It has been a while since I last updated. I’ve taken some time to reflect on a lot of different things and have taken a break from updating…well, I’ve really just simply refrained from updating. I’m not going to update on “us” right now, but I need you to pray for the following prayer requests below. Please join us in praying for the following families:
www.caringbridge.org/visit/oliviahartig Please pray for 9 month old Livy Hartig. She is in the hospital and needs everyone’s prayers right now. She is running a dangerously high fever that is not breaking with medicines, has rashes and hives on her body, has ulcers in her tonsils, her arm has a breakage in the skin and is bleeding, and she is also fighting an urinary tract infection. Please pray that she does not have a seizure/seizures from the high fever, that the doctors will be able to figure out what is going on with little Livy and treat her accordingly and successfully, and that this little baby’s suffering will stop. Please pray for Livy’s parents and her two older (yet very young – preschool age’d) brothers.
www.caringbridge.org/visit/ladybug Please pray for the Pritchett family, as their daughter, Morgan, just lost her battle with DIPG and is now in heaven. After Matthew’s diagnosis with his brainstem tumor, I researched for hours on end and other people gave me carepages/caringbridge websites of other children with brain tumors or other forms of pediatric cancer. From those websites, I stumbled upon the website for “ladybug” within just a week or two of Matthew’s dx (though she was dx about 6 months prior to Matthew’s dx). I have been following Morgan’s website for over 14 months, and though I’ve never met this family face to face, I have kept up with the website updates and Morgan... I am at a loss of words to express the sadness I feel for this family as they grieve their little girl. Please pray for them.
Andrew: Our buddy, Andrew, and his family, www.caringbridge.org/visit/aws , are another family I stumbled upon in my searching. We have had the blessing of being able to meet this one family, of the many I follow through caringbridge/carepages, face-to-face in Michigan when visiting Rob’s parents last year. Please continue to pray for this awesome family as they continue to battle alongside Andrew in his fight against DIPG.
July 13th: Through Sandy (Andrew’s mommy), I began praying for Caleb and Kim and the Spadey family - www.carepages.com (keepingupwithcaleb). Caleb’s mommy, Kim, is a breast cancer survivor and is now fighting another cancer battle with her recent diagnosis of colon cancer. Please pray for Kim’s fight against colon cancer, her son, Caleb, and his fight against DIPG as his last MRI showed tumor progression, and their family. Kim is scheduled to have a portion of her colon removed on July 13th (next Monday).
Great Gran: On the topic of colon cancer, please continue praying for Matthew’s “Great Gran” (my grandmother), as she too has colon cancer. Her surgery to remove a portion of the cancer with part of her colon went well. She is now at home, after weeks of recovery and rehabilitation therapies. Unfortunately, Great Gran is still not feeling well…feeling “anemic” she told me over our camping trip last weekend to the Clemson area. Please pray/continue to pray for Great Gran! Please pray that she would get to feeling better and for God’s healing.
July 9th: Please pray for Trevor Tredaway, www.caringbridge.org/visit/trevortredaway , as he has a MRI on July 9th (this Thursday). Please pray for the tumors in his spine and brain to be GONE, and for God to continue keeping his severe pain away.
July 6th: Please pray for Matthew’s “Poppy”. He is suffering from excruciating pain in his joints and the doctors cannot figure out what is going on with him, though all the women in his family (all nurses/soon-to-be nurses) have diagnosed him with PMR due to his blood work results and elevated levels. He sees a Rheumatologist on Monday. Please pray for this appointment on Monday in the a.m. and that God’s hand would lead, guide, and direct the Rheumatologist as he examines my dad and tries to figure out why he has been unable to move without excruciating pain, why his large muscle joints are so severely inflamed, and what medications dad needs to go on to get his quality of life back to what it used to be (he’s a black belt in Aikido – Japanese Martial Arts, so he is super physically fit for being an “old geezer” – his words, not mine! lol!)
Our friend: And as if this isn’t enough to keep you busy for hours praying, please pray for a very dear friend of mine. I met her soon after we first moved to Charleston…she’s a beautiful Christian mommy of four precious little ones. She has been ill over the past 7 weeks or so and cannot seem to shake whatever it is that is going on. She has MVP (where one of her heart valves does not close all the way), but does not think this illness is related to the MVP…just not sure what is going on! Please pray for healing and restoration of health for our friend and her wonderful family (I’m leaving out her name for privacy purposes, but God knows who she is). Thank you so much!
I will update later on with our family/reflections over the 1 year anniversary since Matthew’s diagnosis on April 30th...this update is not the right timing for this to be shared, so I will save this for another day…
Matthew: Matthew is doing just fine as long as he stays upright. His head is still growing at an abnormally large rate, but the hair-style, I make sure he has, keeps this from being too incredibly obvious to others (or so I’ve been told…). I love the “long hair” look on him regardless (verses the buzz cut look which really draws attention to his abnormal head shape for a 3-year-old as well as exposing the permanent indentation at the top of his forehead from a fall he had almost 2 years ago)... Jesus had long hair, so I really don't see a problem with guys having long hair... Plus, getting to run my fingers through his sandy blonde hair that curls at the ends is just simply the best!
The problem with the abnormally large head is Matthew's low muscle tone. Though he is in therapies 2x per week (once for physical therapy and once for occupational therapy), his upper body strength is still not enough to keep his big ole’ melon from hitting the ground each time he falls. Other than the development of hydrocephaly and tumor growth, this (Matthew not being able to keep his head from hitting the ground each time he falls, which could result in brain injury just depending on how hard he hits and where the brain is damaged due to the fall) is our main concern at this point in time.
On a side note here, in comparison with all the above prayer requests, Matthew is doing just fine. In fact, if you really want to look at this from a different perspective, take a look at the DIPG world…in the DIPG world, this doesn’t even touch on the types of concerns they have for their children… Therefore, I, in some ways, feel silly even having this be a concern; yet, in other ways, it is a true concern for us, having a rough and tumble 3-year-old that hits the ground so incredibly hard with his head when mom just isn’t quick enough or close enough to catch him…more to come on this and how God is working on me and my perspectives on life and all within life (once He leads me to post an update on this)…
A short update on our family: we are all doing fine and we are enjoying our summer by going on various trips out of town to visit friends and family, having friends and family come to visit us, and playing at the local beaches, water parks (thanks to great friends with water park passes), and friends’ houses/pools for play dates. We have an unspoken praise for Rob’s work and some unspoken prayer requests for his work week this week. Please keep Rob, our family, and his work in your prayers.
Thank you for your time and your prayer. Hope you all had a Happy 4th!
With love,
Kady
