Pondering and Good News

But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. Luke 2:19 As often as this verse is used in Christmas programs and readings, as a kid I never really got it, so she pondered and treasured, lets get on with Jesus. As a married adult I realized a small bit of what Mary was thinking as people came to tell me how comforting it was to have Pastor with them when their loved one was ill or dying. As a parent I really understood that this was no throw away verse (like any of them ever are) but that it was a glimpse of the humanity, the real mommy that Mary was. Through the years with John people have told me things that I have always held onto, often times when I remember those statements I remember them in a visual, audio way, both seeing and hearing the person in my minds eye. This weekend I received two gifts to treasure and have already pondered them much, and will surely ponder them often as the years go by. The first was told to me by Baker Chick #3's mommy, that this little Chick whom John has such a great time with was telling her grandma how sweet and nice of a little boy John was and how much she liked him and all the things that they do together. As the mommy of a little boy who is often thought of as a patient, or as handicapped, or disabled, it is a golden treasure to hear the words of this precious child describe my precious child as a little boy, to talk about him in such a normal way, a treasure to my mommy ears. The second treasure that I received to ponder was given by Dr. Mercer, the new doctor that took over the Intestinal Rehab Program in Omaha. In the midst of a conversation about John and trying to get him off of some of the meds that he is on he said 'he has a good, long life ahead of him' and then went on to talk about some med changes that we are going to try. To a mommy who has heard over and over many times the news that her son will not live, won't have a good life, won't be able to do this or that, those nine words will be treasured and pondered as they often repeat in my head.

The rest of John's clinic visit was great too. The little boy is now 14.25 kilos, that's .75 kilos weight gain in that past 6 weeks, about 1 pound 10 ounces. John's labs were exactly what they should be and we don't have to go back for 2 whole months. That is the longest John has ever been scheduled between GI appointments. During this two months we are going to be weaning him from Prevacid, hoping that if he needs an antacid he can be put on Zantac or something even lesser, one that doesn't have the bone loss side effect that Prevacid can have. The other thing we will be doing is seeing if John can get off of his high powered antibiotics that he takes for bacterial overgrowth. Actually with that we are going to take him off those antibiotics and if he does fine then let him be, and if he doesn't then they are going to do a scope on him when we return to Omaha in March and culture what is growing in his intestines so that they can more finely tune his antibiotics for him. The philosophy of the docs is the less meds the child is on the better, goes right along with our philosophy too. We are looking forward to what this two months brings.