Family Visit

The last 4 days have been a flurry of activity as we hosted the bulk of Amy's family. One of her brothers and his wife came down from Washington state and they honored our inability to travel by coming to stay with us. Abby still enjoys having visitors, and was very sad when everyone left yesterday.

Unfortunately Abby's condition continues to deteriorate. Her left side grows stiffer and weaker each day, and while she made it to church on Sunday (and was fairly animated after Sunday services), she has not wanted to do anything today but try to sleep. She asks for additional morphine doses often to supplement the time-release pills she takes twice a day. Her vomiting episodes have returned, and we have a call into the oncologist to see if they can help us deal with them.

We were going to start the Sulfasalazine today, but don't want to add anything that might increase her nausea.

Understandably, Amy and I are quite discouraged. We continue to spend much time in prayer. It has been said by many people that prayer changes things, that it moves the hand of God. However, we have seen that it can have a different effect--prayer sometimes (often?) changes the one who prays. God works through these prayers to change attitudes, desires, wants, and needs to be more in line with His will. Along that path lies the peace of the Holy Spirit.

While Amy and I would both say that we have experienced that peace, I would be lying if I didn't admit to also suffering the paralyzing fear that comes with caring for a terminally ill child. What of her questions? Can you sugar-coat the truth to make it go down easier? And what about our other kids? The way they voraciously devoured 4 days of attention lavished on them by extended family demonstrates that they are starving for even 10 minutes of uninterrupted time with Mom or Dad. And the big questions--what's going to happen next? How long do we have? Will she make it to Christmas? Do we want her to, or will she be far too incapacitated to enjoy it? And if so, how can the rest of us celebrate? Shocking questions, questions that are embarrassing even to think about.

So we continue to covet your prayers. We know without a doubt that God will not desert us. He promises that He will place nothing in our path that He will not also give us the strength to handle.

God willing we hope to go to the Zoo tomorrow--we will see what His plans are.