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1/4/04 A Great Start for the New Year From:
Rob Payne <rob@everydayisprecious.com>
You
may remember from our last email that Marcy had a cold upon returning
from Pennsylvania. The cold lasted about a week and a half, then
her fever and congestion left. The Saturday before Christmas her
fever shot up and I couldn't suction her lungs clean. We took her
to the hospital and they found an "impressive" pneumonia.
We called our Sunday School classmate, Donna, from the ambulance to ask for prayer. Pneumonia can be very serious especially for someone in Marcy's condition. Marcy also sometimes has a bad reaction to antibiotics. There was an immediate response – Marcy was put on the church prayer chain and people were at hospital 20 minutes after we got there. Marcy
responded well to the antibiotics in 12 hours – it usually
takes 48 hours. Later, one of our home health nurses reminded us
that nine months ago Marcy had had an allergic reaction the same
antibiotic she was given in the hospital. We thank God for answering
prayer. The
Pennsylvania Treatments Continue One of the best parts of our Christmas was that we got to go home from the hospital in time for Christmas – we got home about 9 pm Christmas Eve. We had to stop doing the Pennsylvania protocol while in the hospital and went back on the treatments we are allowed do at home our first day back. We believe that for most of the month of December the treatments were working on helping with the infection – the cold and pneumonia – and the work on the neurons was minimized. Then on December 27 we put into practice a new prayer in which we pray in the Word (click here for more.) The very next day, as I was doing her range of motion exercises on her right arm, I noticed that Marcy was pushing back a little. She has had some movement in her right thumb. December 28 she started moving her right hand from right to left. It is weak movement, but it is movement that wasn't there the day before. And it has continued each day since. Christmas
Blessings Glenn
Beck Our
friend Karla (more
about Karla here) submitted our situation to the Glenn
Beck radio talk show's Christmas Wish initiative. The show and
the Home Shopping Network teamed up to bring a boatload of gifts
for the family. (If
you have Windows Media Player, listen
to the audio of when Glenn called me. ) The show brought a Gateway Pentium 4 computer, foosball table, digital camera, train set, MP3 player, portable TV, handbag, jewelry, 16 piece stainless steel cookware set just to name a few things. The things were secondary to the prayers and well wishes we've received from his listeners all over the country, but the kids loved the toys. We
told the kids before opening presents Christmas morning that many
of our gifts were from strangers so many gifts didn't have tags.
But we hadn't yet told them the whole story or anything about being
on the radio. We played the audio for the first time on Christmas
Day. If you listen to the audio, you'll hear Glenn say HSN is going to "bring a whole boatload of presents" to our door. When Darcy heard that, she asked, "When does the boat get here, Daddy?" One
of Glenn Beck's listeners went to the website and fell in love with
Darcy's paintings – especially the Penguins.
ALS
Association The
Middle Tennessee chapter of the ALS Association recommended our
family for adoption by the Dayani
Health Promotion Center. An army of total strangers shopped
for, bought, and wrapped clothes, toys, gift certificates, and other
generous presents for us. Church Our
Sunday School class at Clearview
Baptist Church collected money and bought all the specific items
on the kids' shopping lists. For the four weeks leading up to Christmas,
Darcy watched TV with a pad of paper so she could add items to her
list as she saw the commercial. To be fair to her, the first item
listed was for "Mommy to walk again," but there was an
impressive list of toys following that. Marcy
spends a lot of time in bed wearing gowns we've picked up from our
various hospital tours. A few people from the Sunday School class
got together and made some hospital gowns with cheerful, colorful
patterns of holidays, flowers, and animals. The Sunday School class
also spent a good portion of their class Christmas party piling
into a car, driving to our house, and caroling outside our front
door in the rain. Christmas
Blessings in the column We've
already written about some of our Christmas blessings in the column
in the Tennessean. In case you've read these in the paper or online
we won't bore you by repeating them here. If
you haven't read them, the links below will let you see them:
Anonymous We
received many more cards than normal. Some from people we know,
but many from strangers. Most included a check along with their
best wishes. We also received anonymous gifts including four tickets
to the ice sculpture display at the Opryland Hotel.
Wrap
up I
mentioned above (and in a column)
that we told the kids many of our gifts were from strangers and
wrapped with no indication of the giver, intended recipient or what
was in them. This made opening presents even more fun. More
importantly, this gave us the chance to tell the kids how special
this Christmas was. Shameless
Sales Effort We
are blessed to have friends that take our kids to and from activities
that allow them to have a normal life. Darcy is still in Girl Scouts
and it's the time of year for cookie sales. We're
not pushing anything on anyone, but if you love Girl Scout cookies
and need your "fix" this year, Darcy would love for you
to order from her.
Or,
print this
form (using Adobe Acrobat,) complete and mail to us. If you
really want to annoy friends and co-workers, put this form in your
office or church and become Darcy's honorary assistant Girl Scout. We can save you the inconvenience of picking up cookies from our house. We can ship them to you if you like, but we'll need to add the cost of shipping. Specific
Prayer Request Our specific prayer request right now is that Marcy sees more strength in her right hand and gains strength in her lungs. We continue to thank God each day for your prayer and care and we wish you a very happy new year. Rob
& Marcy |
