Grace...

Grace is our 6th child, and our second daughter. She was born in Inuvik, NWT, Canada, very healthy and very loved! When she was 5 1/2 months old  (Dec. 2005) she was medi-vacked to the Stollery Childrens Hospital in Edmonton, she was having siezures and it was discovered that she had bacterial meningitis. Thus begun 3months in the hospital, she was in the picu for almost 2 weeks before she came out of a coma and was breathing on her own.
Fast forward to now, she is now 5 years old and fairly healthy. She did lose her hearing due to the meningitis, and she is behind in her language/speech skills. At 8 months she received bilateral Cochlear Implants which gives her the gift of hearing when she's wearing them, it's pretty amazing! We do sign, but as you can imagine having a language/speech issue can cause some major frustration when trying to communicate (on both parts).  Her receptive skills (what she understands) is pretty much at her age, but her expressive language (what she knows to speak) is what is behind. She just in this past year caught up in her receptive, and she's getting their with her expressive.  Her EXTREME attitudes and tempertantrums have gotten better, with much prayer, love and discipline. It has been a long, hard journey in this area of discipline. But God is good and He will get us through this time.

She is realitively healthy as I've said, I will attribute this to the Lord, nutrition, and probiotics (they are amazing!). I know that many of you have heard me talk about her "episodes" on facebook and have wondered exactly what I'm referring to. Grace has something called "Cyclic Vomitting Syndrome." It is also referred to as abdominal cramps, either way it's rough to have. Basically she has something like migraines that cause her to vomit throughout the day/night whenever it strikes. For Grace it seems to start in the morning and last throughout the day, usually ending after dinner sometime. It usually occurs once a week, sometimes once every two weeks, it just depends. It's not life threatening (unless you get severely dehydrated), it's just life altering. I absolutely cannot do much of anything when she has these episodes, she wants me right next to her. This is hard on me, but most importantly it's hard on the other children. They are handling it well, I think we have all learned how to "work with it." It has forced me to be very organized with our homeschool and to be better organized with my home (notice I didn't say "very");-D

Grace can be a very difficult child, she's never in the middle, she's either hot or cold. But I could not imagine life w/out her! She brings such joy and love to our home, even when she's having her extreme difficult times (at least once a day) I still couldn't imagine our family without her. 

1 Samuel 1:27-28a  For this child I prayed; and the LORD hath given me my petition which I asked of him: Therefore also I have lent him to the LORD; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the LORD.

Blessings,
Christine
Phil. 4:13