Please Pray

For my Elizabeth Claire-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UpfatdyFtY&feature=related
(click and it will play in a separate window. you will be able to read blog during play)

My girl needs prayers this week. I covet prayer. I ask you mom to mom, friend to friend, please
flood His ears with your prayers. Elizabeth has gone through more than any person should ever have to endure. For years she has tolerated pain and suffering; for years she has kept on even though she has declined in may ways rather than healing. It feels as though she has no physical reward for all of her heroic ways she has endured in the hope that she would get well. How can one go on and continue to go through pain in the hopes that they will be made well?
I struggle with that thought every time I sign each consent form, every time I hand her over to the OR team and each time I allow her to be put through pain. It is a guilt no mother should have to feel and a trust no child should ever know.
Tomorrow Liz will begin another clean out at home in preparation for her hospital admission. Last weeks clean out was terrible with pain and retching. Also tomorrow, she will be seen by GI here in Long Beach because her gtube site has gotten even worse. She is now bleeding enough that she has blood coming out of the actual tube. I am a bit relieved that in the hospital this week we'll be able to have constant care and I am going to ask for the wound team to be in on helping her with the stoma.
On Tuesday she will be admitted to CHLA very early in the morning for more preparation and for IV fluids as she cannot take in anything other than clear liquids for the next few days. Wednesday she will go to the OR procedure room and have probes and catheters placed rectally and down through her nose/mouth. She'll be sedated during placement, but will wake with the tubes in and they will remain for a full day. On Thursday, she will have additional probes placed.This manometry testing is not fun. It will be painful and extremely uncomfortable as they make her colon contract over and over throughout the day for the study. Her GI team has held off on this testing for a year because it is awful and they wanted to spare her if at all possible.
Please pray for Elizabeth's tolerance. She will be in a hospital that is unfamiliar and she will be without the nurses we have come to trust and who care deeply for Liz personally. Also, other than the motility specialist who she has only met three times (and who lacks a great bedside manner), Liz will be without her team of doctors as CHLA is not our home hospital, and while we have met with specialists there before, she will not have her core team there.
Pray for Liz to not have unbearable pain and for nausea to be well managed. Pray that the doctors get the information they need and that the end result of this week of pain will be "worth" it.
Pray that her counts are stable- red and white cells, and platelets.
Pray for Jackson and Kate, too. I will not be able to see them because CHLA is not close to home. They both are already upset that I am leaving. Kate is sick with a horrible cold and I am praying that she is better by Tuesday and that Jackson stays healthy. It is awful to feel torn and want to be with my children when I cannot. Walter will be off of work for five days to help and will go back and forth from the hospital.


Thank you for praying. Ask others to pray. Know that I am grateful.

{Lord, I do not doubt you, but please, please help my Elizabeth and finally bring some healing. Please see how you have used her and touched lives through her, and please bring an end to her suffering}


The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be
as long as life endures.