Test results.

What an incredible journey it has been over the past 5 years. For some reason God has allowed us the blessing of yet another clear scan. A I walk around these halls here t St. Jude I am amazed. Many here hope wish and pray for clear scans yet not all receive them. Why has God allowed. S the blessing and not all. Why did Jesus heal only one person on? The sabbath instead of all? Great questions that only HE can answer. I trust that HE is in charge and I am not. Would I be as content had we not gotten the clear scan is the real question? May God bless you no matter your struggle or hardship. May God keep smiling down on us all! Praise HIS holy name.

Brenna's St. Jude visit March 2011

Brenna and I (David) flew into Memphis Sunday night. Monday was packed. We started at 7:00 am and finished around 5:00 pm. Today, Tuesday, she had an MRI, we are waiting the results. Today is the five year mark from Brenna's first surgery. Wow 5 years! Can't believe it! We expect all to turn out great. Update soon...

Josiah is born!!!

Hey - I am terrible at updating regularly - how many blogs have you read that from...we need internet at home - that would help.

ANYWAY...

Our baby boy was born on November 2 at 9:25 a.m. He weighed in at 8 lbs. 3 ozs. and was 21 inches long... now a month later he is 6' 3'' and 150 lbs :)

It's gonna be a boy!!!

Hey, I realized no one has updated in a while. Bettina is pregnant and we have found out that he is a boy. Currently, we are calling him 'jellybean' so as not to call him an 'it'! We are thrilled and yes he was planned. While our family continues to grow, we pray you do (spiritually) as well. Jellybean is due to join us in the air-breathing world sometime in the beginning of November. The church is doing great and we constantly trust in God Almighty. HE forever deserves our praise. Jalen is about to begin Middle School - yikes, while Brenna will begin 5th grade and Bella is about to begin Kindergarten! I know just the other day they were all home all day long because they were too young to attend school - what happened?

Brenna's MRI results

Hey all. Just a note to let everyone know that Brenna's MRI scan was clear again! Praise the Lord, for HIS love endures forever! We are so proud of Brenna and her trust in God. She continues to be the trooper that she has consistently been. Thank you for the prayers and support. We love each one of you. We were followed around by cameras again today...she is quite the ham! (She gets that from her moma!)

Under HIS Wings,

David

Spring Break in Memphis!

Hey friends! We are back in Memphis for scans and check ups. We are here all week and have lots of different tests. Today was her MRI and we'll get the results tomorrow. Brenna is doing fantastic! She is loving life and has not been having any seizures still. We are staying with our friends at Habitat for Hope. The kids have been having a fantastic time playing together. THe weather has been awesome and so its really hard to sit inside the hospital for very long. But, we got back to the Hope House early enough this evening for the girls to ride horses and the boys to play in their fort. We are going to go on a short camping trip this weekend, since it is Spring Break. We hope the weather holds up. Brenna has her last appointment Monday, with Dr. Clarke. I will try to post tomorrow and let you all know MRI results. THanks for keeping us in your prayers. We love you all!

- Oh, and the pictures are from our Fall Break camping trip. Hope to add new camping pics soon!

All is Well!

Brenna's veins were cooperating this morning and the nurse hit it on the first try. Yay! We were thankful for that. They left the IV in and we went from triage into MRI. Everything seemed to progress fairly quickly this morning. It was about two hours later and they were calling us back to recovery. Brenna even woke up from sedation quickly and was bouncin around fairly soon after. She awoke hungry and we went to lunch where she ate a huge piece of pizza and cheetos.

After lunch we went to E clinic and saw Dr. Gajjar. He knew we wanted results so he went on a search for them while the nurse practitioner checked Brenna out. Praise the Lord we have clear scans once again!!! And we have now graduated from check ups every three months to every six months! Woo hoo!! Obviously she's doing fantastic and there aren't any issues that they need to see her more often for. How awesome is that?!!

After E clinic we mosied on over to the Endocrine specialists. They had run tests on the blood drawn and found her cortisol levels kind of off. But, they said that it's probably not an accurate reading because she was on steroids after surgery and now she's on an inhaled steroid for the terrible cough that she's had. She also hasn't grown like she's supposed to. But, we're going to wait until the next visit to re-evaluate and then possibly make a decision about giving her growth hormone. I really just want her to enjoy life right now without adding more medication. And they are supportive of whatever decision we make.

All in all it was a pretty good day. Now we are off to Habitat for Hope. Brenna is excited to see her friend Bella and spend some time playing and we're looking forward to catching up with dear friends. We are so grateful for all of you who have continued to pray for our little princess and our family. God be praised!!