Our Fundraisers

#1 You can join Isaiah's FIGHT on facebook and donate with a debit/credit card. CLICK HERE TO GO TO ISAIAH'S CAUSE on facebook.

#2 You can mail a check to their church-write ISAIAH somewhere on envelope or in the memo of your check:

Lifestream Christian Church 204 East Main Street Gardner, KS 66030 Phone: 913-856-8088

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

The Marines can even save Santa!



Howdy, all!  Well we found the Marines can even save Santa if need be!  UNMC was visited today by Santa and quite a few of the Nation's finest.  Toy's for Tot's came through and made quite a few children's day as Santa took requests, handed out presents, and generally turned a weather bogged afternoon into an awesome day.  The ol' camera phone isn't the best, but I thought I'd try to share as many pictures as I could for this one.  Even the girls had a good time.

We even made the local TV circuit again!  Not sure if it's linked yet, but we'll be on KPTM FOX 42 for a short interview.



Saturday, December 19, 2009

Secret Santa's and Home



Family is definitely the most important thing that God has provided each and everyone of us.  I came across this picture from last year and it just reminded me about what we consider "home".  We have since sold the house this picture was taken in and added two dogs to the picture.  And we're all here in Omaha.  So we're not "home" as in where we live, but we are "home" as a family on this Christmas Holiday.  God works in mysterious ways to be sure.

Speaking of mysterious - we received some support from a Secret Santa today!  Most unexpected, but most appreciated!  Along with all of those who have donated through our pancake feed, softball tourney, Facebook page, and now through anonymous donation - Merry Christmas and God Bless!

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

A special day




So we had a great evening and found out good news!  Emily got to go home today!  That was totally unexpected for us and them.  She has made many advancements over the last few weeks.  She looks really good and has been very interactive the last few days.  Good for them!  Also, we got a visit from Santa!  Of course he had a few presents for the boy.  He gets to make the choice of dinner tomorrow for his Birthday.  Should be a good time!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Drama, Hives, and how fragile things are . . .



And we see what happens when we have an allergic reaction.  Apparently this is Isaiah's reaction to latex, though there is nothing we can identify in the room.  So, we've had to add a few more medications to help out.  We did end up pulling the central line (pictured here), but we also changed his enteral formula.  This ended up being a bad combination.  As it was - when we did replacement fluids we could send them right to his body via the central line.  After the central line is pulled, we have to do fluids through his enteral feeds.  Well - if he's actively dumping through his intestine this doesn't really help.

When we changed his formula on Friday, everything seemed to be going OK.  For his first 12 hours, he only dumped about 100ml.  Then he started losing fluid faster than what he was taking in.  Basically a normal day for Isaiah is to take in 2200ml of feeds from his tube plus whatever he eats for the day.  Then he will void out about 1000ml over the same 24hr period.  Saturday, he dumped out over 2000ml.  So after a few phone calls, a stop in his feeds, a run to the labs, and re-evaluation we got things settled down.  Sunday and today were much better, but this weekend just served as a reminder as to how fragile things still are.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

When it snows we wish for the Sun!



Just in case you didn't believe the weather channel, it's snowing.  ALOT!  Here we see our favorite superhero enjoying mother natures first major snow of the midwest.  He is standing on the man hole for the garden outside the Lied Center.  This was at 1030 this morning.  At this time, when I look out the window I can no longer see any of the area's we cleared this morning nor can I see those garden lights in this picture.  Just need the wife and some hot chocolate and I'd be just fine!  Soo....  When you can't go outside, you find things to do inside.



Here we see Isaiah at the puppet show!  Emily is also here, though I have to say it has been a miracle for her the last few weeks.  She has gone from being in an extreme amount of pain and pressure on her brain to now riding a big wheel down the hallway!  It was an awesome sight, and she wanted to make sure Isaiah knew.  So we all came to the puppet show for a good time.  Believe it or not, I got to be the Star our puppeteer is holding in the picture.  We had quite the time.

Health wise, Ike is scheduled to get his central line taken out this Thursday.  This is a good/bad thing.  Good because they don't feel like he needs it.  Bad because now anytime they have to draw labs (2x a week right now) or give infusions, he has to be stuck.  This will create a new set of problems, but get rid of a port to inside of his body, thereby removing at least one additional way he could get sick.  Stay tuned, this next few weeks should get interesting.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Pearl Harbor and the Life of a Mouse.




Today is Pearl Harbor Day and another remembrance to a generation of families and descendants for those who served during WWII.  The boy and I will be visiting some of the local area's and memorials.  My Grandfather served with the 9th Armored Division in Germany.  God Bless all those families with members serving over this holiday season.

While we were out with the family, we visited a pet store.  Normally this is just a token visit to keep the kids busy and pass some time.  But we found something very interesting in a little tank....



Now it may look like they're running in different directions, but this is just the "pause" before the storm because what we found (and continued to provide many minutes of entertainment) was the black/white mouse was running while the tan mouse was trying to get off this crazy ride.  And if you think it was easy, check the next picture:



The "blur" on the top is the tan mouse hanging on for dear life!  The black/white just would not let him get off the wheel.  He tried several times, and each time he almost made it - his buddy decided it was time to run again!  Disclaimer:  No mice were harmed in the filming of these pictures!  Of course, Isaiah said that looked like fun . . .  Good times!

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Community Blood Drive and Santa!




Hello, everyone!  Here we see our boy visiting Bass Pro and telling Santa how I need to receive coal for Christmas.  Gotta love him.  We've had a great time this last week.

For those at home, we've added a new LINK!  Please click and sign up for a time to donate blood!  It's very important and only takes a few minutes.  And it goes to help everyone.  Isaiah has received quite a few transfusions.  I'm going to leave the link up so it's easy for everyone to sign up!  You can find more information about this great organization here.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Live Link!

WOW!  What a wonderful weekend treat!  We were able to be shown not only on KC/Omaha, but CNN picked up the story and it's available for viewing here:

Isaiah Goes Live!

This was a wonderful surprise.  I only wish his blog was on there :)

Check our boy out!  Don't watch me.  The camera has added a few pounds, not Thanksgiving!

I was also able to find out which stations showed the story on which days (so far) with some help from a really nice lady here at the hospital.


Nov. 26
KETV Omaha 5pm
KMBC (ABC) Kansas City 6pm
WDAF (Fox) Kansas City 9pm & 10pm

Nov. 27
KETV Omaha 6:30am
WFXG (Fox) Augusta, GA 9pm

Nov. 28
KMBC (ABC) Kansas City 7am & 8am
WDAF (Fox) Kansas City 7am & 8am
WMDT Salisbury, MD 10pm
WIVB Buffalo, NY 10pm

So if you live in any of these area's or know someone that does, point them in this direction to get more information!