Back from the land of Goshen, onward to Indy in the morning...

Hi everyone,

First let me wish you all a happy 4th of July. I thank God for the opportunity to live in a free country, and hope that it stays that way for generations and generations to come. A special thank you to all our men and women in the armed forces who protect these freedoms from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

And now, a quick update on our weekend and the next steps for little Levi...

Nate and Amy came up this weekend, and Nate and I got to go work with our CMA chapter at Hawg Waller for the weekend. It was nice to do a little camping, a little riding, and a lot of talking and hanging out with the crowd out there. We had a lot of good conversations, and I know seeds were planted. Amy and Steph hung out here at home with the kids, although they were able to sneak in a trip to the quilt shop on Saturday.

Levi was pretty ouchy this weekend, and decided that he didn't want to eat. We thought at first that it was because of some of the pain medicine he was on, so we stopped giving him the medicine and switched back to Tylenol and Motrin. But unfortunately it really didn't seem to help much. Today he had no interest in eating anything - about all we could get down him was some yogurt juice smoothie stuff. We decided to call our doctor at Riley to see what he thought, and after some confusion on their part on who they were paging and a few hours of waiting on our part, we finally spoke to the doctor. He thought we should get some IV fluids in him to prevent dehydration, so we took him up to E.R. at Goshen Hospital. We were up there for several hours; they performed a chest x-ray, hooked him up to an IV, and did bloood and urine tests. Everything came back ok except that his hemoglobin was low again. They discharged us and we made it back home around 10pm.

So... it looks like we're heading back down to Riley tomorrow morning. They want to see us at 10am, which means another short night and early morning. It sounds like they may give him another blood transfusion if his tests show low hemoglobin again. We should also get his biopsy test results back tomorrow (finally!). My guess is that he will be admitted, so we are going to pack for a stay and pray that it's unecessary.

Please keep us in your prayers. We are very tired, and tomorrow has the potential to be a stressful day. We are trusting God, and know that He will see us through this. During our church service out at the rally this weekend, our chaplain reminded us that God doesn't promise to deliver us from the fire, but rather promises to walk through the fire with us. I am reminded of the story of Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego in the book of Daniel in the Old Testament, and know that the fourth man in the fire is the same that will see us through this trial.

Thank you all for your prayers and support. A special thank you to our family - all of whom are making sacrifices to keep us company, calm our nerves, and watch our little Caylee Grace as we trek back and forth between hospitals and home. We love you all, and will keep you posted. Hopefully we can share results with you tomorrow.

Finally, the verse today that has given us comfort is this:

Psalm 46:10

He says, "Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth."

God bless,
Michael, Stephanie, Caylee, and little Levi