Tropical Updates....

We first want to praise the Lord in that my 92 year-old grandmother accepted Christ as her Saviour this past Sunday at our Bible Study! 

We have been praying for her for a long time and witnessed to her many times.  She comes faithfully to our Bible studies and has always acknowledged that I preach the truth.  But she has never wanted to accept Christ for salvation.  Her excuse has been one out of fear as she says, "I have always been Catholic and I must stay Catholic."   We praise the Lord that she has thrown away 'religion' and finally accepted the truth of God's Word!

As for Kami, there is nothing else to be done in Florida.  The doctors have said that she is extremely deficient in Vitamins D, C, & Iron.  (Depleted is more the word that they used.)  They have given her a prescription for high-dose Vitamins that she must take for 10 weeks.  Their hopes (and ours) is that her body will regain strength to fight against the problem that has been affecting her.

All of her blood tests have shown that she has a connective tissue vascular disorder.  They do not know to what extent nor what kind, but they do know that her body is attacking itself.  They want her to see a rhumatologist but it can take several weeks to get an appointment with one in Ft. Myers, FL.  

So we purchased a ticket for her to come back home this Friday.  There is a rhumatologist here on our island and when we get our finances back to a point where we can afford it, we will get Kami an appointment to see this doctor here.  

Thank you all for your prayers and continue to pray for her, our family, and the ministry here on St. Barthelemy...

Until next time...

Josh the Barber...He thinks he is Floyd from Andy Griffith!

Because Kami is in Florida (still trying to get answers from the doctors), we have lost our cook, laundry person, maid, nurse, wife, mommy, tucker-inner, and.....barber.

Needless to say, I haven't been able to get a haircut and I was well over due.  So I passed the hair clippers over to Joshua!

This was Josh's first attempt at ever trying a hair cut...and we forgot to pray first!

You know you might have made a wrong decision when your 16-year old son :

- has an "evil" laugh when he picks up the clippers

- says, "Dad, my specialty is a Buzz cut!"

- then says, "Dad, have you ever heard of a reverse Mo-Hawk...you know, shaved down the middle?"

- makes his first cut and says, "Oops...", then laughs

- calls his sister over to show her where he messed up...then her eyes get really big when she looks.

- he tries to get the other side to look like the first.

But all-in-all, I think he managed to do a great job...

Kami Update!

Kami received her results from the doctor today.  Her blood results showed that her RF factors were extremely elevated and so were her C-Reactive Protein levels.  All CT Scans and Ultrasounds came back without any major problems or life-threatening problems.   We praise the Lord for that!

However, she is still in much pain, extremely exhausted all the time, and to the point where even her skin hurts to touch it.

The doctor is referring her to a rhumatologist because her RF factors were so high.  A normal range is under 14, hers was a 70.  He did mention that her symptoms and blood work point in the direction of a connective tissue disorder...such as Lupus.

So our next step is getting an appointment with the rhumatologist.  Please be in continued prayer for her as she is still in so much pain and the pain killers don't seem to work for very long.

Until next time...

Life w/o Momma...

It has been over 9 days without Momma being here.  So we wanted to give you a glimpse into our life "sans" Momma !

- veggies...What are those?

- Clean laundry stays in the basket...just pull out what you need.

- Lot's of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" to figure out who gets the worst chores.

- Cookies...Great breakfast food!

- Grocery shopping for the week done in 39 minutes !

- Lot's of running back to the grocery store to get what you forgot to buy.

- Walking into the bedroom to find throw-up all over daddy's pillow...hot dog chunks are so gross!

- Late bedtimes & sleepy kids in the mornings.

- Running to Mariane & George's house to fill up on chocolates, ice cream, & cokes!

- At least 1 sugar filled pitcher of ice tea per day!

- Lots of old Westerns & little kids (including Josh) running around shooting everyone with their toy pistols.

- A 4 year-old & 2 year-old trying to teach daddy the song mommy sings when she tucks them in at night.

- If the little kids don't look dirty...give 'em a bath tomorrow.

- Some miserable looking family members who miss the "Momma".

As for Kami, we switched doctors today and the new doctor was very concerned with Kami's symptoms that he gave her a steroid in the case that her problem was chronic pleurisy caused by a virus.  Then he scheduled a different CT Scan to look for any clots or embolisms in her lungs, arteries and legs.  Then she will have an echo cardiogram to check her heart and arteries for any possible blockage, clots and stuff like that.  He was very concerned that she has been in such pain and discomfort for so long and he wants to move as quickly as possible.    She starts taking the steroids this evening and the doctor said that if her problem is chronic pleurisy, she should have some relief in 2-3 days.  She will have the other tests done first thing on Monday and will get the results on Thursday.  

Please keep praying for her.

Until next time...

Micah's Birthday...

Due to the fact that we needed to get Kami back to the states in a hurry, she & Micah traveled on his 1st birthday last Thursday.  It is kind of ironic that Micah would be going back to the very house that he was born in 1 year ago!

So as we scrambled around getting things packed to leave out on Wednesday afternoon, Elisabeth baked a quick birthday cake for Micah.  We quickly celebrated Micah's birthday, cleaned him up and then headed out the door to get on a boat to travel to St. Martin.

The time sure does pass quickly!  He is already 1 and yet our oldest turns 17 this year!

I think he liked his cake!

He loves being able to walk every where and is even learning to run...although sometimes he doesn't quite know how to stop!

As far as Kami goes, she has been able to sleep and rest for most of the weekend.  When I talked with her on Sunday evening, she said that she had a little more energy after so much rest but the pain and pressure were still as strong as has been.  She will be calling the doctor today to see if the results from the blood work has come in.  If they have, she will try to get into his office this afternoon instead of waiting until tomorrow afternoon for her scheduled appointment.

Until next time...

Nothing until next week...

Kami had her doctor's appointment today and the doctor didn't have any idea as to what the cause of Kami's symptoms is.  So she had another slew of blood tests and has another appointment to go over the results of the blood work on Tuesday afternoon.

He also didn't want to give Kami any pain medication because he didn't want any medicines to adversely affect the cause of the pain/pressure in her chest.  He would like to be sure of the problem so that he can know exactly which medicines to give her that won't hurt her.

Please continue to pray for her.

Until next Tuesday...

Sending Kami Back...

We finally reached a point where we have "exhausted" all of our medical resources here on our island and Kami is doing worse with each passing day.  Her chest pressure has intensified to include chest pains and she even seems to be getting weaker.

With broken hearts, Kami and I traveled to St. Martin last night to be able to get her to the airport at 6 a.m. today (Thursday).  She boarded a flight with Micah and headed to Miami.   Her mom and sister met them at the airport and Kami has a doctor's appointment scheduled for 7 a.m. tomorrow.  

We currently do not have any time-table as to what will happen next but we do covet your prayers. 

Thank you all.

Until next time...  

Kami Update...

Kami had her CT Scan done on St. Martin last Thursday.  So we headed up to the radiology department at the hospital to pick up the results.  We then waited in the ER outside waiting-area....for 6 hours...for the doctor to look over the results and give us the next plan of action.

We praise the Lord that the results came back negative for any tumors and cancers.  She did have two damaged vertebrae, a lesion on her liver, and a cyst.  But none of these were too much of a concern to the doctor.  (Although he did say the vertebrae needed some attention in the future.)

He is still concerned as to what caused her ESR's to be elevated on her blood work and he is determined to find the answer to her intense chest pressure and pain.   So he sent the images of her CT Scan to a fellow doctor at a University to be researched further.  Kami also had some more blood work done this morning (Tuesday) that will be sent to France.  We will get the results next week.

So as for now, we are still waiting and Kami is dealing with the discomfort as best as she can.

Until next time...

Kami's CT Scan

After Kami's X-Rays, she returned to the ER to have the doctor examine the x-rays.  After he looked at them very carefully, he determined that there is no separation of the lungs in any way from the chest wall...so this rules out the problems stemming from her lungs.

He did seem concerned that the ESR's were high on her blood work and had us schedule a CT Scan for tomorrow (April 5th) at 10:30 A.M.   We have purchased a plane ticket for Kami to travel to the hospital on St. Martin to have this scan done.  She also had to go to the pharmacy to purchase the dye that will be injected into her for the scan.  She must take this dye with her and deliver it to the hospital for her appointment...kinda weird doing it this way!

The doctor is specifically looking for three things: 1)He wants to check out her organs such as her liver to see if they are fine. 2)He wants to check her lymph nodes 3)He wants to check for any tumors.  Our prayer is that the CT Scan will not show anything serious, so please be praying with us.  We should know the results be the beginning of next week.

As for Kami, she tries to cover the fact that the pressure in her chest and neck are more intense and she is having some difficulty in taking deep breaths.  

We covet your prayers for her and for the doctors who need wisdom and direction to find out exactly what the problem is...

Kami update....

Since my last post about Kami's health problems, we have at least ruled out any immediate life-threatening diagnosis.  Which we praise the Lord for!

Kami has seen a general doctor here on the island who examined Kami, ordered blood work, and then sent Kami to an Osteopath doctor on Friday.  The Osteopath checked Kami out extensively and ruled out any muscular problems.  So basically, we at least know that her problem isn't muscular.

After praying and asking the Lord to provide someone to help us, I received an email from a very special lady in Florida.  She is an ER doctor and what a blessing she has been.  Mrs. Debbie has been helping us to develop a plan and has been giving us a direction to work towards in finding the cause of Kami's chest pressure/shortness of breath. 

We have completed two new blood tests that ruled out blood clots and heart attack...so we praise the Lord for that as well.  Then we took Kami to the ER on Sunday evening.  She was getting worse, was having difficulty breathing, and just looked pale.  The ER doctor did an ECG and an ultrasound of Kami's lungs, chest, and arteries and all came back fine.  He told us that the problem is not life-threatening at this moment and that took a load off of our minds and hearts.

This morning, we are taking Kami to the Hospital for X-Rays to rule out a separated lung and to look for any other possible problems.  We will also look to schedule an appointment with the cardiologist that comes to St. Barths twice per month.  

We will keep you informed as to what the results are...Thank you for praying!

Until next time...