Joel's Journey: Christmas 2009

Friday, December 25, 2009

Christmas 2009

Merry

Christmas
from
the Morris Family

7 comments:

Leanne said...: Good looking family!; December 25, 2009 at 9:27 PM
Betsy said...: Merry Christmas!; December 25, 2009 at 11:15 PM
Teena said...: Merry Christmas!

Beautiful pic!

Hugs,
Teena; December 26, 2009 at 8:30 AM
Mountain Mama said...: Hope you had a nice Christmas. What a beautiful family!
blessings to you,
ashley; December 27, 2009 at 8:18 AM
Janet said...: What a lovely family photograph and how envious I am of your White Christmas! It was exceptionally hot in Johannesburg this year! We spent most of our day in the pool trying to keep cool! It was a quiet Christmas for hubby and me, but a good one! :); December 28, 2009 at 4:11 AM
LJR said...: What a beautiful picture. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas; December 28, 2009 at 5:10 AM
Missy said...: This is such a wonderful picture of your family. I have enjoyed seeing the pictures of the new addition. I'm sure you will really enjoy it. And those are some great pictures of your little Josiah. I wish you all lived near us in Tennessee. I would love to have your daughter take pictures for us. She does such a good job. Missy; December 28, 2009 at 10:46 PM

Joel's Story

Joel, our 11th of 13 and a twin of Josiah, at age 3 was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer, on December 6th, 2006. Joel had three perfect years of health and he and Josiah celebrated their 3rd birthday Sept. 13th, 2006. The first of Oct. Joel started having unexplained fevers for a few days and would return to active play. After the fourth round of fevers we took him to our family Dr. which they said his iron was low, so we treated that for a few weeks and took him back only to have his hemo. showing lower than before. We were referred to a hematologists and saw him a few weeks with blood checks twice a week. At a visit on Dec. 4th we showed the Dr. the bumps, (which were tumors but we did not know at the time) on Joel's head and he was very concerned and we were told we needed to admit him immediately and start extensive tests the following day. Joel went through rigorous testing and then the dreaded results were given. Joel was at a stage IV the most extensive stage, but we were hopeful that the Lord would use the means of Chemotherapy treatments to restore Joel's body. Joel endured 8 1/2 days in the hospital, came home for Christmas, and returned for his second round of chemo Jan. 3, 2007. Joel had a seizure that night after midnight and went into a coma due to a tumor bleeding in his head area and causing his brain to swell. After tests the following days, the Dr. declared Joel "brain dead" and took us to court to force us to take Joel off life support, as we did not agree with the medical field's definition of death. Our family sought to stand with the scripture, "life is in the blood,"and until Joel's heart quit beating naturally, he was living. We were making arrangements to bring him home and on January 23, 2007 his little heart stopped beating and he went to be with the Lord Jesus in heaven. Our lives are changed forever. God is faithful in the midst of this trial and we look with great hope to be with him someday.