Luke has the chore of feeding the 1300 pound longhorn bull living in our back pasture. After all, he turned 2 last Friday so it's about time he started pulling his weight around here. You can't tell it from this angle but the bulls horns are more than 50" wide.
Carissa has everything done for her and gets dressed like this while we are preparing meals to protect her further.
If you ask my brother he will reluctantly admit to you that he was treated much better than I was growing up (I'm pretty sure that's the way he tells it) so either we are not the only family guilty of this or it is an inherited trait that I am passing down. By the way, Pamela generally does a great job of dressing the kids for UT gamedays as you see from the pictures. She does this voluntarily...of course on Friday nights I remove all clothing not burnt orange or having a longhorn from our home until Sunday morning.
Carissa goes in for another ultrasound Thursday to make sure everything seems ok with her spleen and liver since they still seem enlarged. She will also have additional blood work done at that time because there seems to be growing concern about her thyroid function. We have made it through a couple of cold/upper respiratory scary times with Carissa over the last couple of weeks. Those are never fun with any young child and seem even more trying with Carissa's background of slow lung development. We had a couple of people come out a few days ago to measure Carissa's developmental progress and she seems to track pretty well if you chart her versus her due date, but she is behind in most or all areas if you measure versus her actual birthday. That is to be expected at this point. We are thrilled that she seems mostly on track when compared to her full term date and see that as miraculous considering all she went through those first few weeks. She is scheduled to be reevaluated monthly for the next few months to help us make sure that she keeps developing like she should.
- Please thank God for His amazing healing touch on Carissa's life. She turned 6 months old last Saturday! We know we are amazingly blessed to even be saying that.
- Please pray that Carissa's thyroid will function properly as well as her other glands that could be a challenge right now and are so important for her continued development.
- Please pray that Carissa's liver and spleen are also functioning properly and that there is no issue with them being enlarged.
- Please pray that Carissa continues to make and maintain normal levels on her blood components. Praise God she has been considered to be normal in this area the last two visits.
- Please pray that God continue to be given the glory for Carissa's amazing progress and please make sure to give Him credit when you share her story.
We are humbled to have the opportunity several times a week to give an account of God's amazing actions in Carissa's life and of our thankfulness of hundreds of people offering up prayers for her. Please keep remembering her in your prayers.
Yours and His,
Terry
