jonah - friday, march 6th

Hi friends!

Before talking about Jonah, I just want to give today's shout-out to SHAINA! She turns 14 years old today! She said she's holding her second time to see Jonah (she only gets to go in twice a week for 10 minutes) until this afternoon when she gets out of school. She wanted to be able to see him on her birthday. They can celebrate BOTH their birthdays together! Jonah is one week old today (as if you didn't know).

Today has been a good report day for the most part. Jonah is eating 15 cc's regularly by bottle now about every 3 hours depending on how drugged he is at the time. He's so eager for it and sucking it down like a champ. I really think he'd eat more if they let him, but it's better to take it slow, and gradually increase the amount. My goal for him (and this is in my head not from their lips) is that he have it out within the next week. I'm so proud of him. I've missed a couple feedings due to the timing of his dressing changes, shift changes etc, but I'm hoping to be able to do the rest of them myself from now til the time we go home. It's really the only bonding time I get with him, so I'd really like to do it myself when I can. I can't wait til Matt can do it too, but with his broken wrist, it would be pretty difficult for him... plus, his cast is not exactly sterile.

He just finished his dressing change about an hour ago. Dr. Furlong said he was in a pretty good amount of pain. It makes me so sad to know that he's hurting, and that there's nothing I can do to comfort him. The whole process takes them 2 or 2 1/2 hours. They are constantly tweaking his amount of morphine and when to give it to him for it to be most effective. We'll need to start going back there and watching them do it probably this weekend or next week, but there's a video on the Stanford website they want me to watch first to prepare myself. I think the doctors and nurses even have a hard time seeing him that way, and they've seen some pretty bad stuff. It will be rough. I am not looking forward to it.

He is gaining weight and eating more. Those are both GREAT things. We're trying to focus on the positives. They haven't checked his WBC count in a while but will order a CBC tomorrow, so hopefully we'll find out where he stands as far as an infection. He did have a blood culture done. So far, it is negative, but I think they watch it over several days. Please, God, no infection.

A couple logistical things:

We now have a PO Box for those of you who have been asking for a mailing address:

Matt Williams

PO Box 11455

Winston-Salem, NC 27116

We have to use Matt's name for all mail, because Jonah was unable to produce 2 valid forms of identification or a signature. That is next week's goal.

Also, they are planning on running Jonah's story on the FRONT page of the Winston-Salem Journal tomorrow. Front page, people, and I didn't even get the chance to fat-face approve the photos. This could be bad. The website is journalnow.com. They said it would run tomorrow unless it snows. It is currently 70 degrees here. I think we're good.

The newest task: burping Jonah.

I would love to get some advice from you EB peeps out there on the best process for this.

Thanks so much for continuing to love on, care about, and pray for Jonah. God continues to answer our prayers.

Luke 18:1-5

One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’”

I'm not afraid to drive God crazy with my constant requests. How about you?

Decorating Jonah's bed with pictures of us and Deac. (We taped them to the top).