Welcome to the Foxhole!: March 2013

Monday, March 25, 2013

The Two Become One...

One of our favorite verses is:

...‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Matthew 19:5-6

We love this because it is such an awesome picture of how the Lord can work. He can take two completely different people from completely different backgrounds and bring them together as ONE in HIM!! How cool is that?

B and I are definitely ONE because of the Lord! We love it! It is so cool to see this played out daily. However, sometimes it can mean yucky stuff, too! Such as, sharing sinus infections! Yep, you read that right! My tough man, who protected me all last week through my sinus infection and doc visits, has a sinus infection. He was up all last night feeling yucky! We were able to get him in with the doc this afternoon. So, Lord willing, he'll be able to treat it quickly and get it under control!

Please pray for my man! He is amazing and such a gift! When he's down, it scares me because he takes such good care of us! Please pray for his super quick healing and blessings for his amazing love!!!!

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Update and Praise

GOD IS GOOD,
ALL THE TIME!

ALL THE TIME...
GOD IS GOOD!

Thank you to the many that have been praying for, calling and offering support, and emailing us this week. While my most recent update shared with you about Princess' seizures being out of control and our visit to the ER, we still had really no answers for the extreme pain that Princess was experiencing. The pain she was experiencing during the start of the week was leaving her fairly helpless and not able to function by any means. So great was the pain that Princess could not even sleep!!! Great praises and thankfulness for Miss C being a part of our family. She has been incredible this week making sure Critter was well taken care of. Tuesday with our trip to the ER she and M's mom sprung into action with Critter causing very little disruption to Critter's schedule (for you parents of little ones you can relate to how important the schedule can be).

Anyway, yesterday morning after another sleepless night Princess could not tolerate the pain any longer. We very early and quickly sprung into action calling our ENT to get an appointment. With great effort and coordination we were able to be seen by our ENT but had to drive to another city to be seen. This was not a problem and it hopefully meant relief was coming very soon...

We would be very remissed if we failed to mention that our ENT was incredible and went above and beyond to help Princess. We got to the office around 9:15 AM, stayed there till 12:45 PM addressing Princess, to then come back at 3:30 PM for more treatment (Details to follow).

Now for a moment to stop and praise God...

I had to make a quick trip during the day to the hospital from our trip on Tuesday to pick upPrincess' CT images. The ENT needed this to help him with the procedure that he would be doing later in the afternoon. That said, I had my radio on probably more out of habit, but also to get my mind filled with Christian worship music. Many of you have listened and even read on our blog about our beloved station KSBJ in Houston. Unfortunately, we cannot get KSBJ in Dallas, and there is really not a comparable station in the area. However, the station that does come close is KCBI. While they don't play music 24/7 I happened to be in the car to catch their afternoon music program and through their songs was able to find peaceful and helpful reminders that God is in control and he will take care of ALL things. So pause for a moment and join me is listening to the songs below and just be still and listen....know that HE is GOD. The two songs here is what connected my heart and mind and soul to drive calmly and peacfully and know that we're going to be okay.

Then after I am feeling the lump in my throat and ready to get Princess back to the doctor, ol' Smitty had to come in...IT WAS AWESOME!!!

So upon reaching Princess, we loaded up in the car and headed back to the ENT to meet with him to begin the Nuclear Bomb approach to emptying Princess' sinuses and hopefully providing her with some relief. Now I can't do the procedure any justice so please see the video below that will describe what we were able to accomplish and do...

Voila!!! It worked!!! Princess' frontal, ethmoid, sphenoid and maxillary sinuses were all clogged (MAJOR HEADACHE!!!) and we were able to do the procedure on her two frontal sinuses and one of the two maxillary sinuses. While the relief wasn't immediately gratifying results were already taking place. More importantly this morning we're happy to report that M had a good night's rest and is around 80% better being able to function spend some time with Critter and be able to breathe again!

So thanks for your prayers. Hopefully, now we can resume our normal and get to the bottom of these pesky seizures.

By the way, WE HIGHLY recommend checking with your ENT about the Balloon Sinuplasty procedure. I am trying to get in with our ENT now to do it myself.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

M update and Greatly Needed Prayers

Howdy ALL!

We have been fairly silent over the last few months. Not because there wasn't anything going on, but simply because so much has been going on...

As many of you know we went to Philly just before Thanksgiving to be evaluated by a team up there. More light was shed upon this now SEVEN year journey, that M is actually having more seizures than what we even record on a daily basis. More or less, M is in a constant seizing state. While this news is certainly scary it did provide reasonable explanation on why M might be feeling a certain way at any given moment and yet not have what we call a seizure.

And really since about August, M's seizures have increased and intensified. In particular we have not had many days with no seizures. A HUGE PRAYER REQUEST- to have more seizure-free days. And as the seizures have intensified so did the recommendations for additional meds that unfortunately have not worked.

So it feels like we are back at square one. At times, when there is improvement, we will come across a bump in the road only to seemingly fall backwards. This year has been very challenging. A common theme or phrase that we find ourselves saying is to just take one day at a time, or better, one step at a time. I don't think we truly think on those words often enough and yet when M has the weeks upon weeks that she has been having, we truly have to take things one step at a time.

For the present, we had a decent couple weeks finishing February and beginning the month of March. In fact, M was having the least amount of seizures that she has ever had going back to 2009. Things were great! M was enjoying this new found freedom...

However, last week, the rest came to an abrupt end when Monday we were met with at least 8 seizures, followed by just as many the next day and so on...Where previously over the course of 21 days M only had 21 seizures, she has had 45+ just in the last nine days. Pretty mind boggling for sure! Compound that with a horrible sinus problem and we have a true recipe for pain and exhaustion. So much that we were at the ER this morning around 6AM trying to address intense, and I mean intense, pain in M's head and maybe an opportunity to shed light on the increase in seizures over the weekend.

We did spend the majority of the day in the ER to be diagnosed with a severe sinus problem that involves most of M's sinus cavities and really no answers for the seizures. So we continue to turn our eyes to the Lord who is SOLELY supplying the strength that M has for each day. Please join me in praying an extra special prayer for M. It is hard to see her suffer, but so encouraging and a faith-builder to know that the Lord is sustaining her at this present time. A huge PRAISE GOD is that while the docs and specialists that we have worked have indicated M should be in a vegetative state...SHE IS FAR FROM IT!!!!

So please pray for rest for my Princess. Pray for her continued strength. Pray for her current sinus issue that has made the seizures more intense and amplified. And lastly, pray that these seizures would go away. May M continue to glorify the Lord in all that she does and continue to share such amazing joy and Godly words of wisdom to all who she comes in contact with.

Thanks and blessings. We'll post more soon!

Monday, March 18, 2013

Miss C's Car

Something we never considered was that Miss C would need a set of wheels to get around town when she wants to get away from us or when she needs to go to school, etc. We could not afford to buy a car for Miss C and so we just prayed and prayed that the Lord would provide! He did!! Through my amazing uncle!!! He is allowing us to use his car for the next year or so for Miss C! What an enormous blessing!!!!!! Wow!!! What a precious and generous spirit! We love you and appreciate you, Uncle L!!