First, let me say that it's great to be a child of God. Second, let me say that I am so glad to be an American.
I asked for prayer in a previous post today. Let me tell you what's going on.
Last night when we got home from the airport, we got to say hello to Eli (our youngest child) who had waited at home with Nana while we got picked up from the airport. When I saw him I knew something was wrong because he was as white as a ghost. His lips were white. His tongue was white. Not color in nailbeds, etc. I was so sick myself though that I thought that maybe he was just really tired and maybe he was cold. I said hello to him and hugged him and Mary took him to bed so we didn't really think much more about it.
This morning, we were more coherent and when we saw him again we knew that he needed to see the doctor just in case. The earliest appointment we could get was 2:45 so since the kids were out of school (I had been to the doctor early this morning and was sent to bed to rest on my medications), I decided that we really needed to do something with them til lunch and then I'd come home and rest. So we went to Home Depot to get a couple of swings to replace the ones that are broken on our swing set (since the kids love to be outside so much and Micah will LOVE swinging!). Then we went to Walmart to get a television. Our television went out the week after we left for Ukraine (SORRY NANA!). Sidenote before you ask: No, we don't use the television as a baby sitter. Yes, Eli LOVES to watch Miss Patty Cake and Barney. Yes the new kids seemed to like that too when we let them watch it on my computer in Ukraine. Yes, I need my wife to be SANE and to be able to let the kids watch something so she can take a breath every now and again. Okay…enough justifying. 🙂 🙂 How did I get on that subject anyway? Maybe lack of sleep and strong medications. Argh…
But I digress. Where I was trying to get to was that the couple of hours we were out, Eli didn't get any better. He wasn't sick, per se. There are no symptoms except the lack of color and fatigue/lethargy.
So Mary took him to the doctor and I stayed home and rested with the other kids. (Matthew and Micah took naps today! And another side note is that they are asleep right now too! The go down pretty easily.) She called me and said she had to go to the hospital to get a blood workup because our doctor took one look at him and said he is severely anemic. Before Mary could get home from that, the doctor had called me at home (it's never good when the lab calls the doctor and he calls you before you can get home from the lab since it's only 20 minutes away) to tell me that his hemoglobin should be at 10 and it's at 3.5 and that he must get into the hospital to see a hemotologist immediately. He called back after Mary got home and we got our instructions for admittance and he then told us that he may be near congestive heart failure because of the lowness of the count. He told us that there are two things that might be causing this. 1. He could be bleeding internally. 2. He could have Leukemia.
Well, Mary and I became sobbing basket cases when we got up to the bedroom by ourselves. We called in help and off we went to the hospital. The hemotologist came in right after I left (isn't that the way it always happens?). They began doing transfusions about 15 minutes ago and will continue them through the night and throughout tomorrow to try to get his counts back up to at least 8. Then we'll move on from there after he's stable.
Our prayer is that God's grace will meet us where ever we find ourselves. The desire of our hearts is, of course, that whatever happens, Eli will be spared. Please pray with us. Thank you dear ones. PS>>>I'm feeling almost human again and hope to be that much better again tomorrow. Thanks for praying.