Joel's Journey: Christmas at our house....

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Christmas at our house....

I said a while back I would give a little virtual tour of christmas at our house. Course we have a Cowboy tree and the 9 foot of turquoise, browns, white and silver. A bit rustic and sparkle! I added the two silver trees this year! They just looked fun! .....and I have the live tree for Joel inside still and hope to plant it soon! I love making our home all festive! but in a few more weeks I'll be ready to clean and get everything all back to normal!!! Ha!!!! We sure have had a good time with all the advent activities!!! Hope you all are enjoying the season! I am so thankful for many things but I am particularly thankful for Gods grace and mercy in a particular situation we encountered about 4 months ago. It was a very trying time, a lot of prayer, counsel and just waiting. It's
not easy being a parent! so thankful for friends that prayed, that cared, that loved! So thankful that God has healed, helped and delivered.

......thank you Jesus that you care about a
mothers heart and her children!!

1 comment:

Teena said...: Beautiful. Love it all. Love seeing your advent activities too!

The Lord has brought you to mind over and over the past few months. Not knowing why... I would just pray for you! Continuing to pray.

Much much love; December 13, 2012 at 3:58 PM

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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.