion tests, an edoscopy and colonoscopy on Monday and then we should get to the bottom of what's keeping him from getting completely well. Then with help from the Lord we will get this kid healthy and his parents happier. :)

Pray for complete healing on Isaac's body. I'm still clinging to that possibility. He could be a medical miracle right before their eyes.

Pray for strength to deal with any diagnosis we may get if total healing isn't in the Lord's plans right now.

Pray for protection on Isaac from the foods he has to eat there that have preservatives and additives as he hasn't had them in several months. Pray for him to be nourished there.

Pray for sleep for Kevin and I. This is trying mentally and physically.

Pray for the other children.

Here again...

I could say here I am again since it's been awhile or here we are again at a place in Isaac's illness where we didn't think we'd be again. He's actually doing fine and up and around doing all his "normal" activities. There are just some concerning symptoms he's having that bring us down another path of searching for answers. I now know what it means to "pray without ceasing". I think I pray more than I don't. I pray for strength, help, and mostly for healing for Isaac. I want to wake in the morning to a child who is better. Please pray for wisdom and for God to go before us as we see a new doctor on Wednesday morning.

Something exciting...

Yesterday, Jordan auditioned for the Area Youth Symphony on her violin and she was accepted! I am excited and Jordan is pleased. She got the audition piece the night before and had only one day to prepare. She played her recital piece from this year and some other things. We were both so nervous about what it would be like and would she be ready, etc., etc. Now, I'm a little nervous about what this will mean for us. If we would have been diligent to get Jordan her driver's license it would be one thing as she will have to attend practice every Sunday afternoon. Any volunteers to drive her once in awhile? :) It's a great opportunity to improve her skill on the violin. Also to play with a whole orchestra is neat. www.fmays.org is the site of the orchestra.

Isaac's hemoglobin keeps going up! Praise for that, while it's false and a fake way of getting it there pray for it to stay there. He's got a good appetite and I'm trying to keep up with it hoping he'll gain some weight. We are still praying for a complete healing. Praying also for God to do a complete and perfect work in our family. Isaiah 53:5 says by his stripes we are healed.

On a completely different note :) I have canned 13 quarts of pickles today. I am slowly, ever so slowly getting food put up for the winter. I have beans to wash today and should get 7 quarts. I would prefer to do about 21 at a time but they are not producing as I expected. I planted twice what I usually do and usually can a lot more. We have a little salsa put up and some beets although I don't know why as I still have some and no-one is too crazy about them. They are so pretty :) We've eaten about 20 spaghetti squash. We eat it with butter and honey or I make spaghetti sauce and we have it that way. Kids love it! I'm so glad cause I don't really :)

Obla di, obla da, la la la la life goes on. (Remember the show Life Goes On with Corky the down syndrome boy and his sister.) The theme song was something like that. Life keeps on going. Take care and God Bless.