Wednesday, December 27, 2006




















Here is our Family Christmas Picture.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

We thank the Lord for Electricity

I'm sure if you watch the news you will already know that Washington was hit with a huge wind storm last Thursday night. It was scary listening to the wind as it was blowing so hard, it sounded like our windows would break. We were blessed in the fact that we didn't have any trees fall in our yard. Many of our neighbors were not so blessed, I will try to show some pictures today to let you see how crazy it was.

We along with one and half million others lost our power on Thursday night. I was sitting holding Luke, as he was having a rough night and all the sudden everything went black. It was challenging to say the least. The machines that we rely on most run all through the night, but they only have a battery capacity of a few hours. Needless to say I had to wake up about every hour to check Luke's oximeter machine to make sure his oxygen levels were okay, since he was having a bad night. We didn't get our power back until Saturday afternoon, which we were very thankful for as my sister still is without power. Gordy went out and bought a propane heater, we do have two fireplaces but they don't put out enough heat to warm our entire home. We talked about going to a hotel, but decided we could rough it out at home. When we woke up on Saturday morning it was down to 29 degrees outside and 50 degrees in our home. I got Gordy up to get the propane heater going and woke up Daniel and Josh, who was spending the night to get a fire going downstairs. I guess a little excitement is kind of fun, but I'm hoping that we don't lose power again for a very long time.

I want to share a wonderful testimony of God's goodness and provision in our lives. I have been wanting to get Luke back into the Hyperbaric chamber for a long time now, but because of time and money it has been challenging. I finally decided since we are taking a Christmas break from most of our normal activities that the next three weeks I can get him in at least 3 times a week. As I was mentioning this to Daniel on Saturday, he worked that day making extra money, I said I wish there was a way I could make some extra cash so that I could get Luke into HBOT again. The great news is the next day after church he came up to give me a tithing envelope with this written on the front "Please give this to Sue Searles for Luke to get a Hyperbaric treatment," and it said "Merry Christmas", I began to cry knowing this was a gift from God. I took this envelope into the HBOT place and handed it to pay them and the next day when we went for another dive, Doug the owner said that he too would like to bless us with a Christmas free dive. GOD IS SO GOOD!

I am hoping to get our Christmas card out this week, we actually had them finished before the beginning of December, but have been too busy to get them into the mail, along with finishing up my shopping, doing some Christmas baking, wrapping presents, keeping the house picked up, taking Luke to HBOT and getting ready for family on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I really don't have much to do this week, HA HA. Once again I am extremely grateful for my precious daughters, who without there help I would be going crazy. I am hoping to post our Christmas card next time I blog. Thank you for all your Christmas cards and letters, we love receiving them.

Love in Christ,
Luke's Mommy Sue

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Luke gets a good report from the Orthopedic Dr.

I want to begin by letting you all know that I did end up going to Chicago with Gordy for a few days. What I thought would be a relaxing time ended up being a wonderful busy time spent with some great cousins and some old best friends. Gordy and I left on Saturday, our plane was delayed for 5 hours because of many little things adding up to lots of big things. I wasn't stressed though because I took the opportunity to spend some uninterrupted time reading. On Sunday we were treated to a delicious dinner at Magianno's Restaurant by my cousins, some of whom I had only met once in my life. We went on a lovely tour through their village of Schaumburg and ended up at their home for a nice long visit. Monday my good friend Denise picked me up and took me to their lovely village of Naperville for the day, it was so great spending a day of visiting and catching up on each other's life, they then had Gordy over that night for dinner. On Tuesday my cousin Ellen took me on a tour of downtown Chicago. I loved Chicago, even with it's biting cold weather, I don't think it got any warmer than 34 the whole time I was there. I then came home Wednesday evening, ready to run with a full schedule ahead of me to finish out the week.

All the children did great at home. Luke seemed to enjoy his time at the Rodriguez's home and his day spent at Aunt Cindy's home. He did struggle a little bit with a low grade fever, but nothing too bad. I noticed the morning after I got home he is really struggling with his muscle tone, I'm not sure if he is tense because he is still getting over his bit of flu or what is going on. I do know that I really need to get him back into the Hyperbaric chamber, it really helps with his muscle tone. I'm praying that I will be able to fit in some dives during our Christmas break and that God will provide the money for them as well, since this is a tight time of the year.

I really struggled with whether I should take him into his Orthopedic appt. on Friday because I knew that his muscle tone was so high we'd probably not get a good report. I'm glad I did take him, I really liked his Dr., he basically was looking at three different area's his back, hips and feet. He said his back is looking good, quite often with kids like Luke they have scoliosis, but Luke's back is perfectly straight. At first when he was checking out his knee's he thought they were dislocated, but after straighting out his legs he said they were fine. He said his hips are doing fine and that his feet look good too. He said that he is sitting up nicely and looks great overall, that he could tell that he has great care, because he could not see any skin break down or problem area's. I left there with a huge sigh of relief, telling Luke that even though the Dr. basically said numerous times that Luke would be this way forever, we know different, that we know God will heal him and then he can give God the glory for his healing, knowing that once again we were told that it would be impossible for Luke to walk without a miracle.

I know it's easy to get distracted from the real reason for the season by becoming too busy and distracted by our crazy busy schedules, but I hope you are able to slow down and enjoy this Christmas season. We would love to hear from you and enjoy putting faces with those that are praying for Luke's healing and for our family. If you would like our address or want to get a Christmas picture from us, just e-mail us at howslukedoing@yahoo.com.

Love in Christ,
Luke's Mommy Sue

Friday, December 01, 2006

Wow! All I can say is Wow, Luke is doing great!

Wow! All I can say is WOW, Luke is doing great! I can not even begin to tell you how hard yesterday was, Luke was doing absolutely horrible. He was on the most oxygen that we've ever had him on here at home. We are thankful we have a Oxygenator machine, which is a machine that takes normal air and turns it into oxygen. We were able to put a nasal canulla in his nose with the tank and a mask on his face with the oxygenator machine. I kept thinking yesterday we should be going to the Hospital, but it was so cold outside and I knew as long as we could meet his oxygen needs there wouldn't be anything they could do that we couldn't do here at home. He never threw up again after the morning feeding and his fever was under control with the Tylenol and Ibruprofen that we gave him. By the time we put him to bed he was down to 1/2 the oxygen he had been on earlier and his heart rate was down to 112 which is a good rate for Luke.

Today he slept most of the day and was on just a little bit of oxygen. By this evening he was completely off the oxygen. I just went to check on him and he was showing 100% oxygen and 100 heart rate. I can not remember the last time I've seen such awesome numbers. I can not even tell you what relief I feel, I'm sitting here with tears in my eyes at God's goodness to our family. I know without a shadow of a doubt the only reason that Luke is doing so well is because people are praying for Luke. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your faithful prayers.

Last night I sat and listened to a sermon by Pastor Bill Johnson, on the computer from Bethel Church in Redding,CA. It is an excellent message and he ended it with the song, "I Need You More," it's a powerful song it says, I need you more, need you more than yesterday, I need you more, more than words can say, I need you more, than ever before I need you Lord, I need you Lord, I need you more, need you more than yesterday, I need you more, more than words can say, I need you more than ever before, I need you Lord, I need you Lord, More than the air I breath, more than the song I sing, more than the next heart beat, I need you more than anything, though as time goes by, I'll be by your side, cause I never want to go back to my old life, I need you more, more than yesterday, I need you more, more than words can say, I need you more, than ever before, I need you Lord, I need you Lord. After singing this song I ended up on my face before God, letting Him know that I need Him more than I need anything else in my life, that means I need Him more than I need to see Luke healed, more than I need sleep, more than I need any other thing in my life. Needless to say I went to sleep as I was praying and woke up knowing I needed to get to bed, I woke up this morning with a song and prayer on my heart. I've said it time and time again God's peace means more than anything in my life, without His strength, I would be a basket case. My prayer for you is that you realize that you need God, I know many of you are Christ followers, but for those of you that read this blog that are not, I pray that you will find that wonderful peace that you can have when you reach out to a relationship with my precious Saviour Jesus Christ.

Love in Christ,
Luke's Mommy Sue