February 17, 2011

Dear Friends,

We are BEYOND grateful for your prayers and support in the midst of this long trial! I promised that I would never blog because I feel it's easy to get sucked into reading blogs all day and spend hours away from doing what I should be doing! But this situation has caused me to change my aversion to blogs, at this for the moment! My plan is to give more of the backstory, as time allows, but for now will just give you a current update since many have been emailing and calling today! The ride up was intense yesterday...she has pretty much resisted all foods and fluids, so she was very weak. We stopped several times to hydrate her just to get her here. We got to the ER around 3:30 and went back around 4:30, not bad at all considering the hospital is above 100% capacity and there were 75 people waiting in the ER! She looked pathetic and that definitely helped to expediate the process. They almost immediately drew blood and pushed IV fluids. I had already faxed her records from the pediatrician and UVA and been on email with the GI/Celiac dtr  for about 2 hrs Tuesday night, she they were expecting us...we just had to wait for a bed. We got up to the room around 10 and settled her in and filled in the resident on some details. I then went to the hotel to sleep and Mike stayed her. God has put sooooo many people in our lives to help, we can't even begin to express our gratitude. Mike's sister had already come to help us in C-ville and then decided to travel with us to Philly to help me with Ashley in the car and to help with the kids when we got here because my parents are still traveling up from Florida. She is a saint! (and we thank her husband James for lending her to us for soo long!) Also, a dear old friend from West Chester set us up in a hotel close to hospital for 3 nights. It was such a blessing while I was looking at the list of hotels, totally in tears and overwhelmed because I didn't know where to even being looking! These have been sweet reminders of why we need the body of Christ and of God's hand upon Ashley through each step. This morning we met with the team. The plan is to "clear her out" today and do an endoscopy and colonoscopy at the same time tomorrow so they only have to put her under once. So, no food today either. Please pray for her strength as she is soo weak and that all would go smoothly with the procedures tomorrow. Please also pray for some answers to her ongoing stomach pain and wisdom for the dtrs on how to proceed. She is definitely somewhat confused, scared and overwhelmed. We are continually speaking life and encouragement to her, but please continue to pray for her mind, that it will be filled with TRUTH and the Holy Spirit. She has endured feeling soo sick for soo long and has been through soo much medical trauma that she needs to continually be reminded that Christ is fighting this battle for her and that she WILL get well!



We will email more as we know more. I also will email more of the history because we firmly believe that God is not only going to bring healing to Ashley thru this but also to many who struggle with Celiac and other auto immune disorders. We have learned MUCH and desire to use it for the Glory of God to help those who are as confused and discouraged as we have been!!!


Thank you to our faithful prayer warriors...more to come,
Lori