For those of you who are not on Facebook, here is an update that Kristi posted from Denver. We will certainly describe more later, but we were up at 3:00am to catch our flight this morning and are ready to crash:
Our time in Denver has been amazing so far! Our appointment with Dr. Liu was a huge blessing as he couldn't have been more kind, a wealth of knowledge, and committed to helping us make the best treatment decisions for our boy. He gave us SO much to think about (more importantly pray about), much of which could change the entire direction we thought we were headed (at least in the immediate future). The deciding factor on the next step will be the results of the Gallium 68 scan Andrew is having next week in Iowa. Will you please pray for two giant prayer requests? 1) that Andrew's scan next week lights up bright (this would indicate he has the necessary receptors for a new treatment (not FDA approved here in the states yet, but very effective) and 2) that the team in Iowa would have wisdom as to what Andrew's treatment plan should look like? We just want to do God's will!
****We have an URGENT PRAYER REQUEST in the midst of everything. We arrived home from the airport to see Grace arriving home from school four hours early. Grace went to the nurse at school with a little bit of a cough and she ended up having a temperature, but Grace thought that since she was in the nurse's office she should go ahead and vomit as well. We let Grace nap a little bit and then decided to take her to the pediatrician. Grace's pediatrician heard some crackling in her lungs when she examined her, so she went ahead and prescribed her an antibiotic, in the event she has a bacterial infection. This might seem extreme for most kids, but since Grace has a prosthetic valve in her heart, the cardiologists have always informed us that a bacterial infection would be really bad for the type of valve Grace has; therefore, at any sign of infection we always go ahead and get her on an antibiotic just to be safe. To be honest, this is rather normal for Grace to get this once or twice a year, it always begins with her having a runny nose, then she slowly gets a cough and we begin giving her breathing treatments, the cough continues to linger and we take Grace to the doctor. The doctor will hear crackling in her lungs and she will prescribe an antibiotic and send us for a chest x-ray. The x-ray usually reveals that Grace has pneumonia and we try to let her battle it out as long as possible at home, while we watch her oxygen saturations. When her oxygen stats fall below 90% we usually take Grace to the ER and she gets admitted to the hospital and put on oxygen for about 4 days and then we get discharged. This has always been the process for the first 3 years of her life. In the last year and a half, Grace has gotten a little stronger and she has been able to fight some of her bouts with pneumonia from home, without having to go to the hospital. Here is our prayer request for this situation: 1) For God to help Grace fight this illness from home and not need to go to the hospital. Mind you, four of us are supposed to be traveling to Iowa on Tuesday and Grace was going to be staying home with my mom; however, if Grace needs to go into the hospital, that would really alter plans quite a bit. Therefore, we are really hoping for Grace to improve quickly and that everything will work out for us to be able to go to Iowa together as a family (Kristi and I and the big kids). If Grace does not improve quickly, then I will be heading to the hospital with Grace and Kristi will be flying without me to Iowa. I'm sure if Kristi were writing this, it would be much more colorful and full of expression at this point because that possibility is a little overwhelming to think about.
While we were only gone for 2.5 days and 2 nights in Denver, these two had lots of tears because they missed each other so much. You would have thought they had been separated for 2 months. Here are some reunion photos from today. Kristi didn't have her phone on her for the actual reunion, but she caught these as they were getting in the car after picking Abby up early from school.
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