Prayers Needed

Nathan, one of our foster home graduates, joined his adoptive family in early November of 2009. Nathan has a complex heart condition that was inoperable in China, and he was scheduled for his heart operation in the USA in February. This morning, we found out he is in the middle of a medical crisis and needs our prayers.


We received an email from Nathan's parents this morning. They said:

Two Saturdays ago we took Nathan to the ER room. He had come down with a stomach flu. He was discharged on Sunday since they said that the virus just needed to run its course; he did not do well with his recovery, and on Friday and Saturday he was still not doing well, just wanting to sleep. We took him to the ER room again yesterday, and during the night while Kelly stayed with him, he started to have some seizures. They did a CT scan and found an abcess on his brain. They are going to perform emergency surgery now. The doctors are not sure if they can help Nathan.


We received this email update a few hours later:

Thank you so much! So many people are praying and we are so grateful. His surgery went okay. They relieved a lot pressure in his brain/head. The abcess was the size of an orange. Apparently, bacteria in his blood did not have a chance to get filtered out in either his lungs, liver or spleen (which is what happens to people with healthy hearts) and it traveled up to his brain and caused an infection. There was no way to know that this was happening to him until he had a seizure.

We are so thankful that the seizure took place while we were at the hospital and not while we were at home which we were told was a miracle. Apparently, this usually happens at home. He was in a position to get immediate help, praise God. Right now he is on antibiotics until they know the nature of the infection, probably by Wednesday at the latest. At that point they will know which antibiotics to use to treat him (right now he is taking antibiotics for everything he could possibly have). They said this therapy will go on for months (although he will most likely not be in the hospital for months). Within the next couple weeks they will monitor whether the infection returns, as sometimes it is very aggressive.

Unfortunately, this will postpone his heart surgery which we expected to take place this month. We are hopeful. This morning the doctors painted a grim picture. But this afternoon they were more optimistic. They said we will just take it day-by-day.


We're so thankful that Nathan pulled through the surgery and that doctors have a clear treatment plan. However, we know that the next few weeks are going to be difficult for Nathan and his family and ask that you keep them lifted up in prayer.