Luke has his smile back!!

Luke has been doing amazing things since coming home from the Hospital. He smiled today for the first time, this is a huge answer to prayer for me. There have been times in the past that I thought I saw a small smile, but today I truly know that is what he is doing. I took him to the Hyperbaric chamber today and Jim the technician was just amazed at his progress. He said he was expecting to see him still recovering from his time in the Hospital, but Luke looked great and he was amazed at seeing his arms moving and his hands opened up. He also saw his legs moving, which is a new thing for Luke. Then when the dive was over and he opened the door Luke began to smile and when I picked him up he continued to smile and both Jim and Doug saw the smile, this is the biggest answer to prayer for me as I have desperately missed Luke's smile. Mary, who was our wonderful nurse was able to come over to see Luke and she was also amazed at Luke's progress.

He is also making new noises. The other day when our wonderful friend, Tia Yoli was here helping as she does so often in the morning and Luke was saying Oh, she began to sing a song with Oh in it and he continued to say Oh, he did at least 5 times. Since then I've noticed a lot more noises and emotions with them. As I mentioned above about his legs moving, I know I told you in the past about him moving his legs, but he stopped after a time. Well now he is doing it all the time. We put him a baby swing to feed him and now when he is in there he moves his legs to move the swing. I asked his PT today if she thought it was purposeful movement and she said yes, she doesn't think it is a muscle spasm, which I agreed with her.

We weaned him off the oxygen on last Wednesday and lately his oxymeter has usually only been alarming when his heart rate goes down to low. With the exception of Saturday night when he did have a bit of a fever and his oxygen levels went down for a while. Gordy and I went to a Homeschool Conference on Friday and Saturday and his Aunty Cindy was watching him on Saturday night during a special dinner that Daniel, Amy and Natalie were able to attend. Needless to say I thought we would have to come home early because of Luke not doing so good but we prayed and after about 1/2 hour his fever went away and his oxygen levels came up. God is so faithful to answer our prayers once again. We had a wonderful time at the convention, it was amazing to me to meet so many people that have been praying faithfully for Luke, most of these people I had never met before, they either reconized my name or my face from the pictures we've posted. We had a great time visiting with Jenni and Chris, faithful bloggers.

I have learned a lot this past year and a half about God's faithfulness. As I once again gave Luke to God that night in the PICU, I began praying differently for him. I would remind God that Luke is His child and I wanted Him to have complete and total control of Luke's outcome. I truly relinquished my rights to Luke and turned them completely over to God. I began to trust God in a whole new way with His child, looking at Luke totally differently. I have a new peace in this new way of trusting God. I'm sure many of you have had to learn this lesson and for those of you that have not come to the place where you completely trust God for everything, I would highly recommend this new way of living, I'm not saying this will be easy, in fact it could be the hardest decision you will ever make, but I am saying it will be worth it.

Last year we talked about taking a trip across America, Gordy has a 4 week sabbatical coming since he has worked at REI for 15 years. So we are going to add 2 weeks vacation, one week on each side of the sabbatical and take a 6 week vacation. We are cutting a lot of what we originally planned, so that we can take it easy and not be stressed out by a crazy schedule, also the prices of gas are out of this world, therefore we are not going quite so far. Please be praying that Luke will stay healthy and that this trip will be a true possibility for our family. Lord willing we will be leaving May 31st and coming home on July 8th.

Love in Christ,
Luke's Mommy Sue