GREAT NEWS day

Remember Peanut? She is one of my Heroes of the Year. Today, Don sent me the latest update from Peanut's Uncle Rob, and he gave permission for me to share it with you all:

Peanut Update, 13JAN09

This past weekend, my wife Katrina went down to Sacramento to see Peanut while I continued on the house. That night, she called me to tell me the news- We're dealing with a totally different Peanut! Listen to the changes!!

When she arrived, Peanut was lying in bed awake & alert. Her eyes are focused, and don't have that glazed or glassy look to them. She is off the ventilator and breathing without difficulty. Her left arm is moving around again, but with more control. Her right arm is starting to move again. And where before she could only track with her eyes because her head couldn't move (it was totally limp and had to be held like a newborn's) she now is moving her head around some, and tracking movement & sound with BOTH head and eye movement!

Oh, and that's just the start. Katrina noticed that the suction machine was not running and there was not a probe to suction her with. They used to keep the machine going 24/7 and kept the probe under her pillow as she had to have her mouth suctioned almost constantly as she couldn't swallow and would aspirate the fluid into her lungs (One of the reasons she kept getting pneumonia). Then she observed Peanut coughing with good strength and then appearing to swallow (which she was unable to do in the past). She reported it to the nurse who amazingly informed her that yes she was doing better and they were only suctioning her once in a while!

A little while later, Katrina wanted to scoot her higher up in bed. Well she removed the baby blanket covering her legs, and when she did- her legs started going up & down! Before they were stiff as a board and sticking straight out, what they call posturing. Well, this kid is starting to move her legs some. And the intestinal eating bacteria that she has- well it is no longer showing up on tests, but they say it can remain dormant up to a couple of months without testing positive. So they believe they killed it, but are continuing treatment for a while longer to make sure.

Good Lord people what a change!! It's absolutely a miracle that we're witnessing! We serve an awesome God, and He answers prayers, so thank you ALL so very much for yours. Please, please, keep ¡em coming! There is still a long ways to go, including our court petition & trial and getting custody of our girl.

A dear friend suggested that it would be nice to see this little girl that so many are lifting up in prayer, so I'm working on it. It is a MySpace page, and I'm figuring out how to upload photos and videos. We do have some video from an earlier trip down, and from Kat's most recent trip, so you can see her moving her legs & stuff! Woooo Hooooo. I have some pics already posted, and hope to upload more pics & a couple of videos in the next day or so- it's slow going as I have no clue what I'm doing. There are some pics that we took while she was with us, and then some after the incident. Some of the pics & videos will probably be hard to look at as she wasn't doing well when we took them, but I thought it would be beneficial to some to see where we started from and the progress that has taken place. I will have eventually a bog with info & updates, but will continue to send e-mail updates as well as post on the forums.

The address to the site is: www.MySpace.com/navy_piper

Til next time, thanks again & God Bless Y'all!

Now, no matter what else is going on in the world. THIS is great news!