Ups and Downs

Good morning, Friends,

Each day is a new adventure!

On Thursday Jayden had his biopsy. The procedure went very well; however, that same day he had began breathing really hard and his oxygen saturation went down. The doctor took a lung X-ray, but that revealed no problems. The doctor also did some blood work on Jayden and those tests showed that his platlette (not sure how that is spelled) level was low and that he was still anemic. They took more samples from him to study the cultures to see if he had some sort of infection. In the meantime, they gave him another blood transfusion.

As of yesterday, the cultures showed nothing. We'll see today if anything has grown over the last 24 hours. His platlette level increased, but not as much as the doctor wanted, so Jayden received another blood transfusion yesterday. The blood transfusions are causing him to retain a lot of fluid in his little body, which may be the cause of his breathing difficulties. They are giving him diaretics to help him pass that liquid, and as of yesterday evening he had lost 3 ounces of fluids. He was breathing MUCH better after that.

He now weighs about 3 pounds and 5 ounces. Of course, it all depends on how much fluid he's retaining!! However, he is growing consistently. He is also now keeping down the milk. He's getting 6 cc's of milk every 3 hours!!! That's his personal best! He is having trouble having bowel movements, which is of some concern. At this point he's having some help moving things along! :) However, he needs to start doing that on his own!

Yesterday the nurse also informed me that he is maintaining his body temperature on his own! The incubator was set to the lowest temperature and he was still able to keep his temperature regulated!! That means he will soon be moving out of the incubator into what the nurses call a "big boy bed." I'm sooooo excited about that! Once he moves to that bed, I'll be able to hold him as much as I want because we won't have to worry about him getting cold. I'm looking foward to that a lot.

Thanks for your continued prayers. I'm learning that one day may be rough, but the next day may be smooth sailing. It's rough on the emotions, but the good days are like a breath of fresh air after the bad days.

Please pray for Gerson. This morning (at the time I'm typing this) he is in his pre-defense in Bolivia. As of last night, he was still trying to tie up loose ends concerning the equipment he needed for his power point presentation. He took our laptop, but he was missing a cable to make it work with the projector he has at his disposal. I don't know how it has all turned out, but am trusting that the Lord provided for him. Gerson sounded very tired last night and had spent HOURS walking around Santa Cruz looking for that missing cable, only to be unable to find it. He was pretty discouraged. So, do continue to pray for him. He has his final defense on Monday morning.

Thanks, again, for your prayers, emails, phone calls, words of encouragement, Scripture verses, and overall love and support. We can feel it! We love and appreciate all of you!