I have made, I will carry, I will SAVE!!

Dear Friends and Family,

It has been 12 months since our little one came down with E-Coli and HUS one of the toughest diseases a child can face. After five units of blood, two weeks of dialysis, and 28 days in the hospital, she finally came home, but her healing has still been going on for these past 12 months.  Here's a long update, but it's worth your time to read it!

When Jennifer and I look back on that time, it seems like a bad dream, and not something that actually happened.  As Madilyn's little body continues to heal, we keep getting reminders that it was real, and we are filled with gratitude for how far she has come.

Thank you for praying for her!  We would love to update you and ask for continued prayer, but before that I want to share a brief passage from Isaiah 46 with you:

Isaiah 46: 1 - 4 - 

“Bel bows down; Nebo stoops; their idols are on beasts and livestock;
these things you carry are borne as burdens on weary beasts. 2 They stoop; they bow down together; they cannot save the burden, but themselves go into captivity.
3 “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel,
who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb;
4 even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you.
I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.” 

Bel and Nebo were names given to the gods of the Babylonian Empire, and Isaiah is using them as an example to show the futility of worshipping false gods.  If we replace those names with two common idols we worship today, this passage has much to say to us today.  Here's my paraphrase -

Wealth and Success are useless to you. You carry these things around like you are a beast of burden.  They cannot save you, but instead they go with you into whatever trouble you may face. "Listen to me" says God, "I have been carrying you from your mother's womb, and I will carry you through until your head is full of gray in your old age. I have made you, I will carry you, and I will Save you."

I share this passage with you because in the last 12 months, though God has done many amazing things through and around the illness of our daughter, the most gracious thing God has done has been to use these circumstances to show me the futility of my idols.  I'm grateful that my idol of control has been exposed this year as a complete fraud, and a worthless substitute for God.

What do you worship (or place at the pinnacle of your life) today?  Is it money, power, romance, controlling your life and your family, or perhaps you are after the approval of others. The message from this passage is clear - you can carry those things around with you until God burns them up in front of you, or you drop them and let your creator carry you instead.  For more on the subject, I'd recommend a great book by Tim Keller called Counterfeit Gods.

Now, on to the update:

How is Madilyn Doing?

Over the summer, we had a few blood draws and doctor visits, and we had 2-3 in a row that came with bad news.  Mostly, the results showed that her kidneys were functioning around the high 70% range.  While we weren't happy with those, Dr. Simon could see that she wasn't well hydrated for each of those results.  

So, we had to switch the time of day when we were drawing blood, and then do a better job of begging, pleading, and bribing her to drink more water.  After that, we went back and had much better news.  Then yesterday, we got another result that confirmed the good news!

For the first time in 12 months:

• Madilyn's red blood cell count is NORMAL...her body has finally replaced all the red blood cells that were broken and destroyed due to E-Coli.
• Her potassium level was NORMAL.  This means her kidneys are removing the right amount of potassium from her bloodstream, and we have now taken her off her last medication!
• Basically, this means her kidneys are now doing all the jobs they are supposed to do, at a level that the doctor doesn't need to support them with medicine!

We are so thankful for all of your prayers and support, and we cannot contain our joy!

How can you pray?

Pray for her next results to be good again.  

Now that she's off medication, Dr. Simon needs to check her one more time to make sure potassium doesn't creep back up, or anything else surprising.  We'll likely get those results next Monday or Tuesday.  If the numbers are good again, we can keep her off medicine!

Pray for her to stay hydrated at school.

I can't believe it, but she started kindergarten today! That means she has a long school day without us to remind her to drink drink drink.  Pray that she'll finish a couple bottles of water each day.  Also, that we won't cry like babies every day we drop her off...today was rough.

Pray for a family and toddler who was hit with this same illness this summer.

This summer, we learned that another family was going through a similar fight at Dell Children's.  Their two year old boy was fighting for his life against HUS.  Please keep them in your prayers, we have reached out to be resource to them, but so far all we know is that he's slowly recovering.

Love,

The Rascos