New look and Update on Isaac

thank you Becky for my new look. I really like it.

This is from a caring page site that was set up for the family. Thank you all for lifting the family up in your prayers. The fact that he is playing is great.

Now an Isaac update... His color is looking really good and he's been playing. Which is an answered prayer in and of it's self. He hasn't been eating much so they have inserted a G-Tube. BUT last night he ate 4 pieces of bread and an M&M. PRAISE GOD! The next 5 chemo treatments he has will not be as severe as the first round. After these are completed there's a 10 day waiting period. Then test begin to see if the leukemia has gone into remission. If it has then the bone marrow search begins. Please continue to lift Dale, Mysty, Noah, Maria and Isaac up in prayer. It's amazing to see the miracles God has already done. How exciting to anticipate what he has in store next.

PRAYER FOR A FOREVER FAMILY

I had the privilege to meet a lady named Mysty shorty after bringing Hannah home. We have a mutual friend that introduced us. Mysty and her husband were in the process of adopting a sibling group from Guatemala when I met her. They also had a biological son. During this wait they adopted a new born baby domestically. they named him Isaac. I believe he is close to two years old now. The sibling group adoption did not happen. A few months ago they did bring home a little girl from Guatemala, Maria. Mysty is a very sweet lady.

I am writing this to ask you all to please pray for their son Isaac. Earlier this week he was diagnose with a rare form of leukemia. The doctors gave him two weeks to live without treatment and with treatment two years at the most. They had to make the decision whether or not to put him through the painful treatment of chemo. They did start the treatment Friday afternoon. He will have 10 straight days of the treatment. They will not know for 29 days whether or not he is in remission. Please pray that this cancer will be defeated. Our God is bigger than this cancer. I know that He does not want Isaac or this family to have to go through this. The God I know and love does not want His people to suffer. I pray that this will be defeated and that God will be glorified. I respect the doctors but only God knows how much time we all have here on this Earth.

New Car

We went car shopping this weekend. Here is a picture of the car we got. Shopping with a soon to be three year old and a 3 1/2 year old is not fun. They did fine at first but soon got rowdy. It was hard to listen to the finance lady and wrangle them in. We got at the dealership at 4:00 and left after 7:00. It is a nice car. We got a new car to try and get our payments down some and for better gas mileage. It came with standard 1 year of On Star safety feature and 6 months of XM radio. God has blessed us with this car.

Ours is a deep blue color. Oh, it is a Saturn Aura.

To All the Heros

This is for all of those heros out there: all of my sisters that have adopted from China or any other country, Mr Brian who works with the elderly, and any others that I might not be aware of. You will need to pause my music on the side bar.

Prayer Request

Thank you all for your prayer request. As of this morning at work there were only enough accounts for everyone to have their normal work load for the week. There was not enough for overtime. We should have it all cleaned up by Wednesday.

I will ask you to continue to keep me in your prayers. Something happened at work on Friday. When I told Greg about it he told me to start looking for a new job. I will need to wait until after Ethan has his surgery on March 5 before I do this. I hope I can find something closer to home.

PRAYER REQUEST

I really do not want my blog to be about all my problems. Here lately I fell like that is all I seem to write about. I do have a prayer request. I work for a hospital company. This time last year we received more hospitals as our work loads. We have been responsible for cleaning up the accounts that were outstanding when we received these hospitals. We have had a hard time getting them cleaned up for several different reasons that I will not go into all of them. Back in December our audit department came into the office. We were told yesterday that we scored very badly because of our backlog of accounts. We have until March 1 to get it cleaned up. If it is not cleaned up by then the management team will probably lose their jobs. Here is the request. I am a team lead which is considered part of the management team. My job could be on the line. I don't know if I would be fired or just demoted. I do not think this is the right thing for them to do but I cannot do anything about it. Please pray that we will be able to get this task accomplished and two for me to know if God is trying to lead me into a different direction. I know that there are prayer warriors out there. thank you all for praying with me on this.

The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything

We went to see the movie today. This was Ethan's first time to go to the movies. He did a really good job. The movie was really cute. I liked it.

Award

I have been given an award from Ashley. Thank you, Ashley. This is the first award that I have received. I started blogging just to stay in touch with our China family. I have met many new people through blogland.

1. Awarded parties must nominate five people who have not received the award.
2. The blogs that receive the award must serve some purpose.
3. In their post about the award they need to link back to the original entry.
4. Awarded parties must post the award banner on their site. The banner must remain linked to Eric Novak's site.

Am not sure I have five people that have not received the reward, but here goes.

1. Nikki I enjoy reading of her daily adventures in raising this beautiful Asian ballerina. I am usually laughing when I read her blog.

2. Verna (Blog Fairy) I like to think of her as the unofficial fundraising Queen. She usually has a new post where either she herself is helping someone raise money for their adoption or letting us know of others who are doing their own fundraising. You're great Verna.

3. Chrissie who keeps us updated on the work that is being done the Good Samaritan Children's Home in Malawi. It is great to be able to read about this work and know how to pray for them.

4. Mr Brian who lightens up our days with stories of his work at the nursing home.

Doctor Update

Early Friday morning Greg headed out to his mother's to drop Hannah off. Poor thing was up almost all night. He eyes were all red. She would wake about every hour complaining of them hurting. You can kind of see them in the picture. They look much better though. Ethan and I headed to downtown to the children's hospital.

We met with the urologist. He was very nice. His surgery schedule came in to the tell me that he did not have any openings until May. I knew that the plastic surgeon really wanted to get his palate fixed sooner than that.

After leaving there we headed over to the in-laws to get Hannah. While I was on my way Greg called to tell me that she had been crying most of the morning because of her eyes hurting. Thankfully we already had an appointment with the Peds for Ethan so I called so see if they would check her out also. I knew they would if they saw her when I took her in with us. I have worked at doctors offices though and wanted to be nice and call first.

So, we get to the Peds. I'm thinking Hannah must have pink eye and we will leave with meds for her. I was wrong. She has a virus and it has to run its course. Her eyes are like this because of her fever.

Ethan was going for another vaccination visit and for his blood work to be done. I remembered how hard it was for them to find a vein on Hannah because she had not drank much before the appointment. I made sure that Ethan drank lots of water before we went. It worked. They got the vein on the first try. He was such a trooper. He did not cry one bit while they were drawing four vials of blood. Now his flu shot and TB test were a different story.

Since Hannah was sick they made sure to check Ethan's ears and throat also. I also told them that he had some green nasal discharge. We left the office with a Rx for a sinus infection. You would not have thought it was him who was sick.

While we were at the Peds the urologist office called. They called the plastic surgeon and were able to make an appointment for the surgery on March 5 at 12:00 noon. So, Ethan will be getting cut at both ends that day. Please keep him in your prayers that he will stay well so that they will be able to perform the surgery this day. The sooner this is done the sooner we can work on his speech.

Saturday morning, Hannah seems to be feeling a little better. She is much more chipper. Oh, how do you like Ethan's new do?

Update on Ethan

Thank you all for praying for our little guy. The breathing treatments helped him. He is feeling much better now. We go tomorrow for the urology consult. I will let you all know also when he gets scheduled for his surgery.

This morning Hannah woke up with 101+ temp. The two of us are home today. I'm concerned about what will happen at work. We are only allowed 6 unscheduled occurrences a year. I think this will make my sixth. I will probably be written up when I get back. But my children come first. Greg and I also have to take turns and he was out of work yesterday sick so it was my turn. You would think that a hospital company would be more understanding.

Anyway, I'm hoping that we will be able to take the rugrats to go see the new Veggie Tales movie this weekend. I think Ethan might like to see it.

Sick Little Boy

Ethan has had some congestion the past few days. Thursday night he started wheezing some. Greg took him to the doctor. This was only a week after we took him for the impetigo. He has bronchitis. We had to do breathing treatments every four hours for the first 24 hours. Now we are down to every six hours. I took a picture of him during one of the treatments. This morning I could tell that he was not feeling well at all. He was just sitting beside me being very still and quite. He has gotten used to having to do the treatments. He will actually sit in the chair by himself now and leave the mask on. I have a feeling this will not be the last of these.

The other picture is of Greg shaving his hair. Ethan did not like this at all as you can tell by the picture. The outcome was cute though. I will try to get a picture of it and post later.