Friday Afternoon - A Josiah Update

Our apologies for leaving you all blog-less yesterday. Marie was planning on posting an entry last night, but Josiah decided to be a party animal and she hung out with him instead. Good trade, I say ... :)

OK, so what's new? Well, we're learning to leave things in God's hands. Man it's hard. All you want to do as parents is dictate the pace and direction of Josiah's care, but sometimes things are just out of our control. I suppose that this in many ways is a good thing because we have to leave things up to God now. I believe that God has given us these doctors for a reason. I also believe that we are supposed to trust God and not man. What dilemma eh?

The doctors want to give Josiah another 'bronche' scope to make sure nothing is wrong with his throat (especially since all these brady-s, d-sats, and throw-ups) after which Josiah will be given a trial-extubation. As parents we are concerned that the anesthetics and irritation from the scope will be detrimental to Josiah having a successful extubation. We have pleaded our case, but the doctors (including doctors we trust) have stated that this will not play into Josiah's ability or inability to breathe on his own. This morning we were told that if Josiah wasn't able to breathe on his own, he would immediately go into surgery for his 'trache' and G-Tube and we were like, "WHAT?!?!?!" That wasn't what was communicated to us!!! So Marie (since she's at the hospital now) is trying to figure out why they want to do that and what we can do instead. We are also trying to get Josiah some chest physio so that he can have most of his secretions loosed and cleaned out leading up to the extubation.

So that's the latest on that. We still have no results yet from Josiah's 24-hour heart monitor that was taken off yesterday afternoon. If anything does come up, it could delay his extubation plans (which we hope could take place next week).

So, pray for our boy, doubly-so if necessary! We want him to be able to breathe on his own and we cling to Jesus' words in Matthew 18:19-20, "Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." There have been other Scriptures occupying our brain space these days, and maybe I'll post them on another occasion. We pray that the doctors will not be blinded or led by preconceived notions of Josiah's respiratory abilities (because they are extremely pessimistic right now) and we pray for God to be glorified. Marie and I will and do praise God no matter what course is plotted, but we have the faith (and are asking for the faith!) to believe that God can and will health Josiah. As Marie has put this week (she's been reminded this by God): God does miracles through time, but doesn't need time to do miracles.

Sigh. This is hard stuff. Any conversation with a doctor these days and I'm within seconds of squirting tears. So hard. We know God is in control and we know that he will accomplish his work despite our best and worse efforts of doing what we think is right for Josiah, but man oh man oh man this is rough and not easy to process ...

A few other things ... well, it was lots of fun hanging out with Josiah this morning. He's had a pretty good day so far. He slept a lot this morning (rare for him) but I am the "Mellow Master": I can put him to sleep like nothing else. I think it's the Haak in me. Marie and I joke that Josiah has two faces: the 'Haak Face' = mellow, relaxed, so 'whatev' you know? and the 'Neufeld Face' = bright red, intense, and all scrunched up with 101 wrinkles! :D Ah yes, well ... it's good to see that he takes after the both of us.

The BEST thing about being with Josiah this morning is that he LOVES holding my hands while he's sleeping. SO AMAZING! I'll have my hand kind of on his chest holding his soother in (because he sleeps like a rock with his soother in his mouth, even if he isn't sucking on it) and he will with both hands grab my hand/fingers or just lightly rest his handed on my mine. So cute! I'm pretty sure he knows what he's doing because every time I try to move my hand away he fusses and puts his hands back on me! And now all the women say "Aaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwww." :)

Today as I with Josiah as he was sleeping, I reflected on the Fatherly-ness of God. Being a parent I think brings you into a whole new realm of understanding who God is and how much he loves you. I just think about how careful I am around Josiah, doing my best not disturb him and finding just the right thing he needs in that moment to soothe him, and I know that God does the same and more for us everyday. Pretty incredible. I know God is watching over our Josiah and that he is loved.

I'm learning also that God always provides just what you need. In the first couple weeks of us being out here, I couldn't believe the amount of financial support we were receiving. It felt like way too much and we were feeling awful for taking all that people were giving us. Looking back now, though, it's obvious that God was using his people to give to our long-term needs, even when we didn't realize how long-term it would be. God is good.

I commented to Marie yesterday that this whole two months has felt like one long hand of Texas Hold'em. We were dealt a hand where the percents were poor and we had no choice but to go all in. It was clear to see that the odds were not in our favour, that it would be out of our hands and an uphill battle the whole way. And then as things got worse with Josiah it was as if we were seeing the 'flop', that the 3 cards turned up did nothing to help us and made it even more unlikely that we would walk away from the table victorious. Then came the next card, the 'turn'. Wow. Even worse. And now in the 11th hour (to borrow from Jesus' story) we are watching for that 'river' card to see if that will be our out. And dad, no I haven't been reading that 'poker' book yet; this analogy just came out of my head :)

Alrighty, this has been long enough. I still have work to do! Thanks to Aunt Betty-Lou H., Mike & Jen & Caleb P., and Lisa for stopping by yesterday. It was good to see you all!

Thanks for all your prayers. I can't wait to see who gets to be prayed for as intensely as you guys have been praying for our Josiah. Thanks.
- Andrew, Marie & Josiah