Julia Update

Thank you Darlene for the very nice comment and verse. We have never really looked at that verse in that way. God is good.

Julia's initial surgery went well. They didn't take quite as long as they thought they would. The rough "wet smear" test during the surgery gave great hopes that the tumor was not cancerous but they won't know for sure until today. Prayers in this area would be great.

The best update is what came from Julia's mommy last night (Sunday) evening:

They discharged Julia from the hospital at 9pm tonight. Praise God!! Overall, she’s done really well. We were originally expecting a minimum of one week and were told to prepare for two weeks in the hospital. We’re very thankful that things went much better then expected. Some friends that have been through much more in the medical realm with their daughter helped us a great deal and even loaned us a mini tape recorder. I see now why this is so beneficial. It is amazing that we can sit with the doctors and afterwards are unsure of what they said. It’s helpful to be able to go back and re-listen to what was said directly after surgery or doctor’s visits.


Apparently, the surgeons thought (if they took part of the kidney) they would need to put a stint in that would have to be surgically removed at a later date. This stint would need to be monitored in the hospital. When they went to do the surgery, everything was lined up properly (position of the growth, position of veins, etc), that they did not need to put in the stint. This made the recovery and the overall procedure much easier then expected. Even after the surgery, we were continually given conflicting opinions from doctors and nurses on when she would go home from a couple of days to “oh, she’ll be here for a long time”. I think they really don’t know how long the recovery will last since each person is different.

Please continue to keep Julia in your prayers regarding the results and her continued recovery. She’s still in quite a bit of pain. We were also told by one of the surgeons that they made a really small incision. Apparently he often makes incisions twice as big. We thought that was good until we actually saw the incision. Wow!! I’d hate to see his “really big” incision. Her incision is at least 6 inches long. It’s a small price to pay under the circumstances though!


Thank you for all of your support and prayers. We feel tremendously blessed by all of you! We should find out the pathology results tomorrow. I’ll send out another update tomorrow or Tuesday.

Thank you very much for your continued prayers for us and for Julia. Yet again we have seen how prayers and God's will can change what appears to be a very bad situation into something far better.