Remembering India 1996 when finding a quiet place to escape with the Lord felt impossible. So thankful for the lesson of finding quiet with Him in the middle of noise and chaos.

So the first round of cultures came back Graham positive with rods meaning bacteria. However, that was drawn from his picc line so they took new cultures from his arm and we have to wait 48 hours for those results to see if the bacteria is in his blood or just the picc
If it's just in the picc they'll tale it out and we should be able to go home soon after. If it's in his blood we're gonna be here for a long time. His blood / factor levels are looking better though.

Jon's Update: We're still in the hospital. Jon's blood levels kept dropping so they have really upped his factor levels. That seems to be a bit more stable. However, this morning, the nurse came rushing in and began two new very strong antibiotics usually used for treating staph and took 4 more bottles of blood cultures. When we asked her about it, she said she couldn't talk to us about it. No explanation. We could be here a while. Pray for jon, pray for our kids who are with great friends who came in from out of town to help, pray for our finances. We love you all!

Going Home

Day 8: We hope to be going home this afternoon. Jon is doing better
but had a rough afternoon yesterday after his doctors stretched his
arm to capacity and splint it in that position. He is off of all IV
pain meds in hopes they will release him. He is ready to go home. I
think he misses his babies ;-) Its been a bit of a lonely week for me,
wanting to talk with him about anything and everything like we
normally do. I know it's just a season. I'm thankful it's just a
season. I'm thankful he came out of that operating room like I made
him promise he would :-)

We will ne trying to clean and move all the way into our new house
this weekend. We have lots of cleaning, painting and laughing to do if
any of you are interested.

Love you all.... Please remember us in our journey ahead. We now look
forward to much healing and supernatural provision for our family.

Learning A Lot About Hope and The Quiet Nearness of God,

Carla

Day 6 Post - Op:

Its been a long and winding road. Jonathan is doing well, but is of
course in tremendous pain. He has developed a large bruise on the back
of his arm and last night ortho had to come in and loosen the splint
as he was swelling immensely. It was quite the fight to get them back
up here. As of right now, the splint will come off tomorrow to check
for more potential swelling and hematomas. Note to you: don't ever
leave anyone you love alone in the hospital. While we are grateful to
have doctors, they are looking after MANY patients and are spread so
thin, you have to make your loved one a priority to them. Needless to
say, yesterday afternoon was rough. He is resting now. Thank you for
believing.
Carla

Day 2

Watching Jonathan finally sleep for the first time.  Tremendous pain. Bleeding factor levels very low. Adjusting that. Can't get pain under control so going to do a 3 day nerve block. Will prob be in hospital all week. He's in the thick of it. His is a life filled with excruciating pain and completely indescribable joy. Working back towards the laughter.      

Carla

The Details of the Surgery

Hi Everyone,

From the time they wheeled Jonathan away to the time docs came to
talk to us was 11 hours. It's been 13 hours since I've seen him so
far. He's still in recovery

The surgeons had to completely reform his bones because they were
deformed and muscles, cut out his elbow, cut his muscle out, drill
holes in his bones and rethread his muscle back to his bone, drill a
tunnel through the center of the upper part of his bone and lower and
insert rods to hold the new elbow in and try to preserve the nerves.
The doctors and nurses came out completely exhausted.

I don't know how one person can take so much pain.

Love you all. Thank you for standing with us.

Carla, Jonathan and Family

11 hour prep / surgery

Ok, Jonathan is out of surgery. It's been 11 hours. We still haven't
seen him. It was a VERY invasive and complicated surgery. It will be a
very long and painful recovery. Don't even know how to begin to tell
you what they had to do. Thank you for praying! Keep it up!
Carla

How to Pray

For those of you who haven't caught this yet, Jonathan is having his elbow replaced completely this Friday morning, December 11th. It's an attempt to spare his arm from amputation. The surgery will probably be long and begin very early in the morning at Tulane. He will be in the hospital 5-7 days. The biggest requests are: that his bleeding would stay minimal, that the cement will set well within his bone to hold the replacement, that there would not be any infections, that the nursing staff would take proper care of him and that his pain would stay minimal. These types of surgeries and recoveries tend to be extremely long and painful for hemophiliacs. 

Also, while Jonathan's business will remain in Mandeville, we have moved our family to Baton Rouge. This is a huge transition for our family in the midst of his next surgery. While he is in the hospital we will be trying to unpack our new house. 

Thank you so much for bathing us in prayer. 

Love you,
Carla

Carla

Surgery

So this Friday is the big day. Jonathan's elbow will be cut out and a
metal one will be put in. Jonathan watched this surgery being done on
someone else online. Ouch!!! I know that God is with us, still my
stomach is in knots.... Trying to take as many deep breaths as
possible and remember the nearness of God. Please pray. Please believe
with us. Please ask as many people as you possibly can to remember us.
Carla