The Chadwick Chronicles

We’ve had our share of some fussy days recently. It doesn’t seem like any bag of tricks we used previously will calm our little fussy pants. She is probably mostly fussy because she refuses to nap–almost ever. She sleeps just fine at night; usually about 9-10 hours and then goes back after eating for another couple.

This morning, this was the only thing that would work!

We have tried gas drops and colic calm to no avail. Colic calm by the way makes her look like she has just eaten a pen. If you have seen “Earnest goes to jail” you will find this particularly funny.

…even though we have many, many unpleasant times throughout the day, there are always some rewarding ones too. We are trying to just enjoy them and not over analyze what we are doing right for once!

During March and April we had two separate work teams from Calvary Baptist Church of Oshawa, Ontario.  Several members of the teams are also members of LAM Canada (Latin American Missions) and it was fun hearing about their experiences sending, visiting, and corresponding with other missionaries.  They painted, finished up some tile work, ran electric wire, installed doors, and probably much else that I’ve forgotten at our Pachacamac site.  They also mixed and poured cement to extend a driveway, built a little guard shack, built some benches at our Manchay site and did some major repairs for a worker’s home in Manchay.  On top of that, they changed out  and added new lights to the soccer court in the current home so that the kids can imagine they’re playing under the bright lights of the World Cup Finals.  Needless to say, they did tons of work for us and kept Tyler quite busy gathering all of the building materials for them.

After our last two tests on Tuesday and Wednesday we went to the hospital, picked up the tests and brought them to our pediatric urologist.  His conclusion is that she actually has two problems.  One is the reflux in her right kidney that causes the urine to flow back up.  The grade is a 2 (5 is the worst).  With time, it will most likely correct itself.  Her other problem is a little more serious.  She has a constriction in her left kidney that doesn’t allow urine to pass into the bladder like it should.  This has caused the kidney to balloon up and be significantly larger.  The good news is that both her kidneys are functioning very well and it hasn’t appeared to damage the kidney.  If one of the kidneys’ function was diminished, the urologist said he would recommend surgery immediately.  What we are going to do now is keep her on a low dose antibiotic in order to avoid infection and wait three months to repeat the kidney scan.  If at that time the kidneys are showing diminished function, we will do surgery to repair the constriction.  The surgery would probably be open surgery as opposed to laparoscopy. It’s probably not a matter of if we have the surgery, but how long we can hold off.  The doctor said that the longer we can hold off, the better the outcome of the surgery and also better for her recovery.  Our doctor said he is going to consult with some pediatric urologist friends in the states (one in Miami and one in Detroit) regarding Lilia’s condition to ensure that this is the best course of treatment. 

Once again we stand amazed at how God has given us this challenge, but also given us comfort and very good medical care in which we feel we can trust.  We have seen his hand in all of this as we begin what may be a long and exhausting journey.  We know that he will continue to be faithful and provide just what we stand in need of.  Please pray for further wisdom and health for our precious little girl.

In lighter news, does anyone else see the resemblance?