Kicking a Guy When He's Down

(Re-posting our latest Caring Bridge entry)

While Andrea and I were out running around today trying to get the house back in order enough to move back, my folks were gracious enough to watch Daniel for us for much of the day.  Unfortunately, while I was out and about, I got a call from Daniel's grandparents that he had fallen in the house and injured his back again.  I couldn't tell how bad it was over the phone, but clearly he didn't want to move and was asking for me to come home to help him get to the bathroom.  Luckily, I wasn't that far away! 

His back injuries of course, are what started us down this whole road about 2 years ago leading to the initial diagnosis of Juvenile Osteoporosis - an extremely rare disease in children.  It took nearly a year and 6 different doctors to get him diagnosed correctly and on the right treatments for that.  But when we realized that he wasn't growing or putting on weight and seeming to grow more and more lethargic, we began seeking additional help. Clearly the osteoporosis wasn't the whole story.  A year later, here we are with leukemia and we're STILL not certain we've gotten to the bottom of things.

His bones were responding well to the osteoporosis medication, but now that were on chemotherapy, one of its side effects is that it can again lower his bone density.  In fact, the medication he has been on for the osteoporosis is often given to leukemia patients anyway for precisely this reason.  So we have no idea what shape his bone density is in at the moment and to have another back injury like this really a complication we just don't need.  Previously, he'd actually had a number of compression fractures in his spine that helped lead to the correct diagnosis (once we found a doctor that could actually read an X-ray ... but don't get me started on that!)

He's resting well now and a combination of ice, heat, and Tylenol with Codeine seems to have done the trick for the moment.  Tomorrow will likely tell a clearer tale.

Daniel has really been struggling with depression lately and it's difficult to get him to talk about his feelings ... but I keep prying.  Today's "insult" certainly didn't help.  But it did give me the opportunity to open the subject more and have a good talk with him about keeping our joy and peace even in the midst of trials.  We talked about taking every thought captive, about the peace of God and how it's different from the peace the world offers, and about not letting the devil, or circumstances steal our joy ... or any other of the Spirit's fruits from us.  It seemed to cheer him up a lot and we talked and laughed for a good 1/2 hour or 45 minutes.  Then he went straight to sleep and is now resting soundly.  A real blessing to see after seeing him struggle so much recently to get even a few hours of sleep.

Andrea returned home just a few minutes ago from cleaning at the house all day long.  She's completely beat. A HUGE THANK YOU to our two friends who were able to drop by today for a few hours to help. Your generosity is GREATLY appreciated! 

I had hoped to be able to get us back into the house by the end of this weekend, but the situation just hasn't quite worked out.  We're getting closer, but there's a lot left to do just to satisfy me that things are CLEAN enough for Daniel's severely compromised immune system.  But we're closer and my wonderful folks have been extremely patient in letting us stay with them while the house is under construction.  We certainly couldn't get through this without all the wonderful friends and family around us.

Thank you all for your prayers and continued support.  We continue to solicit and value your prayers the most.  Please pray for:
1. Daniel's continued recovery and lessened effects from the chemo drugs.
2. A quick recovery from today's back injury
3. That he (and all of us) continues to keep a positive attitude and trust in the Lord for the future - focusing here and now on peace and joy rather than negativity and despair
4. That my and especially Andrea's health would hold out while our lives are so disrupted as we try to get the house back in order and get back to some level of "normalcy" as soon as possible
5. Our finances.