The Laughter of a Child- Sawyer Update

This was written at about 11 last night.

It has been said that there is nothing so pure as the laughter of a child. I am here to tell you that I agree. Today we saw a spark. For around ten minutes this afternoon, Sawyer perked up for the first time in what seems like an eternity. It didn't last long, maybe fifteen minutes but those were the fifteen minutes Cher and I needed most. He ate a couple animal cookies. He drank some apple juice. He was responsive to questions. He showed interest in a toy tool set that had been brought into the room. But most of all he laughed. Not a hearty guffau, not a full-fledged belly laugh varietal but a laugh nonetheless. That was as sweet a sound as I believe either of us has heard to date. We needed that. We know now that his body will heal. Every step has been taken to address all of the different infections raging through his body. What we needed to know was that the cheery, happy little man that we have fallen in love with over the last two years was still there underneath all the wires, swollen, tissue and bandages. Once again the God we serve knew exactly what both of us needed and he delivered in a way that only a father who knows his children could. At this point the medical team feels that we are heading out of the woods. His temperature remains a source of concern and ranged from 99-103.7. The white blood cells found in the spinal fluid are indicators of menangitis but all evidence points toward the viral and not the far more dangerous bacterial. This is an interesting "coincidence" as everyone other part of his body is fighting of a bacterial infection. We got our first look at the wounds on his leg and that was sobering. The three small incisions were not the small that I was expecting; ech measuring around three inches in length and held together by four or five metal staples. The large incision runs the entire length of the outside of his calf and is held by a loose stitch which resembles a shoelace. The closure is designed to allow them to tighten the closure as the inflammation subsides. Seeing these for the first time today as they changed the bandage gave us a more realistic picture of what kind of recovery we are going to be looking at over the weeks to come. The plan for now is that we will leave the PICU tomorrow and go to a regular room. This will be a welcome change as these rooms are situated more for comfort than the ICU. As far as Sawdog's condition goes it is still pretty pitiful. He gets morphine every three hours to manage the pain which is understandably intense after seeing the leg today. This steady stream of narcotics keeps him half sedated for the majority of the day and when he wakes it is usually because he is in pain and the next dose of drugs knocks him back out immediately. Tomorrow, that schedule will have to be adjusted as we begin physical therapy. He will not enjoy this ( and by he I mean his mother and me) but it is a necessary evil in order to make sure that the muscles in the leg heal properly. Prayers have been lifted up literally all around the world for our son over the last few days. From LA to Texas to Florida to Georgia to North Carolina to New York to Boston to Central Asia to South Africa to Japan our brothers and sisters in Christ have gotten on their knees on behalf of Sawyer. I am moved to tears by this demonstration of love. But this is not the love of people for a child. Most of you don't know my son. You have never met him. You don't know the name of his stuffed animal ( Rex, by the way). But yet you prayed. You cried. You took our need before the Creator and asked for his healing. What we saw was not a demonstration of a huge number of people's love for a boy most of them had never met. What we saw was a glimpse of just how much God loves each and every one of us. People all around the world have been following our story not because of their love for a little boy. People have been united by the love of God which has driven them to their knees, overtaken them emotionally at times, awoken them in the middle of the night and been poured out on behalf of a two year old boy and into the life of a family who desperately needed it. Some people look at this and don't really see anything spectacular. They see an illness brilliantly diagnosed by knowledgable physicians, nothing more. This two year old boy is not more special than anyone else and the circumstances surrounding his healing are ordinary at best. They miss the more amazing occurence. God's people all around the planet have put aside their busy lives and lifted up our family. As a result of our prayers, literally hundreds of God's people all over the planet began praying for us and sending us words of kindness and encouragement. He mobilized an army of volunteers through our local church to help with the logistics of our other kids during this ordeal, bring us meals in the hospital, even clean our house while we were away in hopes of rooting out the cause of this infection. These are not natural occurences. This doesn't happen every day. We praise God that it happened to us. We thank him for each and every one of your that are a part of this movement. Please thank him with us tonight. The credit is his.

Update: Fever is back up to 104.5 this am. Lift Sawyer, his family and doctors up. Cover them in prayer!