June 24th, Day +59

The specific items we requested you to pray for---we have seen drastic improvements in all three.  I am thankful to serve a God who listens to the cries of his children.  Prayer is powerful.  

Hunter got his third dose of Rituxan this afternoon.  His red cell destruction continues to be on the decline.  So much so, that his liver function is back in the norm for the first time in three weeks.  His doctor believes that this third dose will make a big difference in the hemolysis.  We were told all along that it would probably be two weeks before we see any change on Rituxan, so the fact that Hunter has been destroying less cells way before two weeks is very encouraging.  Also, the swelling in his arm is much better.  He now has a wrist again, and the heparin is doing its job to open up passageway for the fluid to decrease in his arm.  The third prayer request was the blood in Hunter's stools.  I am so happy to report that he hasn't been dealing with this since we asked.  This is a huge relief to Hunter, though it never really had his doctors concerned.

 

Hunter's hemoglobin held for three days before he needed a transfusion yesterday.  Again he received blood from a volunteer donor that answered our call for A+ blood.  Hopefully, he can just start stretching out the time between transfusions even further.  His new donor graft is doing excellent work.  His old cells just need to learn to tolerate the new ones, and this is what the Rituxan is designed to do.      

smiles from his daily prize

Jana and I went on an off peak hours escape to my favorite

The twins Bible class teacher sent us these pics of class on Sunday.  They were learning about baby Moses.  Our friends know the best way to encourage us from Houston is by loving on our boys!



They'll be good dads someday:)

Benton has been with Chase and Macey the past couple nights.  He's had a big time getting set up for soccer.  This is his tough face.  He is very proud of his spiderman ball and fast shoes. 

Sunday afternoon he and Macey went to a movie.  I think he had a good time, judging from his smile.  We are thankful for all our family that are taking care of our boys!

 At rounds today, Hunter's doctor laid out some plans for the next several days.  We had hoped that those would include getting out of the hospital soon.  That's not what we heard.  Tomorrow, he will regain a little freedom to walk as long as his port doesn't bleed.  Please pray that his port lets him get out of bed even just a little.  This would be a big boost.  On Thursday, hopefully Hunter's steroid dosage will be reduced by a small percentage.  He's been on a really high dose for several weeks now.  His feet and calves are always cramping from the steroids.  Because of all his central line issues, they want to keep him through his Rituxan dose next Monday while he has his groin line.  They hate to pull his groin line since it's working really well, and we can't really take him home with a groin line.   Another week in the hospital seems like forever to Hunter.  Please pray that his days will pass quickly and that we can somehow make the most of our time here. Thanks to all of our friends who are encouraging us along this journey!