Exhaustion Setting In

Growing up with Amy, I can personally attest to her strength, determination, and ability to stay focused and keep her eye on the prize. Even though she’s younger than I am, and about 4 feet shorter, I really look up to her spiritually and lean on her (sometimes physically) for her strength.

It has been two weeks since David was first taken to ER on Christmas day, and Amy has stayed strong and resilient through all of this time. She has kept on top of notifying everyone through her Facebook posts and on this site, and hasn’t really skipped a beat. Talking to her, you wouldn’t know she’s experiencing any struggles or trials.

To give her a little break and allow her to rest, the following is an update from yesterday. It won’t be as wonderfully written as her updates, and it isn’t necessarily coming from the horses mouth, but there are so many who are following David’s story, I wanted to make sure everyone was aware of what’s happening.

In short, David is doing amazingly well. Amy spent most of the day on the phone with insurance, trying to figure out what went wrong when they were supposed to transition to the new insurance on January 1 (for some reason, the insurance company had a start date of February 1), and that has been mostly squared away.

David’s sodium levels are still really low, and took a slight drop yesterday. He continues to be on liquid restrictions (although you may have noticed he uber’d some coffee this morning, tsk tsk) to try to get those levels up, but his kidneys don’t seem to want to cooperate with the medical team.

They met with Dr. Kumar yesterday afternoon. He took a look at David’s head and said he was very pleased with how it is healing and how well the swelling is going down. He offered to put the bone flap back on, but it does come with some risks. If they put the bone flap back on and the cancer resurfaces in his brain, they’ll need to remove it again anyway, but on the flip side, David wouldn’t need to wear a helmet anytime he wants to get out of bed. Putting it back in also means David would be spending more time in the hospital, and any additional time spent in the hospital equals a delay in beginning immunotherapy in the event genetic testing on the cancer comes back favorable. At this point, Amy and David are so sick of hospital life and they just want to come home. They have made a decision on the bone flap, but since this is an update for yesterday, I’m not going to tell you what it is – you’ll have to wait for the update Amy posts for today 🙂

The biggest thing they’re waiting on is the genetic testing. The results of that testing will lead the medical care team to an official prognosis and give better direction for treatment. Results for that should be coming today (Wednesday), but it could be delayed.

One huge relief to the family is that Ethan got his CF vest today! No more manual pats – and it turns out that the shaking vest puts him right to sleep!!

Prayer Requests:

• Please pray for the complete healing of David’s body
• Pray and give thanks for the amazing medical team looking after David now
• Pray that all anxiety would be calmed and decisions can be made with prayer and a clear mind
• A little selfish, but pray for the family watching over the kids right now. That God would give them restful sleep and they would have patience with the kids and one another.

Thank you all for your continued support financially and through prayer. Every day that ticks by is a blessing from God and we are so thankful that so many of you are thinking and watching out for the family.