Posted in Noah Updates
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Well, all of the children ended up sick with the mysterious high-fever virus that started with Sarah. It seemed to last several days for each child, so we didn't finish with it until a few days ago. The virus was apparently the cause of Noah's fever as well since his blood culture's didn't grow anything out. (YAY!) Although Noah is over the virus, he is not feeling well at all. As I said, he is still positive for C. Diff. and his infection is not responding to the two antibiotics used to treat C. Diff. The doctors are trying Alinia, which is actually an anti-protozoic drug used to treat parasites. (Remember biology - protazoans are single cell creatures.) Noah doesn't have parasites, but Alinia has shown some promise treating C. Diff. Unfortunately, this drug causes all sorts of miserable side effects like headaches,dizziness, nausea, fatigue, stomach pain . . . . The only way to aliviate these side effects is to take it on a full stomach. Sigh. The poor little guy just feels awful. We can't know which of these symptoms are causing his suffering, but he is doing a lot of crying and just wanting to be held. Please pray for mercy and comfort for him. Pray too for wisdom for us to know how to comfort and help him when he is suffering. He is so conflicted about food - he gets very agitated when he sees food and he begs for it, but often bursts into tears when he gets it. Right now he is walking around clutching a tiny bit of cereal and "feeding" it to all of us. He holds it toward someone and says "aaahhh" (like at the doctor's office). We are then obligated to make appreciative smacking noises as if we are eating it, at which point we may be rewarded with a tiny smile before he offers it to someone else. I just wish HE would eat it. The good news on the Noah front is that he is saying some new words! He has been saying Mommy, Daddy, Hannah, Oh No, and bye-bye for a while. He also has a handy-dandy multipurpose word that sounds like "bah boo" and means "There is something I want more than life itself and you have three seconds to figure out what it is." Well, in the last week he has added "gup" (cup), "buh-eez" (Buddy, the dog), "daw" (dog), mine (!), "top"(stop), "mwaw" (more) "beebee tine"(Baby Signing Time) "tuhduh" (This means he wants me to go to the Puppy Town website www.puppytown.com and let him watch video clips LOL). He is also signing frog, bird, dog, candy, (chocolate chips to feed to OTHER people), mommy, daddy, baby, more, and a few others. I hope all of you moms had a great Mother's Day. We had some special blessings! Saturday the older children spent all afternoon volunteering at the local food bank. They had dozens of truckloads of food delivered from the Postal food drive, and the children spent the afternoon/evening sorting. While they were doing that, I was at home with the little ones helping them make dozens of tissue paper flowers. Jeff is in a rotation of men to preach on Sundays at one of the local nursing homes, and Sunday he had the opportunity to fill in for someone else who couldn't make it. The children were excited to be able to go on Mother's Day and decided to take presents for all of the ladies. They made the most gorgeous tissue flowers and gathered them into ribbon-tied bouquets. The ladies were so happy to get the flowers (and the hugs and kisses, of course) and it blessed us at least as much as it blessed them. After we finished at the nursing home, we headed to our own church where Mary Faith was dedicated to the Lord. It was an emotional time for me as I remembered dedicating Noah a year and a half ago. It was impossible not to think of how much our lives have changed since then. When we gave our little son to the Lord, we never dreamed of what would be required. Just as we were cleaning up from lunch Sunday afternoon, a lady from our church came to our door. She told us that God had led her to buy us some groceries. I was so blessed and imagined that perhaps she had a bag or two of things. The boys went right out to help her with the bags. I sat on the couch nursing Mary Faith and eventually crying as the boys walked past me over and over and over with loads of groceries. We have a HUGE dining room table and the bags of food covered the entire table and eventually had to be lined up on the benches. I just couldn't believe it. Hannah and I are working out a plan to use all of the food and have realized that we will be able to eat for over a week from this gift! She even brought steaks for Jeff and I to have a date night. I still get teary-eyed when I think about God's abundant provision. Another precious friend just blessed us with the money needed to pay for a cooling vest for Noah. I'll be ordering it today and can't wait until we have it! I've wanted to take him back to the park but he just can't handle the weather without that vest. Jeff has been working so diligently to pass out his resume and look for work. He has sent it to some places in Greenville. This is SO hard because I don't want to move. When we read the Bible this morning we talked about being willing to do whatever God wants. I'm willing, but not happy about the idea and am earnestly praying that God would allow us to stay in this place. We moved all of the time when I was growing up and I never really fit in or belonged anywhere. I've loved putting down roots in this place. I love the fact that everywhere I go, people know me. I can't go anywhere without seeing someone I know! It is a wonderful thing to "be from" somewhere. I KNOW that we are just strangers in a strange land, but I happen to really like this particular bit of strange land a lot! :-) Of course, our ultimate dream would be for Jeff to stay home full time. We've been doing all that we can to build and promote our home business, and Jeff is working so hard on some ideas that we never had time for before now. Jeff has only 2 1/2 weeks of severance pay left and we are watching and waiting to see the hand of God. We don't know if it will be a big, conclusive thing like a new job or a miraculous increase in our business,or if we will be called to a daily demonstration of provision like the provision of the groceries and the cooling vest. I read something the other day that helped put it all in perspective a bit. Our family has been so burdened by the situation in Burma. I look at my children and think of all of the orphans there who don't even have access to help or aid at all because of the evil junta that is blocking aid workers. I read that in areas where food is being passed out, the ration is one cup of rice per family per day. That's not a typo. Last night we showed the children a cup measure and told them what we had learned about the rationing. That would work out to one tiny bite each for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Those people (and so many others around the word) would trade places with us in a heartbeat!! It's not possible to think about this without being humbled and overwhelmed with gratitude for all that we do have right now! Blessings, Kate |
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