{pray please}

That sweet Roy can get out of the hospital. 

Corey graduates Saturday.

I meant to post this earlier, so I am hoping that

by the time it hits for everyone to read, that prayer

will have been answered!!!  

{just keepin' it real}

I would love for each blog to be all about daises and butterflies.

They do exist in my world, but, definitely not always.

I'm having a problem.  And it's becoming bigger by the day.

Or night would be a more accurate account. 

It may not sound like a huge issue to most, but, in reality, it is to me.

I.AM.NOT.SLEEPING.

I mean, as in going to bed at 10, wide awake by 12, may or may not eventually fall back to sleep around 2-ish,  and then wide awake by around 3-3:30 pretty much until the alarm goes off.

Or sometimes not going back to sleep from the 2 am point on. 

I am soooooooo tired, I can't even put it into words.  To the point my concentration is zilch; 

 I am crabby;  I am overwhelmed; I am bone-dead tired.  I feel like a hamster on a wheel, getting absolutely nothing of substance completed.  Just spinning and spinning. 

I've tried cutting out the caffeine, making myself physically tired, etc.  Not a workin'.  

I'm on the verge of going to the doctor, but REALLY don't want to. 

So, I'm asking for prayer.  Before you fall asleep, please pray that I do. 

I know it sounds silly, but it really is about to get the best of me. 

 

{my uncle paul}

I laughed and cried at the same time when I saw this. But, so typical of him!!!

I lifted this picture from his daughter's fb gallery. I wanted to give a face to the name of the sweet man I am coveting your prayers for. 'Special' does not do him justice!

{hope}

praying for nothing but a miracle today.

{pleading}

Heaven hear my prayers!

My 'Uncle' Paul has received devastating news.

It's amazing how our world can be literally be turned upside down with a bout of severe pain, a CT scan finding, or a phone call.

There are countless anxious hearts this morning as we await the biopsy.

He is one of the greatest men I have ever known.

My heart is hurting and shattered.

Please, please pray for this incredible family.

A family that long ago, I claimed as mine.

{prayers please}

It's 'that' time of the year again. Our visits to Little Rock for Scott's tumor and Noah's kidneys. I don't really get too anxious about it until we get close the time to return. Just pray that we have NO growth on the tumor. Or even better, it defies the odds of medicine and has just vanished. That would be beyond awesome! We always tell our doctor that is going to happen. He just looks at us. ha! We've defied the odds before though!

And, Noah has received great reports over the last two visits. We just learned that our pediatric urologist - one of only SEVEN in the entire United States has retired from ACH. That caused me a little stress but, I'm trusting they brought another great one in.

So, when you think about them, just send a little prayer up if you don't mind.

MRI: 5/4
Neurosurgeon: 5/17
ACH: 5/20

{a heavy, heavy}

heart today. so many very sick kids right now. makes me hug mine tighter, but breaks my heart for those in the midst of such pain. praying so hard...

{another prayer request}

please pray for michael mccutchen as he goes in for surgery to remove the fungal infection from his lung tomorrow morning. this will be a huge surgery and this poor little guy has been through so much. absolutely heartbreaking! please lift michael and his family up!

his prayer pager number: 877-211-2140

teresa says it has been going off all day and he smiles everytime he hears it!

{prayers please}

for sweet emily! she has been in the hospital since friday with pneumonia and a temperature that keeps returning.



just got news that she will be going to ACH. Please keep this sweet family in your prayers - that her temperature will subside and not return and that all testing will come back okay.

{peace}

Since Wednesday night, when the circumstances changed so quickly with sweet Wyatt, I have been in utter shock. I am numb. My heart is broken. And, I do not know what to do for my precious friend except pray. And, praying I have been.

I'm not sure how much sleep I will get tonight because of the dread of tomorrow. I can't even imagine how Jessica and Ryan are tonight. At all. I feel like such a coward because I want to avoid seeing the pain in their eyes tomorrow. This is one of the absolute worst feelings in the world...I feel so helpless.

And, if sleep does not come easily tonight...I will just keep praying. They are going to need so much of it tomorrow and in all the days to come.

"And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Phillipians 4:7 NIV

{thank you}

i know that most of you did not know sweet jessica and ryan. and, i never got to meet our precious wyatt sutton. but, i did want to thank so many of you, that despite not having a personal connection with them - you took the time out of your days to pray for them and ask for updates as throughout this past month. so many of you immediately stopped and prayed for them went i sent out that plea last night. some of you received my calls requesting prayer, however, before i made it through the remainder of my list....baby wyatt flew away to be with jesus.

my heart is in absolute crumbles. but, i wanted to tell you - that after he was gone last night....sweet jessica once again voiced their sincere appreciation for all of the prayers.

let's just not stop. they will need it now more than ever.

{urgent prayer request}

PLEASE pray for my friend Jessica's new baby boy, sweet Wyatt. He was born last night around 8 pm. She had a wonderful, uneventful pregnancy. Although I do not know the details, I do know that he will be flown to LR within the next hour for suspected heart problems. My heart is broken for them with just the fear of this right now. PLEASE wrap them in prayer today. I will keep you posted as I receive information.

{update}

thank you for the sweet calls, emails and prayers for my cousin, Jimmy. Please continue to send them his way as he and his family are very much in need of them. This is an update received from his wife, Natalie. (Natalie, I hope you don't mind that I've posted it here). I know that many of you are amazing in your commitment to pray for those in need, so once again, I'm asking that of you.

For anyone that does not know I took Jimmy into the doctor on Wednesday with severe pain in his left leg. The doctor thought it was his sciatic nerve and gave him a cortisone shot. I asked if it could be a blood clot and so he decided to send him to Mercy for an ultrasound. We had the ultrasound done and they did find a clot in the left leg so he was taken to emergency. They did a CAT scan of his chest and found that he had multiple large blood clots in both lungs as well as his legs. Yesterday they discovered that he also has them in the right leg. He was placed in ICU and yesterday the doctor told us that I saved his life and he likely would have had one of the clots hit his heart, catastrophically, by yesterday. They did emergency surgery yesterday afternoon to put in a Greenfield Filter to catch any large clots and keep them from getting to his lungs or heart. Since he had eaten they were not able to use anesthesia so it was a pretty rough procedure. We also met with the pain management team that was brought in due to the complicated issues with Jimmy's pain due to his past illness. We are considering trying a treatment that they have only tried about 5 times in the last 5 years as many people are not good candidates for it because of their age and heart conditions. Right now they are working on getting the anti-coagulants in his system. It looks like he will be here in ICU at least 7 days. I think there is a good chance we will try the new pain therapy today. Since he is in ICU it is a good time to get him on the medications and be able to monitor his heart, etc., for any adverse side effects and to get the dosage right. They brought in the head of pharmaceuticals and I think this man knows as much or more than the doctors. That is really all we know at this point. Unfortunately, Jimmy is still in a critical state as the blood clots are still a threat to his heart. That is really all we know at this point. Thank you for everyone's kind words and prayers...we appreciate it more than you know. I will keep you updated as I can.

{huge prayer request}

My cousin Jimmy, who lives in OKC (who is only a few years older than I am) is currently in ICU due to a DVT (blood clot) in his left leg and MULTIPLE pulmonary embolisms (blood clots that broke away) in both of his lungs. They implanted a filter(s) (not certain if just one or more) in hopes to avoid further embolisms - which could be catastrophic. Please pray for he and his sweet family as this is a scary situation. He has two little girls, a sweet wife, his mom, dad, brother, SIL, aunts, etc. - he is a wonderful guy and one of my very favorite family members........it is very serious right now, so PLEASE send some prayers up for all of them.

{new request}

Okay, we walked away with amazing news today, but, as I drove closer to home, I remembered the faces of the little ones and their parents who are still there and many will be there for a long while. Although I don't know any of their stories, I saw way too much pain and fear today. So, I will say, that as happy as I am, it's hard to completely soak all of that in when you know others are in a MUCH, MUCH worse situation than you are. So, pray for those families and children. The parking lot was overflowing.

Another request that hits close to home is for our doctor. Although, he and I may not see eye to eye at times, he is an amazing doctor and a man of God. He is older and unfortunately he is the only Pediatric Urologist at ACH right now and...I'm sure he is tired (I am saying that, not him) ... although you would never know it. He is an energetic man by nature, but, taking care of all of these children alone is more than my mind can wrap around. He told us today that as of now, there are only 176 Pediatric Urologists in the NATION. Which means, children/families are traveling much farther, the wait to see MD is ulimately longer...etc. It's a big problem unfortunately.

{specifics}

i've had several people ask me over the recent weeks, leading up to our big appointment tomorrow with noah - EXACTLY what and how we wanted them to pray. there are so many details to his kidney disorder....do we want to proceed with surgery? have the strength to do so? have the surgeon change his mind and return back home with no surgery in the plans? etc, etc.

well, here is what i'm praying for.....i'm going for the complete miracle....that tomorrow, there are no signs of this disease in EITHER kidney and the doctors have to scratch their heads. that is what i want as a mom and that's exactly what i'm praying for. and, i know that my God is that big.

even if we don't get the answer we want, i am just trusting that we follow God's will in the decisions we may have to make; and that i am accepting. because, i am his mom and no matter how strong my faith is....i am his mom and those decisions are hard.

timeline:
6:30 - leave for little rock
10:30 - testing begins
1:30 - meet with surgeon

sorry, i'm just slightly detail-oriented.

{another prayer request}

seriously, it just really seems like our church families are under such an attack right now. Please pray for Michael McCutcheon - I am still praying for a complete recovery of his liver - but, also that the medications work and he will never have to deal with the alternative. I cannot imagine what this family is going through. Something of this nature, makes everything else pale in comparison.

And, continue to pray for Brayden - I understand the bone marrow biopsies came back negative which is SUCH a great thing. We want that full remission.

And, my friend Mandi's grandfather - I have not called to get an update yet this morning - but, I know he must have a long way to go. Just keep this sweet family in your prayers!!

Our church is open tomorrow evening for our families to come together and pray. I think we definitely to take advantage of that time!

{please pray}

i know that most of you know about mandi's sweet papa - please, please pray for him as well as this family. it is just heartbreaking to see their pain and know how sick this sweet man is.....and, the pain in her grandmother's eyes is truly unbearable. and, i've been where mandi is - so, i remember too vividly how much this hurts. love you guys!!!

{praying}

Philip wrote a great post over on his blog Upward Point regarding our need to pray without ceasing. (I tried to leave a comment for both you and Sherry today, but, blogger would not allow me)
I think our hearts are very heavy with the news that has hit our church family this week; I have been devastated. I keep replaying in my mind what if it were Scott or I who received that news? It's heartbreaking, scary and just something you want to flee from as a parent. But, Philip is right, we need to pray without ceasing in everything & especially lift these precious families up.

{it's all His}

as i drove to pick up noah this afternoon, i was overwhelmed. between baby harper, little drew holland, a precious 2-year-old from my hometown who is at ACH from a recent dx of leukemia and Jenna (another blogger from Arkansas) who has a newborn in NICU at ACH facing the same situation baby Harper is - completely overwhelming. It was even difficult to pray. So, I just sat and listened to the silence.

after a while I grabbed for the radio dial and there is was.....Steven Curtis Chapman singing and what he said was so true......"it's all Yours God, Yours God, everything is Yours." He spoke of the intense grief when they lost their daughter this past summer, the darkness, the questions. Of course, I pray that each of these families will have nothing but a great outcome. But, in this life, we are not guaranteed that and as a parent that is an extremely frightening thought. In every aspect, it is all His.