Long-Overdue Update

Blogging has taken a back seat to other concerns of late. Let me bring you up todate.

Miles is showing signs of incremental improvement. He is on two medications for clinical depression. Since a test revealed normal gastric emptying we are operating on the assumption that gastroparesis is not the pressing G/I problem. His doctor ran out of ideas and so referred us to a colleague who decided to assume that eosinophilic duodenitis was at fault and started Miles on a medication that can help with that.

Meanwhile Miles had missed so much school that the state of Texas was (ill-advisedly) sending us boilerplate letters that inform us of heavy fines and/or prosecuting charges against us. We negotiated with the school a 3 week period in which Miles would arrive an hour later and leave an hour early, but would attend every day, no matter what his health was like. And, surprise, surprise, he actually made it to school almost every day for the past 5 weeks now.

ElenaClaire had been preparing for her first open water dive in a scuba class but was unable to do it because of a cold that turned into an inner ear infection, outer ear infection, and bronchitis. She was on several oral and injected antibiotics, several oral and injected steroids, topical treatments for the ear, nebulizer breathing treatments etc. Her health improved but the hearing in her rigth ear did not. Last week we learned that the 100% hearing loss in her right ear is probably permanent and due to nerve damage. She is still on steroids and will have an MRI to make sure nothing is pressing against the nerve but the news has been a great discouragement to her.

Smiles for Miles/Miles for Miles raised a grand total of $9,000 this year.

Alicia and I are doing well but struggling to keep our heads above water in all the stressors of our lives.

Ministry continues to go well at CTK. We have begun mentoring a small church plant who are presently without a pastor after their planting pastor left (after only 2-3 years) and part of what that means is that several of us are preaching there. We provide preaching 3 Sundays out of 4 for them. I preached on November 4 (reprising the Lost Sheep/Lost Coin piece and video, plus additional material) and am scheduled there once a month. In December I will preach at the 9:40 service at CTK. That's the weekend of the Cantata, which is presented Saturday night and at the 8:20 and 11:00 services, and for which I am writing the script.