Joel's Journey: cookies+parades

Monday, December 3, 2012

cookies+parades

With the Advent posts I'm doing, you might end up with 2 posts on some days!! So many events happening! Ha! So watch for the Advent post later! But for now.....it's our traditional sugar cookie making!! It's a messy bunch of fun!

One advantage of living near Guthrie, is all the festivities they have at different seasons!! The Christmas parade!! The night seemed a bit magical! ......and we stood right in front of the coffee shop Anna works at sooooo we had to pop in there after and get something!!!

2 comments:

Cindy Petronic said...: That looks awesome! I wish I lived in a small country town in which I could experience Christmas traditions with the townsfolk.; December 3, 2012 at 5:33 PM
Teena said...: So glad to see all your posts. I want to incorporate some of your ideas into our Advent activities. Hope I am not bugging you too much! ;)

Love reading. We have a little "downtown" like yours but not as decorated. Our parade was the same night.

Much love,
Teena; December 3, 2012 at 8:21 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.