Father and Son...

Many of you have been keeping up with all of our updates and have been praying for both my dad and my son. I appreciate all of the prayers and aske that if you are not the praying kind to please keep us in your thoughts as we make it through all of this.

Many of you may know that just a couple of weeks ago my father was in the hospital. He had several rough days of kidney dialysis and feeling sick from colitis (a chronic digestive disease characterized by inflammation of the colon.) Upon further testing of the colon it was also found that he had Colon Cancer. He has been recovering under the care of my aunts for about two weeks. Tomorrow he will go into the hospital around 10:00am and be preped for surgery. They plan to go in and remove all of the cancer (but not all of the colon) and the precancerous spots around the cancer. The hope is that he will come out of surgery without needing any chemotherapy or radiation. It all depends on what they find during surgery, but regardless there will be at least 6weeks of recovery time. Many of you have been praying for him during the last few weeks and I trust that tomorrow you will continue to aks God for his Mercy to shower over my daddy (Johnny.) Your continued prayers would also be welcome for the other family members as well.

As for my son, Karston. We took him into the E.R. last Friday morning uncertain of why he was in pain and unable to bear weight on his leg. He ran a fever of 103 degrees and the doctors got him on IV fluids right away. We were told that he had a viral infection and he was started on Antibiotics right away. We knew that he had a blister over his ankle bone and wondered if that may be where the infection was taking place. All xrays came back clear and he was sent home to rest. For two days staight he had very little energy and laid on the couch watching movies. Yesterday, Mother's Day, he woke up feeling fine. He was full of energy and ready to have fun at his grandparents house with the family. It didn't take long before we noticed that his ankles was swollen. Below is a picture of what it looked like(CAUTION: the picture below could be considered gruesome.) on Mother's day. The doctor said that if he had seen it like that he would have sent us back to the E.R. overnight for IV antibiotics. He said that it still could be the case that the infection is rejecting the antibiotics so we need to keep a close eye on it and if it swells again and he runs high fevers then we need to go back to the E.R. immediatley. I looked at just an hour ago and it is a little more red and swollen but nothing like it was yesterday. We will continue to monitor it and keep you all updated on how he is doing.