Praise the Lord and thank you to all who continue to pray for Jayke’s heart healing and good health. Jayke is now 5 months old! He is beautiful! Finally, we have been able to introduce our miracle baby, God’s child, to a lot of you that have been so incredible in earnestly praying for him.
He continues to grow and perform amazing things for his best friend and big
sister Madi, who continues to pray for the Lord to bless him and heal his
heart and his whole body. He has stayed well and not been sick. He is eating
well and gaining weight. He laughs and coos in an effort to keep up with his
sister. He also prefers to sit up like everyone else rather than lay down.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according
to his great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope.”
1 Peter 1:3
Madi has been great as a big sister. She has learned to check everything and
everyone out to avoid “sick germs”. Also, she reminds everyone
to wash hands. We are extremely careful to keep everything we come in contact
with very clean so that no one gets sick, especially Jayke.
We have scheduled Jayke’s second surgery for Thursday, July 25. We will
travel to Dallas on Monday, July 22. Dr. Kao, Pediatric Cardiologist, will
perform a heart cath Tuesday, July 23. Then, on Wednesday, July 24, we will
take Jayken to Children’s Medical Center for blood work, x-rays, and
a checkup to get ready for surgery on Thursday. On Thursday, we will check
in to CMC for his surgery, which will be performed by the same surgeons –
Dr. Leonard and Dr. Nikaidoh. The recovery time is two weeks after surgery,
at the maximum. But, we trust the Lord will bring us home with even more of
His amazing grace sooner.
We have been blessed with several opportunities to speak of God’s Almighty
Power and Grace through Jayke’s continued healing. Our prayer and hope
is that God will continue to bless us in this way so that His name may be
glorified and in order to further His Kingdom in the way that He has planned.
Also, we pray for open hearts to hear what the Lord has to say so that there
can be a new/renewed faith in the Almighty.
We continue to trust in Him that He will bring us through this next surgery
even more triumphantly than the last.
Please continue to pray for him. We know that we cannot heal him, only our
God can if we let go and let Him.
God, Jayken is Yours…please heal his body, especially his heart…continue
to make him a living miracle and testimony of your amazing grace…
“Grace, grace, God’s grace, Grace that will pardon and cleanse
within; Grace, grace, God’s grace, Grace that is greater than all our
sin.”
“The lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord
is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? I will strengthen you,
Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”
Psalm 27:1; Isaiah 41:10
By His Strength and through His Amazing Grace,
August 6, 2002 (We're home! Praise the Lord!)
We are home!!!! Jayken did incredible during and after the surgery. They removed the shunt. Then, they cut the superior vena cava and attached it to the pulmonary artery and sewed together the inferior vena cava. They had to place a “patch” on the pulmonary artery because there was a very slight amount of narrowing, which is very common. Dr. Leonard said that the pulmonary just doesn’t always like to “cooperate”, but he was not concerned about this at all. This was done as an extra safety precaution so the pulmonary lasts until the next surgery. They took Jayke off the ventilator that evening, moved him to a room on the floor the next afternoon, took his chest tube out Saturday at noon, then discharged him Sunday morning. We got home Sunday night. Praise the Lord! Thank you so much to all of you who visited and prayed. You all mean so much to us.
“The one thing I ask of the Lord, the thing I seek the most is to live
in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, delighting in the Lord’s
perfections and meditating in His Temple.” -Psalm 27:4
Tim started running fever of 104 on Thursday night (the night of Jayke’s
surgery). He brought Madi to the hospital on Friday, and she stayed with me
and Jayke until we left on Sunday…Tim was still running high fever and
had not eaten since Friday. The Watson’s (Jay, Jana, Kristen, and Meagan)
were in Dallas and came to check on us. Thank you, Watson’s, for all
your help, the Lord sent you at the perfect time! They checked Tim out of
the hotel and rushed us home taking Tim to the ER. They ran some tests and
discovered he had pneumonia. His white blood count was okay, so they did not
admit him. They gave Tim IV antibiotics and an oral prescription. He had to
stay away from us for 1 week per Jayke’s cardiologist. We are sooo glad
he his home now, too. Thank you so much to all of the youth and friends that
visited us, helped me with groceries, errands, and Madi last week. You were
all such an incredible blessing!
Jayken is still in some pain, but is not as afraid anymore when he first wakes
up. He is able to take less pain medicine now. He has pretty much gotten back
to his old self…talks, coos, laughs at Madi’s silliness, rolls
side to side, sits up… Praise the Lord! We go to see Dr. Colon (Jayken’s
heart Dr. that is here in Lubbock) on Thursday for his follow up appointment.
We hope to find out when we will be able to get out again. It is so amazing
to see him beating all odds after we were told just a few months ago that
there was less than a 2 percent chance that he would even survive.
“O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; My soul
thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there
is no water….Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify
you….My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods….
Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. -Psalm 63:1,3,5,7
Please keep praying. (Next time, we pray no one gets sick while
we are there for heart surgery.)
We love you all.
September 28, 2002 (9months old)
Here is our miracle baby today:
Jayke's scar is healing very well again this time:
