Sunday #3 4/7/2013

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.  Isaiah 53:5

Today has been a pretty good day for Carter.  Yesterday we stopped feeding him through his feeding tube because he was vomiting so much.  The vomiting stopped overnight and we decided to try to feed him again this morning.  We are currently feeding him Pedialyte at a measly 5ml and hour, but he is tolerating it.  We are extremely encouraged at how well he has done with it.  Carter's oxygen is turned off right now and he is doing great.  We will see how he does tonight while he is sleeping.  If he does good tonight we will remove his oxygen completely.  We are extremely happy about this!  His lung health seems to really be improving.  Carter's lab work also looked much better this morning.  It was so much better that they were able to take him off of Neutropenic Precautions today.  

Some of his blood work still looked a little funny so they consulted for a Hematologist to come see us today.  The Hematologist evaluated all of Carter's blood work and also his blood clot.  She thinks there may be some nutritional issues causing some of Carter's blood levels to be low.  We will have more testing and address these issues later in our stay.  We talked about options to deal with the blood clot.  The only option that we feel Carter could benefit from would be to put a filter in.  We will reconsider all of our options tomorrow after the second ultrasound is performed. We are praying the blood clot will be gone and we will not have to worry about it anymore.

Tomorrow will be a busy day for Carter.  Anesthesia is going to evaluate him again to decide if he will be able to be sedated to have the GJ tube placed.  He will have more blood work and a chest x-ray done also.  They will also repeat the ultrasound of the blood clot.  God heard our prayers and allowed Carter to sleep peacefully for most of the day. 

 I know I have said this many times, but I have no idea how God did it.  Knowing all that Jesus would face had to be more than heartbreaking.  Not being able to hold Carter and for him to not understand why he is hurting or why he can not get out of the bed is absolutely breaking our hearts.  As a parent, you want to be the ultimate protector of your child.  We want to make everything all better.  Right now, we can not do that for Carter.  We can push his pain pump when he is hurting or make sure the Doctor's are checking into the right things for him, but ultimately we can not heal his little body.  We can not make all of the ouches go away.  We can wipe his tears, but we can not take the pain away.  All we can do is pray and rely on God to give Carter comfort and the understanding that it will not be like this forever.  But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.  Isaiah 53:5 We are so thankful we have such a strong support system to get us through times like this.  Thank you all so much for all of your prayers, text, phone calls, messages and the awesome pictures showing your support for Carter.  All of these things make this stay so much easier.  We are truly blessed.  As always... To Him be the Glory!