Please God, not Africa!

Here's the latest on the kids - just to keep you up to speed. A couple of weeks ago, Kylie had blood work done to see how her numbers are holding up since she's been off the antibiotics.  Last Friday, both Ethan and Kylie had appointments with the surgeon (yay for having one doc for the two kids!) to see how things have been coming along. Ethan went first and she checked out his knee to see how things had healed from his surgery on March 21st.  Remember that she removed quite a nice sized chunk of bone.  Ethan had the surgery on a Friday and had ditched his crutches by Sunday afternoon.  Don't tell the surgeon this, but I think he was riding his bike on the Tuesday. Anyhow, after she did a bunch of range-of-motion exercises on his leg, she declared him "perfect."  He made sure that she repeated that a couple of times for all to hear and asked her to write that in his file.  He's officially perfect - at least medically, his knee is.  It's actually...

I am so excited to tell you how Friday went down - Friday, as in two days ago.  You'll never believe it, or may be you will because you understand how God intervenes at certain times in our lives and shows His stuff. Last week was a busy one for us at the hospital.  We went for blood work for Kylie on Tuesday, then an MRI for her on Wednesday and then surgery for Ethan on Friday.  In regards to the MRI, the doc wanted to take a look at Kylie's foot, since it has been over a year of antibiotics now.  She said that if it was (and I quote) "perfect, PERFECT" then they'd pull the PICC line and she'd be done.  I have to admit that I was pretty skeptical that we'd come anywhere near perfect, PERFECT. Ethan's surgery was actually booked for next Friday, March 28th, which is also the day that Nate is flying out to return to Togo.  It would've been a crazy day, but I didn't want to post-pone Ethan's knee surgery at all.  Then last week, the doc...

In the last month or so, we have been thinking back to this time last year.  It's so very hard to believe that it's been a year since the craziness in our lives really began. It was December 21 last year that Kylie, Emily and I made the trek to Tsiko over what we thought was just a "strangely sore foot."  We had no idea how that trip would change everything. It was December 29 when Nate and the boys arrived in Tsiko and Jack had his ceiling-fan scalping. It will be one year ago this Thursday (January 16) that Ethan and Nate will have had their motorcycle accident. So weird. It's unbelievable, really, what has happened in the last 365 days. But here we are, a year later. It's taken me a long time to sit down and blog again because I truly have had so little to say.  I know for a fact that you are not interested in hearing about my measly home-schooling efforts, my endless loads of laundry, and our uninteresting work-a-day life here at home.  There are...

Last week we were all over the map with Kylie's blood work.  We were at the hospital on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week and Monday and Tuesday of this week. On Friday we had an appointment with our Infectious Disease doc to see if we could figure out her blood work issues and  get the MRI results. The blood work fiasco was a bit of mystery but turns out that it's been solved.  You'll never believe this but the whole issue with her blood levels had to do with the time change.  Strange, but true.  So at least it's not something weird and wild going on in her foot. The MRI results were good news and we are so thankful for that!  Kylie's area of infection inside the bone has certainly shrunk, meaning that there is bone regeneration happening in there.  Praise the Lord. However, it's not solid bone.  There's still a little patch of infection livin' it up in there, so the plan is what the plan has always been.  She stays o...

Last week Kylie had another round of blood work done and while we were on our way to pick up Nate from the hospital we got a call from the doc that said the results weren't so good.  Too low. The whole point of all this blood work is to measure three things:  the level of meds in her system, and two tests called a CRP and an ESR that measure inflammation in her body.  For the most part, her CRP and ESR have been great - it's the med levels that have been all over the map. And like I've mentionted before, the goal is 11.  That's what we're aiming for. If the meds are too low, there's not enough antibiotic in her system to kill the bad bugs.  If there's too much, there's a change we'll fry her kidneys and cause damage. So on Monday, Nate took her in to the hospital to have the repeat blood work done.  When Kylie came home from having it done, she told me that she thought that we had messed up on the timing of the blood work.  To get an accurate r...

On Friday night the kids and I went to the airport to pick up Nate.  His flight was a little delayed so we had to wait for a while. Here's some boys with their sign. And after a while, he arrived!!  He's in this bundle of hugs and squeezes somewhere. And here's the gang, together again (Except for me. I'm holding the camera.) THE TRIP The two weeks in Mango was great.  The weather was ridiculously hot.  Picture yourself standing on top of a building, no shade for miles, 110 degrees Fahrenheit, wearing a welding helmet and putting trusses together.  Doesn't it sound like so much fun?? Here's the view from where Nate was standing. And here's the view from the bottom. They got all the trusses up except for two.  Nate said that if he'd had one more day, they would've been all up.   He had a great reunion with the missionaries and with the Togolese guys.  It was a sweet time.  There's still lot...

I've been told I HAVE to update my blog and let you know how things are going.  So this is for YOU, Diane!! Things are going just fine.  Nate has been in Mango for the last 2 weeks and we're looking forward to his return this Friday.  It's been a cold and busy two weeks for us and a hot and busy two weeks for him. When he is away, we don't actually communicate that much.  It just seems easier not to, actually.  He's not really that tech-y, and since he didn't take a computer with him and using his cell phone will cost a pretty penny, we kept our communication to a few little text messages. So all I really know is that he made it safely, that the trusses were going up pretty quickly and he hoped they'd have them all set before he starts the trip south tomorrow, and (I'm quoting directly from one of his texts) "its so hot it's not funny..." The purpose of his trip was to go over and help set the trusses on Phase 3 of the hospital bui...