Victory!!

We have wonderful news to share with you! The Lord is SO good to us!

As you know, Justin was having some trouble with his blood clotting too fast in the artery where they inserted the catheter. Thankfully, that is all worked out and Justin is fine and very happy. We were moved backed to the recovery ward yesterday (which means he is stable) and were told that we might be able to leave by the end of next week as they wanted to monitor his condition a bit more. This was encouraging news as we had originally been told that we could be here for up to 6 weeks.

But this morning as the cardiologist checked Justin he said "Why are we even keeping them here? This boy is perfectly fine!" So, we are leaving the hospital now. It's such a miracle!

We were told that Justin sat so still during the cardiogram that morning that they were able to get the pictures they needed in 3 minutes whereas it normally takes them 30 min. He's such a good boy!

We're going to stay in Vancouver till Monday as they want Justin's original cardiologist to check him once more before we move back to Kamloops (there are no cardiology specialists there), and after that we're free to go home!

This is such an answer to prayer and we wanted to thank you all so much for the part you have played in this miracle. The Lord has also led us to some wonderful people here, and we've had a chance to pray with people, encourage them and witness. We really see this whole situation working together for good!

Justin has one more week of antibiotics and a month of diuretics and other medication for his heart, and from there we'll see how he's progressing. The aortic coarctation (the narrow part of his aorta) has been fixed but there is a chance that the damage to his heart may be permanent. The cardiologist told us that Justin's heart is presently the size of a 10 year old's heart and it usually takes months for it to heal. Please continue to pray with us that the medication Justy is taking will work well and that his heart will heal completely and not be permanently weakened in any way. Justy will be having monthly checkups so we'll be able to see the progress.

We love you all so much! Thank you for your prayers and notes of encouragment! You're wonderful and now we can all praise the Lord together for this great victory!!

Successful procedure PTL! (some prayer needed)

Justin had his procedure today and it was a total success, Praise the Lord! The doctors opted to use a baloon catheter to stretch the narrow section of his Aorta, instead of heart surgery which was much more risky seeing as his heart is so weak. He is in the ICU now with Nat recovering. Justin was having some trouble tonight with blood clotting in his femeral arteries where they did the Cath procedure so they are giving him some anticoagulant drugs and blood thinners to break up the clots and prevent further clotting. Please pray that Justins circulation to his lower extremities normalizes and that the entry points on both femeral arteries do not clot! Thanks for all of your prayers!! We can't do this without them!! We love you all! God bless

I am a neurotic clean-freak

We just heard that Justins procedure went really well PTL, but we are waiting to see him so I thought I would share something that is on the funnier side to show you all that it isn't doom and gloom here. Justin has been quite a funny guy lately and has been loving the attention that everyone has been giving him. He is such a performer and really cracks people up with his antics and wins them over with his charming smile and bubbly laugh.

Justin hasn't been keeping solid food down since he's been taking the medication to help him with his heart condition. He still loves food though and the other day he got plate of honey-garlic chicken and scalloped potatoes for dinner and he wanted every bit of it! I cut it up into itty bitty pieces and he gobbled it down till he couldn't fit any more in. I was so happy that he ate it all without spitting any back up and I started cleaning up and washing his dishes while Nat held him. That is when disaster struck!

He threw up a bunch of itty bitty pieces of honey-garlic chicken covered in slime on Nat's pants as she was sitting there and of course I calmly freaked out and helped her to clean it up. While she was changing and I was washing my hands, Justin decided to throw up a little bit more on the sheets and blankets of his bed, so I panicked and looked for some sort of container to catch it in. Nat came out with clean clothes on and started to clear off the bed sheets when Justin tossed the vomit container behind the bed and promptly started throwing up some more on the pillow and matress! Nat was catching it in her hands and I was just about in tears frantically trying to get him his vomit cup. He ended up soiling everything in the room before completely emptying his stomach of the yummy dinner he ate and the room smelled awful! All of you who know me well, must know what was going through my mind. Nat was having a great time watching me clean up the bed and floor with papertowels and soap.

The nurse came in to check on us and wasn't shocked at all, as if she had seen this scene more than twice a day. She motioned toward a container of special wipes and told me that I could use those to disinfect the matress. She casually mentioned that they smell awful but effectively kill all kinds of bacteria as well as TB! Eureka! Nat told me that she saw my eyes light up like Christmas day as I grabbed a handful of wipes and in a frenzy attempted to clean the matress and every other possible surface of the bed. Nat told me that the nurse was watching me amusedly while I was in my cleaning hysteria and in the end she told me "um.. I think it is clean now". I just smiled at her and of course kept right on cleaning. Even hospital staff have to stop me from cleaning! She finally started making the bed and slowly pried me away from it.

Thinking about it now, it must've looked kinda funny to the nurse to see a panicked dad cleaning like a neurotic house mom! Many thanks to my mother for passing on those genes to me! Just kidding. Anyways, thank God those situations don't happen every day! Justin of course was very pleased with the mess he created and was watching me the whole time I was cleaning with a smug grin on his face!

Funny thing is, he doesn't even like honey-garlic chicken. I think it was planned....

Good News!

Hey everyone! Thank you so much for all of your prayers for Justin! Well, we received some good news this morning from the Cardiologist team. They discovered after checking the pictures from his Angiagram yesterday that he has a problem with his Aorta where there is a tiny section that goes from the normal 6mm diameter of the vessel to 2mm and then back to 6mm where the blood is forced through. Other than that, his heart is in perfect shape! PTL!
His heart is working much harder on the left side to push that blood to his lower body so that is why he has the Dilated Cardiomyopathy condition.
The root of the problem is called coarctation of aorta and the good news is that it is treatable through surgery and other means.
The cardiologists haven't told us what they have decided to do in regards to the condition yet, but we will know later today. Justin is scheduled for surgery tomorrow at around 1:00 pm and will have to fast again before hand. Pls pray for wisdom in the doctors decision and that the Lord will guide every movement of the procedure.
Justin is doing awesome, he is happy as can be and is loving all the attention! I would love to post pics of him, but we can't at the moment. He is still just as boisterous as always, if not more so because of the extra fanfare and half hour visits by nurses and doctors.
We really feel that he is being upheld by all of your prayers, so keep them coming! Nat and I are doing good too, kinda going bonkers from the isolation, but at least we can leave the room one at a time from time to time. PTL!
The hospital here is amazing and the staff is unbelievably helpful and sweet! They are all heroes in my books!
The Lord is also doing huge miracles on our behalf in regards to the situation with Justins health care. As many of you may know, he is not yet covered by MSP and the ensuing bill for his stay here may be a crushing 70,000 CAN or more! The Lord is in control though and we received word yesterday from one of the many good samaritans that is going to bat for us that it appears that MSP will be able to cover all medical costs from Feb 4th on! What a miracle!!! We haven't received a final, but we are rejoicing already anyways!

Things to pray for:

That Justin will not react badly to the third session of sedatives and that the doctors will choose the perfect solution to fix the problem.

Against any complication or heavy bleeding so he won't have to get any blood transfusions.

For a speedy recovery after the surgery and that he won't have to take medications for the rest of his life!

Against Set and especially Sphinx who I am pretty sure are behind this problem! I am sure that there are plenty of keys out there to claim against those two!

Thanks again for all of your prayers!!

I am so thankful to the Lord that He helped the cardiologists find the cause of his heart condition, because quite often, they never find out what caused it and in this case, they are quite sure that his heart will return to normal size after his aorta is repaired! The Lord can do it!!

We love you all and miss you so much!

DCM

Justin's condition has been diagnosed as pediatric dilated cardiomyopathy. The Drs. don't know what may have caused it as there are lots of probabilities and they've been honest and told us we may never find out.

They're running more tests to rule some things out and see if he has any other treatable problems. Justin is on antibiotics to help his body fight off the infection that brought us here in the first place, and several medications to help strengthen his heart. Please pray that his body can accept the medications well as the sooner he does, the sooner we can go home.

One of the side effects of the antibiotics is diarrhea, and Justin also has a cold so please keep those minor problems in your prayers as well. A good thing is that the issue with there being fluid in his lungs has cleared up nicely, PTL!

Out of ICU!

Hi there! I wanted to post an update on Justin's situation as I don't know if all of you have been receiving the news I've been sending my family and home. First of all, we want to thank everyone for their prayers, notes of encouragement and the P&Ps you've received for us. They are a huge support to us!

To sum things up, the surgery went well, PTL, and the incision is healing very nicely. The Infectious Disease department has run a bunch of tests to determine what could have caused the lump on Justin's neck and so far all we know is that the infection itself was one of the most common in children (very encouraging as there was a possibility of it being Chagas or other more rare diseases) and they are presently treating it with both IV and oral antibiotics.

The morning after the surgery (Friday) Justin's breathing was very shallow and he had a fever, so they ran some tests and the Xray of his chest showed that his heart was very large and that he had fluid in his lungs. We were sent down to the ICU and spent the next 24 hours there while they ran a host of tests. Poor Justin had to be sedated as there was so much that needed to be done and Drs. from 4 different departments were working on him but thankfully we were told that he needed twice as much sedation as other toddlers which is a good sign as it means his body is strong and he was fighting off the sedatives. The Drs. are looking for the cause of the enlarged heart and trying to see if there is a conection between the lump on the neck and the large heart.

So far there doesn't seem to be a connection but we may never know the exact cause. We now have been transferred from the ICU to the Pediatric Ward which is a huge improvement, PTL. They are treating his heart with some medication and he is responding well to it. Justin has been very happy and active throughout this whole time so that's also a very good sign. We have a minimum of a week to 10 days here while they monitor his progress, run more tests to rule out other causes and wait for the results. Tomorrow (Tuesday) they may do a procedure on him to get pictures of his heart valves internally so please pray specifically that all goes well with that. It will be the 3rd time he's had to be put to sleep in less than a week.

Chris and I are very encouraged by all the Lord is doing for us. Of course being here isn't easy but we feel very supported by your prayers. We've been meeting some very nice people and have had a chance to talk to them about our faith. The Lord did a miracle and assigned the only Christian social worker in the Hospital to our case and he has really been going above and beyond to help us solve the bill which will come to a pretty overwhelming number. Please keep this in your prayers as the social workers here have succeeded in eliminating hospital bills in situations like ours. A very sweet Christian nurse is also on the day shift and we've spent quite a bit of time with her discussing Divine healing, the power of prayer and praise and reading a bit of the book Megashift with her.

Of course we do have bouts of discouragement, but we do believe that the Lord is working this whole situation for good. It's really a miracle that this happened when it did and we were able to catch the problem with Justin's heart before it became too severe. We were told that if you catch a heart problem before you actually see symptoms of it, the chances of it healing are much higher.

We still have a ways to go, but we're seeing improvement every day so we're very thankful for that. We probably will have several more tests to do so please pray that Justin takes well to them. He has very small veins so every time they have to test him it's a bit of a stressful procedure and just getting an IV in takes 4 to 5 tries.

We love you so much and can't tell you just how thankful we are for your prayers and encouragement.

Practicing extreme praise...

We just got back from taking Justin to a specialist. (We had the appointment with the sweet lady Dr. who prescribed more homeopathic medication for him but also said that if we didn't see improvements in 2 days we should take him to a specialist. The remedies didn't work as we'd hoped but thank the Lord, He supplied a free visit with the specialist this morning.)

It seems we need to take Justin to the hospital so they can drain the gland. The hospital here in Kamloops is having some problems with their operating room, so we have to take him to the Children's Hospital in Vancouver, which is 4 hours away. I also won't be able to breastfeed him for 4 hours before the surgery so please pray that Justin will handle that ok as he hasn't been eating anything solid. DV, they'll have the surgery this evening and possibly keep him in the hospital for a few days on antibiotics.

As you can imagine, this is a big trial for me as I hate having to spend any time at all in a hospital, especially with a child this young, so prayers for strength and encouragement for me are highly appreciated! I'm trying to stay positive and count my blessings through this whole experience.

We love you and are so thankful that you're all fighting with us in prayer! It's a relief to know we're not alone.

Update on Justin

Thank you so much for fighting with us in prayer for Justin's health. After a very frustrating week of calling everyone we knew and trying to get medical help for Justin to no avail, the Lord has done a miracle.

We were just about ready to give in and take Justin to the hospital and somehow pay the HUGE bill but decided to pray and ask the Lord about it one more time. Chris' sister Rose was with us and she remembered a Homeopathic Dr. she knew. We stopped by his office and he was out but Chris began explaining who we were and our problem to the receptionist. He was pretty desperate and said "I'm just looking for someone who will help us." To his surprise, the girl said "I'll help you!" It turns out that she's a Dr. and had just stepped out to answer the phone as the receptionist was already gone. She really liked our work in Mexico, told us to give Justin a homeopathic remedy over the weekend and bring him in on Monday for a checkup.

We're so thankful to the Lord for sending this angel to help us. As Rose said "You guys look like you're at the end of the tunnel, so the light is about to shine through!" PTL!

Please continue to pray that the swelling goes down over the weekend and that Justin will be completely healed. We love you! xxx

Please pray for Justin.

Hello! I've got so many pics to post but we've been a bit busy. I'm just writing a short post to let you all know how the tutle is doing.

As you know, his salivary gland is very swollen (it may have a stone plugging it). We took him in for a checkup and have been giving him an antibiotic. However, we're almost finished with the antibiotic round and the swelling hasn't gone down. Our options seem to be to take him in to the ER for them to pump more antibiotics into him with an IV drip or get surgery to drain the gland.

Besides being very unpleasant for Justin, we don't have the funds to cover a hospital bill for this procedure (which could come to several thousand dollars), so we wanted to ask you to please join us in prayer for Justin. We know the Lord can do a miracle and heal him!

We're also trying to find a good specialist who will give us a discount or agree to help us free of charge. We'd appreciate your support in prayer for this too!

Thank you so much! We love you!

Canada!

We're here! We had a very good trip (all things considered) and are enjoying our first few days in cold Canada. Well, it's cold to us (4 degrees) but here it is considered mild weather for this time of year.

When we arrived here we spent the night at a Hotel and they treated us SO well. All the staff signed handmade cards for us welcoming us back to Canada, they gave us an extra room with a crib free of charge so we'd be more confortable and sent us toys and snacks for the kids. The Lord really took good care of us!

Then we spent the weekend with Chris' family in Vancouver and the Lord supplied free tickets to the Aquarium! It was very interesting and of course, Ben LOVED it! (Once again, I can't get to the pics, but will post them as soon as I can.)

Now, we're in Kamloops, Chris' hometown, getting settled in and beggining our paperwork. Chris' family is so wonderful and taking such good care of us. The kids got to meet and play with their baby cousins and are very happy. We don't have any snow yet but I took them down to the shore of a frozen river that runs behind the house and they were so happy to play on it.

Ok, that ends my update. I love you all back home! Justin still has a swollen gland (we think it might be from his teething as he cut new 2 teeth on the trip) and Chris has a cold so please keep them in your prayers! Lots of love to you all!