Sorry this is so late, (a whole WEEK!) but with getting ready for a wedding in a couple wks, I don't have a lot of time to sit at the computer. And here it ends up being my longest post ever!! Guess it sort've got done in hitches tho' and took me awile to find all these pictures as well.

"Happy Birthday!" to our "Bride-to-Be" dau. JoNell Julane!

20 years ago today (Apr. 22) baby # 3 came to stay -what a precious gift after waiting 5 years for another bundle of joy....and what a bundle she was....10# 3oz. 22" long! She was my biggest baby, but she is quite the petite girl today.

   

 Apr. 22nd..the day I was born                                                  

  2 days later n waiting to go home 

JoNell had a rough start in life...she was born with a perforated bile duct with a blockage below that which they considered a birth defect--called Biliary Atresia. In most cases there is no perforation, so the bile has nowhere to go but to back up into the liver, which in turn causes the liver to enlarge and unless there's a liver transplant done, it can be fatal.

  May 1st--My first Sunday to Church

 

 May 18th -"Why am I in the hospital again?"                     

 May 20th - JoLynn Rocking Me (at the hospital)

May 24th - "Look Mommy, I'm ready to go home now!" 

 

May 27-"today is Daddy & Mommy's 10th Wedding Anniv. n I'm about 5 wks old already."

                         

    

June 5th--"uh-oh, I'm sick again...and my bilirubin level is up again n Dr wants me to get lots of sunshine"

 

 

 June 13th-home from one hospital (for the 5th time!)--but getting ready to leave for Childrens' in St Louis.....    

            

To make a long story short, JoNell was in and out of the hospital 5 times with projectile vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy and low grade fever,as well as other things by the time she was 7 wks old....it was then that we were sent to St. Louis Childrens' Hospital for a liver transplant...if there'd be one available before it was too late. Thankfully, God allowed a perforation in the duct which allowed the bile to escape and not damage the liver, but it caused other adverse effects...the bile was seeping out the perforation and poisoning her system; causing elevated liver enzymes; elevated biliruben; and also since there was no bile to help digest her milk, she wasn't gaining either. (Her weight fluctuated between 9# 6oz and 10# 12oz, but mostly hovered around her birth weight. The Drs said it was good she was a big baby because if she would've been a 7#er or less, she very easily wouldn't have survived all the trauma she went thro'...she had every test under the sun including x-rays, ultrasounds, dye run thru her little body with MRI's and you name it...they still couldnt find what was wrong with her! Thankfully the the St. Louis Drs. made a diagnosis just by looking at her tests n paper work!)

 

Exploratory surgery revealed the perforation and so they did a bypass, taking a small part of the intestines and making as tiny a bile duct as they could, and giving her a new bile duct from the liver to the gall bladder. The Dr said a newborn baby's bile duct is about as big around as the lead of a pencil, so it's nearly impossible to find the hole and suture it up...the only feasible thing to do is make a new one!

  June 21st - 4 days after surgery       (2 mo old)            

 "I think I'm getting well.....how soon can we go home?"

"Woops, 3 1/2 weeks later and I'm back......

in the hospital again.....for the 7th time. Dear God, will I ever be well and stay well?"

"I'm all happy n feelin fine! I'm 3 mo. old today."          

  

 "My 1st Birthday--I weigh 18# 12 oz. 28" long. "

I continued to breastfeed her till she was a yr old, inspite of the fact her local pediatrition tried every formula on the market...as he was blaming that on her illness, but she vomited them all worse than my milk. The Drs in St Louis contributed her doing as good as she she did to the fact that Mother's milk is so much easier to digest than formula, n in her condition, she was able to absorb some of it even tho' she had very little if any bile to help with the digestive process.

Through the years JoNell continued to be petite and rather puny, n by the time she was 10, it seemed as tho' she was going backwards. She had lots of stomach ache, headaches, no appetite, no energy etc.

 

Notice how close they are to the same height....JoNell is 11, JoVonne is 8 1/2 n Darren is just having his 7th B.D. Curly of course thinks he's old enough to drive a John Deere....and he's only 6 )

Even tho she was under Drs care, it wasn't until about 4 mo. before she turned 12, that they discovered a gallstone in her bile duct the size of a banty egg or a walnut! After doing extensive antibiotic treatments (she had major infection in there somewhere) they cut a small inscision in her side and inserted the electrodes to fragment the stone. They came to the conclusion that they think she was born with this itsy-bitsy gallstone (and it's possibly even what caused the blockage in the first place!) and it slowly grew and finally 10-12 yrs later it was big enough to make her very ill. Her dr. said not even old people grow 'em that big!

 (I do have more pictures of her thru her illness n surgery, but aren't scanned to the computer yet.)

After her surgery they did a laproscopy or something of the sort and the dr said it looks like her original bile duct is working now, and he didn't even see the by-pass. (Did God really perform a miracle of healing there?)

After her recovery, JoNell took off n grew like a weed, her energy n appetite became normal again, and we thank God for giving us back our little girl again after we were told she may have some kind of liver disease along with lots of scar tissue etc. That was now 8 yrs ago, and I hope and pray that is all history and that she can continue to be as healthy as she is now or even better. She isn't robust with lots of energy at best, and yet she usually keeps up with normal activities, although she does require more sleep than some.

Keith and JoNell's wedd. is only 12 days away and as you think of them, pray for them and their safe keeping as they go to Puerto Rico for a 2 week honeymoon, after which they plan to make their home in Oregon--at least for the time being. We will miss her a whole lot more than words can say! It also takes alot of faith on my part to let go of my little girl and give her to her "prince charming" and let him take her miles and miles away...what if she gets sick again? (She had mono 3 times in the last 3 yrs. plus other virus' and illnesses that so easily plague her.)

   

I know God will take care of her wherever He leads her, and I want to trust Him and commit her to His tender care as well.

And now, last but not least, I will also give a tribute in memory of our son Delton Jon who also would have a Birthday today. 29 years ago we became parents for the first time when we were blessed with a darling little boy with lots of golden hair who weighed 9# 1 1/2 oz. 22" long. God allowed us the care and keeping of this dear boy for 16 short years. His accident was July 6th, and he lived for 6 wks. before his earthly story ended on Aug. 16, 1995, and he went Home to be with Jesus. God only knows the answers to all the questions and why He performed so many miracles of healing, why...when His presence was so real  and impossibilities became possibilities --even to the extent that the Drs n Nurses called Delton their 'miracle boy'.....then to suddenly say, "it is enough, come Home my Child" and he was gone...in a matter of hours. God is good and allowed us to be there and witness his passing and have the perfect assurance by his gestures, responses and facial expression, that he is safe in Heaven....waiting our coming. May we be faithful till God calls us Home!

 (Some day I may post more about his life, accident, long hospital stay n eventual death.)

P.S. Another milestone in our lives was a couple Sundays ago (Apr.13th) when our 2 youngest, JoVonne & Darren were baptized and became members of Sunnyview Menn. Church, Olathe, CO. They were in a class of 3 girls and 4 boys. I purposely took my camera along to take a group picture, but got side tracked too long -discussing wedd. stuff with a visitor-where to get serving bowls, tuelle etc. and she offered to let us use hers (bless her heart!) By then the girls had left, so I quickly grabbed our two and the other three boys and still got a few poses

Paul Mast , Brian Miller, Jonathan Graber, Darren and JoVonne (Missing girls are Brenda Weaver & Shonda Clugston)

"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved....." --Mark 16:16