Luke had another heart scan this last Wednesday, showing no significant changes from last Friday, when he had to be seen at the hospital, or from the scan a week and half before that. Both his doctor and Sunny and I are now becoming confident that he has left the “acute” phase of this disease, when further damage is occurring to his heart, and that he is now in the healing phase. This takes quite a burden off of us and helps us breathe a bit easier.

If you were to see Luke now, you would see a happy boy with his normal energy and exuberance. You would notice his cheeks are still a bit puffy, a side-effect of the steroids, which is going away, albeit very slowly. You’d also notice Sunny and I constantly telling him to slow down. He is not allowed to have any level of aerobic activity, but he desperately wants to run, jump, climb, etc…For now, he is handling these severe restrictions well, though we have had to be creative in coming up with activities that don’t involve any physical exertion.

So then, is Luke “better?” We are asked all the time if Luke is feeling better, and I’m often not sure what to say. Yes, Luke probably feels fine, and he basically looks normal. However, his heart is still sick. He has “large” aneurysms which currently require him to take blood thinning drugs to ensure proper blood supply to his heart. Will these aneurysms heal? The short answer is…maybe. They will certainly change. The doctors expect them to get smaller, and Luke will also grow bigger. Our hope is that they will ultimately become a very manageable size—if not normal—so that Luke will no longer have to take special medication or be activity restricted. There are two concerns: one that they don’t reduce in size enough, one that they reduce too much. This process takes time. We will not have a better understanding of how Luke’s heart is changing for probably 6 months, maybe 1 year.

So, we anticipate that this will be our last Caring Bridge journal entry for a while. We don’t want to continue to update this journal with “no change” over and over again, and our family no longer feels like it is in “crisis.” We remain concerned, and honestly somewhat stressed out…but overall, we are hopeful and are trusting God that He will heal Luke in His time.

Before I close, I must relate a story about one good thing that has resulted from Luke’s illness. Luke became very traumatized by needles during his ~3 weeks in the hospital. He would cry, shake, and scream during the frequent “poking.” But, in the midst of these traumatic moments, he started to learn how to pray and get strength from faith in God. After he got out of the hospital, his frequent “pokes” continued, as he had to have blood drawn often to manage his medication. We continued to coach him about trusting God and having faith, and…I think you would be shocked to see him get his blood drawn now. The last time I took him to the lab, he prayed all the way there in the car, then joyfully bounded into the waiting room, playing games with me until his name was called. He said “hi” to all the nurses, then proceeded to actually coach the blood draw technician through the procedure: “First, you need to put the band around my arm, then rub my arm with alcohol to take the ‘hurties’ away…” He turned his face and tensed up slightly as they put the needle in, but then he said “thank you” to them when it was over. If you asked him, “were you brave?” he would say, “no, I wasn’t brave, but God made me brave.” So Luke is learning to have faith, and learning to pray, and learning to trust God in tough times. Though I would choose to teach him these lessons some other way in different circumstances, I’m not sure how he could learn this if it weren’t for such scary situations for him.

Thank you all for your interest, your on-going concern, your help and service, and your prayers. Please continue to pray that Luke’s heart would heal, and please feel free to ask us how Luke is doing anytime. We will continue to update this site, but only when something very significant occurs, which may not be for several months. Following the lead of some of our other friends, we’re starting a family web page to provide recent pictures and updates on our whole family. We’d love for you to visit and bookmark our site, though it’s still being constructed. The address is www.5catons.blogspot.com.