Hey everyone!

Another update from us down at Stanford on Day 7 in the hospital. Every day, Lewis gets stronger, is eating more, and acts more like himself. He’s back to making nurses laugh with everything he says, obsessing over car stickers, and we were even able to take a wagon ride around the unit yesterday. He really wants to get out of the hospital, of course, but he’s finally getting back to his silly self again, which has been so reassuring.

We had a quick MRI today, which Lewis did great with, and tomorrow, we head back to the operating room first in the morning. It has two purposes: first, to clean out his nose and make sure the nose flap is healing properly where they did they surgery. This is the most important thing, because if there’s a leak happening, the reconstruction will have to start over and would be a major setback. Please be praying that the nose flap is healed successfully and that we won’t have to do more work there.

Secondly, the operation will involve removing the ommaya catheter from his brain, which we’ve been using to decompress the cyst for the past couple of years. Although the secondary “cyst” seems to still be decompressed (and not tumor), there’s still a chance the catheter won’t come out easily. It would be so amazing to get it removed and say goodbye to this era of Lewis’ medical journey - so please join us in praying that we’d have a safe and successful removal of the catheter!

Lastly, we’re continuing to manage Lewis’ diabetes insipidus, which has proved to be difficult. It’s the reason for his trouble sleeping these past few days and managing it involves watching his fluid intake/output carefully. Everyone reacts to the doses differently, so it’s been a lot of trial and error, which has been hard to put Lewis through. He’s doing great though, and our hope is that we can figure this all out while we’re in the hospital, so that the transition to at-home care is easier and safer. At this point, if we can get all that figured out, we’re hoping to get discharged by Tuesday or Wednesday, but we’ll have to see!

In particular, please be praying for our discussions with all our doctors and for the communication between them all - that has been a point of difficulty these past few days because of how complicated DI is to manage, especially through the night.

Again, thank you for praying! His surgery will likely be around 8 or 8:30, and is scheduled to last for a few hours.

But more than anything, we’ve been so thankful today for all the progress that’s been made. God’s been with us every step of the way, and even in the minor setbacks that happen, we’re trying to stay focused on the Lord’s faithfulness toward us. We have so much to celebrate and be thankful for!