Well, it’s been a rough couple months. Alisha and the kids were gone for 3 weeks in September and when they got back, her breathing problems started. That took a few weeks to resolve, although resolve seems like too strong a word, since the problem has not completely gone away. But we are home now, and hoping to get back into our routine.
To backtrack a little, we had originally planned on going to Kuala Lumpur (in Malaysia) to get help. But we were put in touch with a doctor in Singapore who is a friend of a friend. He got us an appointment with the lung specialist and he and his wife even put us up in their guest room. We ended up getting all our consultations with the doctors for free. We only paid for the meds and the CT scan. So we received a lot of unexpected help in one way or another. That was certainly a big answer to our prayers and yours.
As I said before, the doctor diagnosed Alisha’s problem as asthma. Another doctor also suspected possible acid reflux in addition to asthma. So now Alisha has two inhalers, a nasal spray and 3 or 4 different meds. It’s a lot to keep up on. Since starting the meds and inhalers, she has felt better. But not entirely. We were told this could take 3 months before she feels normal again.
One of the hard things with her breathing difficulties is that she can’t do anything really. She has to just rest and wait. That has improved a little, but she still feels fairly restricted. Some days, she actually feels better, but some days she doesn’t. It’s hard to deal with the ups and downs. We don’t from one day to the next how she will feel. But this is still early on in the treatment process. We are hoping she can continue to improve and won’t see significant side effects from her meds.
So we were gone for about 10 days. We were very happy (and very tired) to get back to our home and our kids (in case I didn’t mention it, some friends here watched them while we were gone). But the night we got back, there was a 6.3 magnitude earthquake. That was actually kind of scary. We brought the kids down to our room for the night. Later, a local friend told me that was the strongest earthquake he has ever felt. So that was not really a fun welcome home.
On another note, the last couple days, our church has been putting on a seminar/conference for church leadership in our region. I had previously promised to help with transportation to and from hotels and airports. But with Alisha’s situation, I had to cut back a little. I still have been away a lot since we got back. But after today, that is done and we plan on taking it a little easier for a while.
For me (for both of us certainly), there has been a lot to worry about lately, and I have had kind of a hard time dealing with it. I don’t like wondering whether my wife is ok or not- or whether we need to fly somewhere for better medical care. So I’m trying to learn how to deal with that. Anyways, enough of that.
We know that quite a lot of people have been praying for us, and God has answered those prayers in unexpected ways. Thank you for your continuing prayers as we see what the next few months has in store.
Praise:
-a diagnosis and treatment for Alisha
-a place to stay in Singapore and some discounts at the hospital
-being back home
Prayer:
-for the meds/inhaler to be effective
-getting back into our routine of language study and homeschool
Thanks for thinking of us!
The McIlroys