As our family came back from England and spent Christmas and time with family and friends over December, we worked on trying to complete our fundraising, said good-byes and were on our way to what we thought would be our final weeks in Houston packing up and sorting through leaving details to move to Kabale, Uganda.
It was the last week in January and we were in our final visit with our community in Waco-struggling to pack in six years of relationships in one week--too little time and yet, we needed to get moving.
We noticed on the second day of our visit that Emma Shae had some bruising. My first thought was that Micah had been getting her in the back of the van or something. The next day after a night of fun at Chick Fil A playground, she was looking pretty bad. Thankfully, we were planning to visit Aaron's old office anyway, so tests were ordered and in the midst of visiting friends at the clinic, appointments were made for Emma Shae. To our surprise, her blood platelets test came back pretty low. Friends were coming off the elevator and other friends gathered around to pray for us and for Emma Shae--seems that God knew and had it all in place.
And that has been the story unfolding. God knows and in our "wait", He is at work--for His plans, but also for our good. So, we still live in a small state of shock--I never thought we would live in the Dallas area, but here we are and honestly, we can see it is good!
It has been a full 4 months, so I want to just do this in timeline format to catch up and then other posts will have some stories and pictures.
Normal Blood Platelet levels at minimum are 150,00
January 20 First appointment and possible diagnosis for Emma Shae of ITP
January 23 Go for special prayer time at our church
January 28 First appointment with hematologist in Houston at the Texas Children's Hospital--counts have gone up, but we were cautioned that this is an unpredictable condition that will go up and down
Wendy's brother happens to be a pediatric oncologist/hematologist and he helped by setting up an appointment with a specialist in Houston. The Dr. we saw is considered an expert in ITP and he confirmed that Emma Shae could not travel to Uganda, get immunizations or take malaria medicine until her condition resolves.
February 3 Travel to Dallas area to visit the Hines, our teammates
This visit turned out to be exploring possibilities of living in the area
February 5 Make contact with First Baptist Garland who graciously allows us to stay in their missionary house
February 7 Move into new house
February 8 enroll kids in local school--Caldwell Elementary--go Cardinal's!
February 14 take Emma Shae to ER with gushing nose bleed
February 18 First appointment in Dallas at Texas Children's Center, another place in the U.S. where there is an ITP expert! Her counts had dipped to 14,000--low and that combined with a low hemoglobin level, led the Dr. to consider a bone marrow biopsy the following week to make sure nothing was going on in bone marrow
February 20 Folks from Transformation, the Hines' senior's church come to pray for Emma Shae at our house
February 22 Emma Shae's counts went up to 144,000! Bone marrow biopsy avoided! Total miracle!
March 4 Blood platelets counts go back down to 80,000
March 25 Counts go up to 90,000
So, next appointment is May 6th and we'll see. Dr. said an interesting thing-- her body shows that she CAN do it, but isn't for whatever reason. Also, the recent trend seems to be slowly on the rise. We have seen amazing provision--with my brother's expertise and counsel, with housing, with unexpected team time and on and on!
It has been an intense time. Sometimes, it feels so normal and right that we are here--lovely house, church, school, community, but then it hits that this is temporary and a short stop on the way. We are all being stretched, but also experiencing growth in our relationships, character and flexibility! It is surreal to work on final preparations for leaving without a firm leaving date. On another note, the kids are doing amazingly well--even Emma Shae! She has no pain or other symptoms, although we can see signs that her counts are dipping, it comes and goes. They are all thriving in their schools and enjoying their special friendships with their teammates. We have not plugged in as much with school friendships outside of school, but they have met some nice kids in their classes. The area we live in is predominantly Hispanic, so that has been a super blessing to experience cross cultural living --Micah and Emma Shae are minorities at their school and we can go into restaurants or stores here where only Spanish is spoken! That has been awesome!!!
Because the house is promised to another family in May, we are leaving May 1st--again, our friend Janie at the church has been our advocate and God is using her to encourage us greatly--she found us another place. More on that later. We will finish out school and then go to a cross cultural training in Colorado with our teammates. It will be for three weeks and then, at this point, we have no idea what comes next (but hope to be cleared for Uganda)! We are really excited about the Colorado training because they will facilitate us as a team, including the children.
So, that is four months in a long nutshell!!
p.s. Throughout this process, we have carried in our hearts several friends who are in the middle of their own severe health trials and don't know the outcome--so, personally, I, Wendy have pictured myself running this leg of the race and have written their names on my tag--Susan, Brandon and Erin. I pray for them as I pray for Emma Shae and I am running hard, learning endurance and faithfulness and keeping them close in my heart as they run their races. It is an honor to stand with them and fight the good fight of faith!
I have no idea what these are--pygmy big horn sheep??? I asked this kid who was walking by me and he said deeply, "I think they are called rams." Thanks. He probably thought I am an idiot.
In with the rams is a random donkey--see, right in the middle of the concrete jungle, we get this!
