Tate hasn't been feeling too hot lately. If you spend 5 minutes with him, you can tell he's feeling pretty puny. I have had lots of people asking about him lately, and we certainly appreciate all the prayers. Keep them coming. We have a month until his surgery, and his eye seems to be going downhill fast. I thought I'd add a couple of photos to show you what I'm seeing... keep in mind, although I'm a photographer, it's NOT easy to take a photo of a 4 year old's eye... especially when he pretty much never opens it anymore.
This first one was taken on November 15th...
The next 2 were taken on December 17th... shows the degeneration occurring over the last month...
I can't tell you how much this breaks my heart for my sweet boy. I know he's in pain. He squints all the time, and the light really hurts his eyes, too. He's had several moments in the last week that he's been in tears from the pain, but most of the time, he tells me that he's fine. I can tell that he's not, but I just keep remembering that we don't have much longer, and this trial will be behind us. The doctor has told us that we can give him ibuprofen to take the edge off the pain, but Tate refuses to take any meds. And when a stubborn 4 year old doesn't want to take meds, it's pretty much impossible to make him. We've tried every trick in the book. So please keep praying for him. Please pray that his pain is lessened, so that he is comfortable while we wait for the surgery date to approach. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm READY for this surgery. It has to be better than this.
There is something I've dreaded to add to my To Do list, but it's gotta go on there. I need to call the insurance company to see what we need to expect as far as bills go from his surgery and prosthesis. I like surprises, but not this kind. We have to budget for this, and I have to get an idea of where to start. We took Tate to a world-renowned specialist in Michigan in August, and we're STILL getting bills from that. I think we've hit somewhere just under $2k now (out of pocket), and he was only there a few hours, didn't have surgery, and didn't stay in the hospital. We thought we had seen the last of the bills from that visit a couple of months ago, but had a surprise in the mail today to the tune of $805. Yep, 5 days before Christmas. Awesome. So this time, I'm going to ask them to spell it out for me beforehand. One thing I want to be very clear about.... every penny is more than worth it to make my little guy feel better. I'm not upset about having to pay it. I just want to be prepared. Some of you know that we've been on the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover Plan since February. We've made a TON of progress in the last 10 months... but we're hitting about a $5000 setback from what we expect between these 2 medical bills. Having to replace our washer and dryer just before Christmas didn't help either. It's SO frustrating to bust your butt to get ahead, then hit brick walls. But I know we'll get through it. God will provide, He always does.
It's almost Christmas, when we celebrate the birth of our Savior. We celebrated my oldest son's 10th birthday today. We have so many blessings, so many wonderful friends, so much to be thankful for. I have been really distracted lately, and I have some days that I just want to crawl back into bed and sulk all day. I'm grateful to have friends who pull me out and keep me going. I have SO many emotions, I feel like I'm all over the place. I'm happy, sad, anxious, nervous, worried, excited, overwhelmed... so I apologize if you call/email/facebook and don't hear back from me right away. But don't give up. I still need you. Thank you for being a friend. (insert Golden Girls theme song here).
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