We are ready to fight this battle with you Lord...

...and with all of our prayer warriors frontline.

First of all, thank you to all of who have been so kind to visit our website and leave kind, uplifting and encouraging comments on our blog. We appreciate all of your prayers, all of your love and your support as we go forward in this journey that God has put before us. Know that we are feeling the Lord's love, and His hand upon us through your faithful prayers.

Thank you, thank you Lord for showing us your love through these wonderful people who are lifting us up to you!

Katherine has been admitted to the hospital. We arrived this afternoon, and met with the doctor for a little while before being walked over to the new Children's Hospital at St Francis, that was just inagurated a couple of weeks ago.

Thank you Lord for your timing. We see your hand in this Lord, and are confident that you are watching over our little girl!

The new children's hospital is an amazing complex, wifi, flatpanels and x-box 360 in every room. All of that stuff is wonderful, but this floor just opened today- so we had a little difficulty getting the basics (tissue, a straw, water pitcher, blankets, clock etc...) We can almost see our house from the window, so it feels good to be close to brother Joshua.

Katherine had a long afternoon/evening. She HATES getting IVs, and mommy and daddy start getting a little bit anxious after several failed attempts of starting the IV. At 5pm we finally got all of the bloodwork and IV completed, so Katherine got to enjoy some time playing PacMan and Frogger left-handed before dinner.
At 10:00 PM they tried to a start a saline drip, only to find IV wasn't working. Daddy was experiencing some more of the anxiety mentioned above. Fortunately there was a sweet nurse that got the IV fixed without Katherine screaming too much.

It is now 11:30PM and Katherine is sleeping soundly with the IV working properly. Tomorrow morning at 10:00am she is scheduled for surgery to receive the port in her chest, and to have additional bone marrow drawn for more specific subtyping of her Leukemia. She will also receive a spinal tap with injections of medication into her spinal fluid to insure that the Leukemia hasn't/doesn't spread into her central nervous system. Lots of scary stuff for us all.

Please be praying for us before, during and after her surgery, specific prayer requests:

* Steady hands for Dr Rothenbach who will be performing the surgery
* Calm spirit for Kateli as she is prepped for the procedure
* Calm nerves for us as we see her off to surgery and await the doctor to tell us that she is doing well post surgery.
* That Kateli tolerate the anesthesia well
* That the medicatioin to be injected into her spinal fluid does not cause severe side effects
* and please just lift up prayers as you are lead by the Holy Spirit

We would prefer not to have any visitors tomorrow, since we don't know how Katherine will be feeling after the surgery. We will update this blog when she is ready for visitors. Thank you for your understanding.