Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Faithfully Leaning

I know I already have two blogs, but I felt it to be important to dedicate one to myself so that I can share struggles, or ways that i'm encouraged in life, or just simple updates. I named my blog "faithfully leaning" because I've come to realize through easy and rough times, that I need to be faithfully leaning on my Savior for comfort, wisdom, direction and everything else. So here it goes.

My nephew (john) was born with a heart murmur (september 12th 2007). It closed up, but recently re-opened. Today he went in to the doctors today for an ecocardiogram and they discovered that he also has a heart defect called "tricuspidvalvesynosis" . It's complicated, but basically his tricuspid valve (which pushes blood from the ventricle out into the bloodstream), is defected so his ventricle is enlarged and working way too hard. He's having a somewhat simple surgery in a couple weeks, where the doctor will thread a cathiter into his heart and try to open the valve if this is not succesful he'll immediately be put on heart and lung support and the doctors will have to perform open heart surgery. That's just now. When he grows up, he'll have to have open heart surgery again so that the doctors can put in a mechanical valve. He'll be on blood thinners for the rest of his life and most likely never be able to play sports. Because when someone is on blood thinners, any impact (such that sports could cause) would result in hemoragging.

For those of you that read this:
a) please pray that God would perform a miracle. I know He can, if it is His will. We need an act of God here.

b) Pray for comfort among Amy and Dan (my sister and brother in law). That God would comfort them and give them peace of mind. Also for all of us that we would trust the Lord with little john's life.

c) Financially as well. Even though they have good insurance, we all know insurance doesn't cover everything, and we also know that surgeries like this don't come cheaply. Please pray God would provide.

I know that God is faithful. And I know He is good and that He loves not only john but all of us.

2 comments:

Mark Adams said...

You will definitely be in my prayers. BTW, how have youuuu been? Havn't talked to you in forever. It would be cool to do so.

The Bakkens said...

Thank you for your prayers, Brenna. Here are some clarifications:

1. Jack was born with the murmer, and it never really went away. It was there all along, but babies are antsy little people and it can thus be hard to get a good heart beat with a stethescope.

2. It is Jack's aortic valve that is affected, not the tricuspid. So what he has is called aortic stenosis. A normal aortic valve has 3 slits to allow it to open fully. Jack only has 1 1/2, so the hole is too small.

Again, thanks for praying... and I look forward to getting that phone call from you later today :-) Actually, if you don't call this morning, you probably won't get ahold of me today. Today happens to be both laundry day AND valentines day.