**Mon. 7/7 - update**

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. (James 1:12)

Praise God!!! We feel abundant blessings from Him today! NO MORE TPN!!!! This is such a milestone day for us. We have been burdened from all the time on the TPN (affecting his liver) and have prayed for him to be able to get off of it soon. Today is that day! Thank you God!! We saw Dr. Higgins today and he decided it was time to do away with it. Now we pray Caed continues to improve and we can stay off FOR GOOD! He will still have his central line in (for possibly another month) as long as there are no problems. We will continue to give meds through it and also draw his blood from there. G-tube will stay in longer. Our dr. wants us to get to 100 cc. by Mon.! That is another praise. All the time in the hospital we barely ever got to 30 cc. ~ maybe. The fact that Caed is doing well enough to get to that number in 1 week is incredible! Our dr. always told us it is much harder going from 0 - 20 cc. than from 20 - 50+. So, now....we should be on the homestretch. Caed lost 2 lbs this week, but Higgins wasn't overly concerned. Even though he is eating like normal now, his bowels are still trying to heal and are having trouble absorbing the nutrients. Hopefully the G-feeds should help more now that we are drastically increasing the dosage and rate. Caed is scheduled for an upper GI and sm. bowel series Friday morning. He will not have to drink the barium...they will inject it straight into his G-tube (like the last time). We are very ready to "see" what these results show.

Caed had another "food-filled" day. Again, he asked for it immediately when he woke up and didn't stop for several hours. It's not that he ate constantly, but he sure wanted to! He did however throw up after lunch. Not sure if he just had too much too soon. ??? The diarrhea was overall better today. I believe he only went about 3-4 times all day. (dr. also wants us to start some Imodium once a day)

Throughout this whole ordeal....we prayed for God to have mercy on Caed and heal him. As his parents, that was our desire....our will! However, we knew that God is sovereign and could choose to take Caed "home" and be completely just in doing so. All I could think about was other children / teenagers that died too soon in life, but yet God truly was glorified in their deaths. I have been to those funerals and sat in awe as the parents/family/friends gave HIM praise and glory. The plan of salvation was shared there. Many people attending those funerals were forever "changed." As much as I did not want that to be the case with Caed....I also knew that God could choose to do so if it was His will. (as extremely difficult as that would be). That's why it was so hard to know what to pray. I remember begging God to PLEASE deliver Caed! But, never through this did we ever have the attitude that "God WILL heal him." We hoped and prayed so, but were reminded that "our ways are not His ways..." (Isaiah 55:8) We knew the # of people reading Caed's story (and especially praying for him!) was growing day by day. Our thought was "how could God choose to end this story in death with SO many people praying for his ultimate healing?" "Wouldn't He be more glorified through healing Caed and answering everyone's prayers than through his death?" That was our rationale. But, we knew God sometimes chooses to do things that we in our human (depraved) minds cannot possibly comprehend. Like I said before, although we literally begged Him to heal Caed, we also trusted Him and knew He doesn't do things to harm or hurt us. So, even if He took Caed home...He would continue to be faithful and "not let us go."

Even though Caed has steadily been improving for several weeks (and drastically this past one), for the first time tonight it has truly hit me. God DID have mercy on us (& Caed)...He DID deliver Caed from months and months of pain, fear, sadness...He DID answer the heartfelt prayers of (possibly) thousands of people!! Caed still has aways to go. He still has gadgets going into his little body. He still is on lots of medications. He still is being "hooked up" daily. And his body is still trying to recover from the major trauma it went through. However....tonight as we were putting the kids to bed, Caed interrupted Reagan's prayer and said, "....and fank you God for not making me get hooked up to the ofer tube..." YES!!! Thank you God for this wonderful day You have given us! Thank You for answering our prayers in the way we wanted so badly. Thank you for pouring out Your blessing and favor on us! Oh...what love!! You never let go!