Abby Daily Update: Turning The Corner

From Michelle:

Thank you so much for praying for pain relief and healing. Her pain control is great right now, not surprising since she is on enough narcotics to make an NFL linebacker pass out. It amazes me how quickly a child can develop a tolerance to medication.

She is still alert, happy and up playing, even with all of the medication. It is really a blessing that she has enough to be comfortable. If she is hurting too much to move, she gets weak quickly. When she is tired, she just wants me to hold her and "rock her like a baby". I have to admit I love that too.

With Abby's wounds improving, she is in less pain and as she heals she will need less medication. Tomorrow the plan is to begin slowly lowering her pain medicines. Her doctors will do this very carefully, with the help of the pain management team. If she is not ready. they will just increase them again. No one wants her to hurt, but we also don't want her on medication she doesn't need. It is a delicate dance.

Abby's bone marrow is still fighting to recover. She had less white blood cells today when they checked her blood. There is so much work for them to do, that it is going to take time. Her smaller sores are much better. Her diarrhea is better, which means the canker sores in her intestines are healing. Praise God. The worst sores look a little bit better~well maybe. The wound care specialist, who evaluated Abby today, had some wonderful advice about caring for them and was very gentle with Abby. She said it would take quite a while for the wounds to heal, but won't put a number on it.

It makes me nervous that she will not be able to take any chemo until they are healed. Trusting God is always the best choice, but it is not always easy. Would you pray:

• Thank God her sores are healing.
• Thank God for the pain relief and pray she continues to not feel any pain.
• Thank God for the wonderful care she has received from the nurses and doctors.
• Her sores would heal quickly.
• She would remain cancer free.
• That Abby would not get any infection, while her white cells are so low.
• Abby would be able to smile, laugh and continue to be a kid.
• Please also pray for our other children, while Abby is at the hospital.
• Pray also that Brent would be able to get his work done without missing too much sleep.
• Please pray for Brent's health. He works very hard to take care of us, but often pays a hefty price physically.

From Brent:
Abby spirits were lifted HIGH by your messages, pics and videos!!

Abby just had a GREAT time listening to your voice mails (my box filled up in about 5 minutes and I saws dozens of calls that got the "mailbox full" message). I'm going to do the "voice message to Abby thing" pretty routinely, so I hope you'll try again when I let you know. She REALLY loved them.... she was delighted the whole time. We sat and watched a parade of video messages to Abby. What a THRILL!! She was enthralled.

She was worn out after dancing and laughing and listening to it all. You'll hear how tired she is, but most of that is from the pain and medicine. Here is a goodnight message from Abby to you all:
http://www.brentriggs.com/abby/goodnight2909.mp3
"Thank you for my messages. Thank you for my videos. Goodnight everybody. I love you.."

The videos and messages were such a blessing... we really should start a ministry of posting videos like that for other sick kids and hurting families. It really lifted Abby's spirits AND OURS. What do you all think of that idea? If I build the online application where you could enter a link, message, blog URL and the ability to link to a YouTube video encouraging a sick child or families in struggles... would you participate when you could? We could keep it down to 2-3 times a month... I would build the system if you guy would join in... thoughts?

Look for a special something by tomorrow about those videos you sent tonight..... Tomorrow is "Laugher Lives Tuesday". We're going to be doing "Our Funny Photos" so have some picked out. The photo itself doesn't have to be funny... it could be WHAT IS HAPPENING is funny. I'll have a few of my own of as examples of course!

I have a birthday request for Michelle (Feb 13... she turns.... uh.... 24... or so): My wife loves index cards with handwritten Bible verses, and a little note of encouragement. If some of you dear ladies had time to send me some of those, I would box them all up for her birthday. If you have a big ladies group, maybe everyone could write a few. I hesitate to make requests of your time for me or Michelle, but this would be incredibly special to her. Shoot me an email (brent@brentriggs.com) if you want to send a few, and I'll give you our address. (Shhh... don't tell Michelle or leave a comment about this. I'm hoping to slip it by her without her seeing this... I'm going to remove this paragraph in a few hours. I don't think she'll read it tonight)