Saturday, July 28, 2007

We found out today that Luke still has pneumonia

Here is a picture of Luke from our recent trip to the Oregon coast, before he came down with pneumonia. As you can tell by the winter coat he is wearing it was a very cold day. We hiked down a beautiful paved trail to find a new beach area to enjoy our lunch. Though it was cold and windy we all had a wonderful time.




I was surprised to hear today from the Radiologist that Luke still has pneumonia. I took him into the Dr. yesterday for a follow-up appt and x-ray, the Dr. didn't think he still had pneumonia, though he did realize from the x-ray his lungs had not completely cleared up. So he is back on an antibiotic, I'm thankful that it is only every 8 hours instead of every 6 hours, which means more sleep for me, since I don't have to stay up so late for his last dose each night.

Luke has been doing surprisingly well for having pneumonia, I guess that is why I was so shocked to hear this news today. He was at 100% oxygen level when I took off his oximeter probe this morning, though he did need a little oxygen last night. He's done great for the busy week that we've had.

On Tuesday I took the kids to the Hands on Museum in Olympia, one of my children's most favorite places to visit, Luke seemed to really enjoy himself as the children went racing around finding all sorts of fun things to do. On Wednesday he and Lily stayed home with our most wonderful babysitter Tessa, while Natalie, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Josh and I went to tour the USS Turner Joy, a Destroyer Naval Ship. Then on Thursday Luke and I were out the door by 9:45 to have his casting done for new ankle orthodics, they were hoping to get both his ankles and knees done but ended up having to do the right foot twice, so needless to say we go back again in two weeks to have his knee's done. After that appt. we met Natalie, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Lily, Yoli and Karlos at the Zoo for a few hours of fun before his follow-up Dr. appt.

Friday was busy for me again as I had to get up to take Isaiah to his Speech Therapy appt in the morning down in Olympia, after that I came home to take Luke to his OT appt in Puyallup. That appt. went rather well, since his OT has been experimenting with different switch toys for him to use to communicate with, she taped "I love Mommy" on the toy and Luke could touch it to say that he loves me. She was excited, as was I as we both saw Luke purposefully touch the button switch time and again to say that he loves me. We both saw him also use his fingers to push down. She is hoping that our insurance company will ok buying two the theses switches so that Luke can really begin to communicate with his family once again. After coming home from that appt. I left immediately to drive two hours to pick up Amy and the 10 children that went our church kids camp this past week. It ended up being a crazy busy day!

Tomorrow night we are going to be in the Torchlight parade in Seattle. We will be one of the families representing the Starlight, Starbright Children's Foundation, there motto is, "Helping seriously ill children and their families cope with pain, fear and isolation through entertainment, education and family activities." They have blessed us numerous times over the past few years with gifts while Luke is in the Hospital, free shopping trips for all the toys, books and games we want from there packed warehouse, fun trips to the Sonics game and the tickets for our tour on the USS Turner Joy was complements from them. They are expecting more than 300,000 people to be watching the parade, so I'm praying that all will go smoothly for our family as we walk to the 2-3 miles through Seattle. Well I better wrap this blog up, as it is too long already!

Love in Christ,
Luke's Mommy Sue

Sunday, July 22, 2007

May God grant me the faith to continue to completely trust Him

What a week! Since the last time I wrote saying that Luke was doing better we've been on a roller coaster ride. He was doing better, then last Sunday he took a step backwards for a few days, on oxygen most of the days. Now once again he is doing good, he has not been on any oxygen during the day anymore and just a little at night.

For me it was an extremely trying week, one of very late nights and early mornings. The antibiotic Luke was put on needed to be given every 6 hours. I choose that over a hospital stay with an IV of antibiotics, but it was not an easy journey to say the least. On top of that Isaiah and Ezekiel went to a wonderful Vacation Bible School at a church just down the road from us, so I had to not only get up early to give Luke his meds I also had to stay up to get the boys ready and out the door by 8:30 every morning.

I have to say the hardest day this week was Tuesday, I hadn't got a lot of sleep but knew I had a lot to do so I started my day early, getting the ingredients for Luke's food. When I got home from picking up the boys I found out our big freezer had been left open all night, therefore we had a big mess on our hands. Thankfully we did not lose all our meat, as we buy fresh beef and pork and therefore have lots of meat in our freezer, but we did have to cook up about 10 pounds of hamburger and 6 pounds of chicken. That day was a crazy as Natalie dropped a full can of tomato sauce, which splattered all over the kitchen, needless to say we were in the kitchen for about 7 hours that day, making Luke's food and cooking up meat.

God is so faithful, yesterday as I was reading my favorite devotional book, called Streams in the Desert, the reading ministered greatly to me, here is a little excerpt: May God grant us faith to completely trust His Word, even when every other sign points the other way. The scripture that I plan to memorize this week is: Acts 27:25 Keep up your courage men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me. I decided to personalize that scripture for my sake, it goes like this: Keep up your courage "SUE" for you have faith in God that Luke's healing will happen just as God told you. To keep on believing in Luke's miracle is by far the hardest thing that I've ever had to do, but I know without a doubt that I can not give up hope as it is the only thing that I hold on too, there is no other way!

Last but not least, Gordy and I are celebrating our 24th wedding anniversary today. I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful husband. We are taking Amy to camp, as she is going to be a camp counselor for the next two weeks at our church camp, which is in about 2 hours away in a little town named Sequim, WA. After we drop her off we are going to spend the night at the beach, I'm hoping that perhaps we can catch up on some of the sleep that we missed out on the past few weeks. Please be praying for Natalie and Daniel as they will be watching the children at home.

Love in Christ,
Luke's Mommy Sue

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Luke is doing great, thank you for your prayers

Luke is doing absolutely great, this is by far the quickest he has ever recovered from having pneumonia. He is completely off oxygen and his numbers tonight are in the high 90's which is awesome for him. Thank you for your prayers they do make all the difference in the world. The only thing that he really needs now is to relax his very tense muscles, his legs have become even more rigid then they were before.

Please be praying for my parents they took off today on a military flight to South Carolina. They will be flying out tomorrow sometime for Germany, where my brother and his wife will be picking them up to take them to Denmark. My father found out that he has prostate cancer a few months ago, so my brother is going to be putting him on a strict diet hoping that he will not only lose some extra pounds but also help him to do a body cleanse. Please be praying that God will give them great traveling mercies and also that they will both stay strong and healthy while they are there. They are thinking they will be there for about 6 weeks. We will miss them very much, but are thankful that they are able to make this trip over to see my brother and his wife.

Love in Christ,
Luke's Mommy Sue

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Luke has pneumonia again, but Praise God he is not in the Hospital

I took Luke into the Dr. yesterday and found out that he has pneumonia in his right lung. The Dr. prescribed a strong shot of antibiotic into his leg muscles, then sent us home with a dose of antibiotic every 4 hours for 10 days. We have to go back today at 10 a.m. for another shot and to be sure that he is making progress toward getting better. Which I know that he is already doing a little better.

I'm thanking the Lord that Luke is doing so well this time with his pneumonia, as this is the first time that he has come down with it and not gone to the Hospital. I told his Dr. that he is doing so much better on his oxygen levels, though he has had to go on the mask a few times, it is nothing compared to his past needs. He is also moaning when he is uncomfortable, which is a new thing for him to do, it is difficult to hear him in agony, but good to know that part of his brain is waking up. I have been very faithful in doing chest PT every 3 hours and making sure that I get him up right so that he is getting the junk cleared out of his lungs.

Please be praying that Luke continues to make positive improvements. Gordy and I are torn about him taking off these precious vacation hours, while we are unable to do anything as a family, he is thinking about going back to work so that he doesn't lose all his hours. I continue to pray against a strong spirit of discouragement and depression as this is not how I was looking forward to spending this week. It's weeks like this that I'm tempted to lose all hope, but I know that I must press on toward keeping my faith strong, this is only a small set back in Luke's journey, please keep us in your prayers.

Love in Christ,
Luke's Mommy Sue

Monday, July 09, 2007

We are home with two sick kids, we need more prayer

Just an update to let you know that we had to cut our vacation short. We decided to come home today, the decision was heartrendering to say the least. Luke and Lily are both sick, running fevers and Luke is just not able to keep his oxygen levels up without lots of oxygen. Though he is doing a bit better tonight, he is on a mask with the oxygenator going at 5 liters. We just tried to put the nasal cannula back in his nose and to cut back on his oxygen, we were able to finally get him down to 1 liter, which is a first today, but he was very uncomfortable, so we decided to put the mask back on him. I'm sure his nose is sore from the oxygen going constantly for 2 days.

Please be praying that God will heal both Lily and Luke tonight, so that perhaps we can go again, as Gordy still has the rest of the week off. It's times like today I wonder if our lives will ever be "normal" again.

Love in Christ,
Luke's Mommy Sue

Sunday, July 08, 2007

As you all know we are in Newport, OR camping. We have been having an absolutely wonderful time, the weather has been great and we were all healthy until 2 days ago when Zeke came down with a croupy cough. I began to pray and try not to panic, knowing that the last two times Zeke has had croup, Luke has gotten very very sick. Well last night it hit him, he is very sick. Not only him but last night Natalie threw up, though she is doing better today and Lily was running a low grade fever last night, once again she is doing okay today.

Luke began to get real congested last evening and I had a feeling that he was getting sick, sure enough when I hooked him up to his oximeter his oxygen numbers were not doing too well and his heart rate was high. We've seen this enough times to know that he was probably running a fever and sure enough he did have a fever. Needless to say I was up until 4 a.m. when Gordy took over until 8 a.m. and then I took over again. He is still not doing well and he needs prayer. We are praying that we will not have to cut our vacation short.

Bottom line is we need PRAYER and lots of it. Please pray that Luke will get better quickly as we've seen this happen so often and also that the rest of the family will stay healthy. Thank you for your prayers, I know that you are faithful in holding up Luke and our family in your prayers. We will let you know how things are going.

Love in Christ,
Luke's Mommy Sue