One week to go!

In one week from today, we will arrive as a family in Guatemala. The kids are excited. Cintia and Odie (our dog) are stressed beyond measure with all the changes. Kenny and I are taking it minute by minute.

My friend Stanley flew in from Guatemala last week and left on Friday with our mini-van loaded with therapy equipment for Cintia and a few other things we fit in. He left on Friday and was at the border of Texas and Mexico last night. Prayerfully, he will cross the border this morning and be on his way so that he will arrive in Guatemala in time to pick us up at the airport. Please pray for his safety. It is a very dangerous trip...one that he takes often, bu nevertheless very dangerous. He means much more to me than the car although it would be nice for my car to arrive safely too. He has two borders to cross and has to deal with taxes so please pray for mercy and that the folks holding their hand out for money are reasonable. Many times they are not. So please pray for Stanley as he travels.

Cintia had a perfect dental checkup yesterday. Praise God! A baby who drank chocolate milk in a bottle and juices too numerous to count, probably didn't have her teeth brushed prior to my "gotcha" day with her, and still drinks no milk....has absolutely perfect teeth! Yeah!!!!

We have hit a major bump for Cintia. In order to save time because I have less than zero minutes to spare and 4 medical visits in the next two days plus the potential for many more after today's visit, I will simply cut and past from an email to Granny Hayman regarding Cintia's new health issue (not really new but we just found out about it).

"Not to worry you, but Cintia had a renal ultrasound done on Wednesday. I learned a lot in Cincinnati and one thing was in regards to renal function. Many of these kids end up in renal failure needing transplants and never know it until their teens. Her doc had requested the ultrasound and we thought she was fine having had a normal ultrasound 2 yrs prior. After the trip and having witnessed several families of little ones get bad news on their kids regarding kidney health, we decided to get an ultrasound. We were going to do it in Guatemala and send it back but due to a day where she screamed and couldn't pee (probably a spasm) we took her in. The pediatrician said he would like to do the scan here and have Dr. Burton read it (....the best radiologist around for reading peds US). Well, the long and short of it is she looks to have renal disease. Not severe at this point but not what we wanted to hear. Soooo, we are seeing a peds nephrologist next week. I will call you with the results of that visit. We don't expect to have to do much now unless it is medication. We may just need to keep an eye on it. Good news is that there are good nephrologists in Guate (some US trained) and they even do transplants...although we would never consider doing that there nor is she in need of one. I'm just saying that this is something we can follow there with good doctors and get on with her adoption rather than wait..... because this baby needs insurance and she needs to be a US citizen ASAP! I am also going to ask her judge to write another letter to the embassy to keep her health visa open in case we need to bring her out should things change for her medically. Even if it requires putting the adoption on hold for a few weeks, it will give us the peace of mind to know we could get her out should she get sick. I think it is something that everyone including her judge will agree on. "

That's sort of it in a nutshell. We know nothing except she has kidneys that appear abnormal...both of them indicating some kind of intrinsic renal disease. We see the nephrologist today and will get the "where do we go from here" talk and hopefully walk out reassured once more that God has revealed this in His perfect timing and life will move forward. We also got a call from Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. My pediatrician called every major hospital within 150 miles (I do believe) because getting a consult with a specialists with a 1 1/2 week time span seemed undoable. He explained the crisis and we were able to get into a pediatric nephrologist here in Chattanooga. Vanderbilt also agreed to work her in. They were super on the phone and said if Dr. Subterli needs to refer her on to them (meaning it is something severe that can't be managed in Chattanooga) that they will work her in. God is good!

Gotta go...but I will post the results of the visit today. It will probably be a cut and paste from an email to grandparents who are eagerly awaiting the results...but at least I will post something. Because after today and tomorrows medical visits and 2 full days and evenings of swim meets, the Haymans are in mad packing mode. Computers, electronic devices, and phones will shut off in order to pack for our move and trying to plan for what we will need in the coming year.

One last request...please pray for our parents and my grandmother. This is super tough on them and I can't stay strong when people are sad...particularly when there are tears. We have more to do than can get done and need to focus on the task of getting to Guatemala next week and can't stop long enough to love on our family and friends as much as we want too. (In the middle of typing this, Kenny called and said Payton needs 2 fillings and they wanted to do them next Tuesday. I said no. Today or tomorrow or we must wait.....they are not decay just crevices that can cause decay if they are not filled.) Oh boy...one more thing....oh one more thing....oh one more thing....that keeps happening! Pray that we start working our way down to one less thing....one less thing. That would be great! (Excuse all rambling and errors in grammar...no time to edit today!)

Blessings!
April