Sunday, August 29, 2010

A quick update and prayer request

First, our girls are continuing to grow.  Bella is up to 9 lbs 8.5 ounces, while Gloriana is up to  6 lbs 4 oz.  Every little bit helps… they’re still on the every-three-hour schedule, so it’s been a little tiring for all of us.

Many of you know that we had a cardiologist appointment at the University of Chicago on Friday.  We received mixed results.  We’ll go with the good news first.  They couldn’t really hear Bella’s VSD (hole in her heart), and they had trouble being able to see it on the echocardiogram!   Woo-hoo – great news!  She pretty much has a clean bill of health in terms of her health; it looks like the hole in her heart has closed up!  Praise God!

More good news: it looks like Gloriana’s hole in her heart is getting smaller, too!  Very encouraging news – and reason to give thanks!

However, we got some not-so-good news, too.  The echocardiogram showed that one of the four chambers of Gloriana’s heart looks enlarged.  Although the doctor couldn’t make any definite diagnosis, an enlarged chamber of the heart is typically associated with a problem with the mitral valve in the heart – that valve is most likely reducing in size.  Of course, we wanted to ask a million questions – “What’s the prognosis?” “What kind of treatments are there?” “Will this be tough to treat?” – but they wanted to follow up in 3 weeks before doing anything else.  What we do know is that trying to fix a valve is quite a bit more complicated than the one-time-surgery-fix of a hole in the heart.  That’s a little tough to hear.

But our hope is in God.  We trust that He will bring good out of this.  We are praying boldly that things will look a lot better in three weeks and that the chamber is back to normal size.  Please join us in calling on our mighty God during this new challenge.  God is good, all the time.

~Jeff

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jeff:
You have my prayers for your Children and especially Glorianna's present diagnosis. Know that Evie and I will uplift you all in our prayers. Max & Evie Mejan MCRC, Munster Indiana. May god Bless you all as you continue this latest Challenge

Anonymous said...

maxnevie@hotmail.com

Anonymous said...

Pastor Jeff & Lisa

We celebrate with you about the good news and pray for you at the same time regarding the news about Gloriana. The Lord has been with you each step of this journey. He will continue to lead.

You can count on our prayers
Doug & Gail Achterhof