Tuesday June 5, 2007

Hello All,

Today has been a pretty good day for Julia. This morning we received a package from my sister Jodi's grade 3 (or 3rd grade) class. Julia knew about them this morning but wasn't wake enough to get through them. However, this evening when Julia's sister Leanne and I visited Julia to say good night, she was very much awake and had her eyes open for about 1 hour. We went through all the cards and they were such an encouragement for all of us. One reoccurring scripture passage the kids used was the Joshua 1:9 verse listed at the top of this blog. Indeed the Lord will be with us, where ever we go.

In regards to the baby steps taken today in Julia's health: the biggest answer to prayer has been the reduced dependence on oxygen. Currently she is on about 30%, which puts her pretty close to the normal oxygen levels (22% I believe they said). They hope to leave her on at this setting over night and see how it goes, and if things look the same in the morning, they will adjust the breathing machine to allow Julia to take more of her own breaths. If that goes well, they will look towards removing the tube. On the down side, they had attempted to start feeding her again into the stomach and decided later on in the day to run a new feeding tube to the small intestine. This tube has since gotten stuck and they have tried a few tricks to clear it (Ginger Ale and Coke!). We were unsure of the status of that when Leanne and I left. Julia had mentioned that she was hungry (a good sign) and that a popsicle sounded good! So getting the feeding tube working would be good, getting the breathing tube out would be better!

We were extremely grateful for Julia's interaction tonight. Julia, Leanne and I were catching up, asking lots of questions, and even joking around. It was a blessing for me to see Julia being Julia. Leanne and I were desperately trying to read her lips (since she has a breathing tube down past the vocal chords she can't speak) and when that failed, we were trying to read her hand writing :) That was mostly successful but resulted in a few laughs and some rolled eye balls on Julia's part as Leanne and I would try to guess what she was saying.

On behalf of Julia and I and all our family we would like to say thank you to all the people out there that are praying. We are overwhelmed by the stories we hear about the number of people that have Julia on their prayer list. Friends of friends of friends; all brothers and sisters in Christ. We can praise the Lord together in saying that he is faithful in hearing your prayers. I was struck by a small passage in Psalm 50 this morning that I shared with Julia: "call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me". I think that sums it up pretty well. It is my continued prayer that through trouble and deliverance, that God will be glorified and honored. Praise be to Him!