Hello Everyone!
As I am writing this there are army ants covering our house. They come a couple of times every year. We just leave them alone to do their thing – they eat all of the other insects and insect eggs in their path and then move on. Free Spring-cleaning!
This week has been an exciting one for us! The children had standardized testing at SAM academy. That was a great opportunity for them to see their friends and practice their testing skills. On Monday Ethan woke up with a bunch of pea-sized bumps on his head that itched and a bloodshot eye. The next couple of days he started having red blotchy hives move down behind his ears, on his forehead, and down onto his eyes and mouth and throat. The hives were then followed with some extreme swelling – angioedema is what it looked like all over his head, neck and face. The night before last as the hives were moving down his throat, I stayed awake watching his breathing and swelling as he slept fitfully through his Benadryl induced rest. The power went out around 1am for an hour or so, and when it came back on Ethan woke up with his lower lip swollen to three times it’s normal size and the right side of his throat swelling up. Vann and I took him downstairs to give him an epi-shot, and the poor little man fainted in his daddy’s arms just thinking about a shot. The Lord be praised – the swelling and redness immediately went down as the fear-induced adrenaline coursed through his body. Fainting saved his life – without a shot! I continued to watch him until the sun rose. Our God is so good, and great. He takes perfect care of us.
The day before Vann found that our smallest, wild horse had an awful wound on the top of her back hip, and wounds that had three horizontal stripes on the inside of her hind leg. We had been cutting wood for the house all that day, but when he found that our horse was wounded we immediately set out to cut 12’ boards to put around the horse shelter to make a corral to treat this wild horse. The blade on the little table saw had to be changed before we could do anything, and then a Swiss family came by to visit, and very graciously visited with us while we continued to work on our urgent and unplanned project. We also had to deal with eight wasp nests in the horse shelter before we could continue. Needless to say we couldn’t finish it before the sun set. The next morning Vann went out to continue by himself because I was exhausted from my night vigil over Ethan, and was also busy pasteurizing 5 gallons of milk. The vet sent a horse-trainer who showed up first thing (amazing! – the vet rarely comes when we call,and with our current horrible cell service, we didn’t think we had been able to even communicate what the problem was). He worked with Vann to finish the corral and then very skillfully lassoed the horse and wrapped her feet to put her on the ground. He washed her wounds and treated her, and told us that it looks like a jaguar or other large cat had hunted and attacked her! That really is the only explanation for her wounds.
In the meantime Ethan’s swelling and hives were not responding to the Benadryl, so after lunch, we took him in to the doctor who so graciously saw us on his lunch break and gave him a different antihistamine and prednisone. These medicines are making a marked difference for him, but he is still very swollen and itchy. If we only knew what his extreme allergic reaction was from…God knows, and is in control. Vann also started breaking out with hives three weeks ago, but we don’t know what that is from either.
Thank you all who have prayed for me. I am feeling almost like myself again thanks to a new medicine from the States to help my blood volume and pressure stay up. I am praising the Lord for the doctors and friends who have so lovingly given me their time and attention. God is in control! In the midst of these hard things we can clearly see His hand of protection on us. We thank Him and praise Him for His abundant blessings. To Him be all the glory!
With much love, Vanessa