Lucy Mae

So, what I didn’t share the other day about Lucy’s CT scan was that they made us pay cash up front for the CT scan.  I had just enough money in my account to pay for the scan, around $2300.  Well, I say $2300 but they just charged me for the CT scan not the anesthesia or angiogram.  I wasn’t going to argue, I just paid it at the time.  I later started to think about it.  I started to think about all the donations we had received so far, many around $10-$25, some larger, the largest $700.  I had a feeling that what had been donated was just about what we needed to pay for the CT scan.

Today I sat down and added it up.  Every donation we received before her CT scan added up to just about the same as we needed for the scan, a little bit more.  Isn’t that just awesome!!  It’s like God is saying don’t worry, I will provide just what you need.  I have been trying not to worry about the cost of her surgery.  I will try to take this example to heart and know that He will provide just what we need for her medical bills.

I know some people have said that they feel like donating $10 isn’t going to help, but it was all of the small donations combined with the larger ones that provided enough money for us to pay for the CT scan.  Never underestimate the power of small acts!!

Thank you very much!!

In Christ’s Peace,

Katie Guy

Just a quick note to let you all know that Lucy’s CT angaiogram went well today.  The anesthesiologist was pretty concerned about the fact that she could not open her mouth.  She told me that this is an anesthesiologist “Worst case scenario”.  There was some confusion about what kind of juice Lucy had consumed at 6 am, so just to be safe, she made us wait an extra three hours.  She said if Lucy were to throw up she would choke because there would be no way to suction her.  She said nasal suction could be attempted but it would be very difficult.

Thanks for all of your continued prayers.  Lucy did very good in that extra three hours.  Nadine came with and was a huge help.  Of course, a bribe trip to the gift shop helped her to not complain too much.  We have 10 days to go…please continue to pray for us.

 

In Christ’s Peace,

Katie

First of all, I forgot to mention in my last post that Lucy’s CT angiogram is scheduled for next Friday, August 5th.  We got all of the confusion on this worked out.  The orders are corrected and she only needs one procedure.  Prayers answered on this.  Although it is just a CT scan and will probably only take a minute, she still may need to be sedated because they have to start an IV and inject contrast.  With all of Lucy’s allergies, I’m praying she doesn’t have a reaction to the contrast…Like not sleeping for a week!!!

Second, I wrote a post on my other blog, Swell Living, entitled “How Does She Eat?”  I get this question all the time a figured I would just write about it.  So I’m posting the link over here in case any of you would like to read it.  The picture at the beginning of this post is from her first birthday.  It’s amazing for me to look back and see that she could open her mouth so wide.  We go through life every day not realizing that we are taking so many things for granted.  I just took for granted that I could nurse her, feed her baby food with ease, swipe my finger through her mouth when she was learning how to eat and would start to gag, massage her gums as her first teeth came in, etc.  I know I do this daily with other things that could be gone in an instant.  I take for granted that Lucy is alive.  I get fed up with her fits, lose my patience with her quirky habits, bored with playing with her and annoyed with the sound of her voice on some days.  She could have easily died 3 years ago when she had mastoiditis and I would be begging God for just one more moment of all of these things.  I do this with all my children and my husband too.  We all do.  I know we are just human and can’t be perfect, but if someone would have told me that my little baby wouldn’t be able to open her mouth much longer I’m sure I would have cherished feeding her, helping her teeth, etc.  Now I look forward to a few months from now when she will be able to open her mouth wide again.  Her capacity to be loud, really LOUD, has not been diminished in ANY way by her small mouth opening.  We are wondering just how much louder she will get once the sound can resonate in an open mouth.  I’m sure once that happens I will fall back into the habit of being annoyed by her voice again…at least sometimes.

Thirdly, we have an update on the fundraising situation.  Thank you to everyone who donated and forwarded my email plea on.  So far we have received $1,700.00 and some of that is from people I don’t even know, which is so wonderful!!  Unfortunately, we have yet to qualify for insurance and I finally got the estimate back from the hospital.

I was going to write “you may want to sit down for this”, but hopefully your already sitting to read this.  Just the hospital portion is $155,828.01.  If you add in her CT angiogram, the surgeon, anesthesiologists and follow up CT scans and care the grand total is more like…$190,000.  It doesn’t seem feasible that we will be able to raise anything close to this in the next three weeks, so qualifying for their 25% up front discount is not an option.  I’m hoping that when the surgery is done and the itemized, detailed bill comes through it will end up being less than this for the hospital portion.  They told me the bulk of the cost is for charges associated with the operating room.  I’m hoping they have over estimated everything.

It’s hard not thinking about this aspect of this situation.  I’d love to be able to just be focusing on Lucy and the rest of the family trying to make this as stress free as possible, but that just isn’t the case.  Of course, prayers for Lucy and a very perfect, successful surgery, recovery and ensuing physical therapy are of top priority.  In addition, if you could please keep the financial end in your prayers, as well, and if you feel led by God to donate or help out in anyway we truly appreciate it.  I hope to send out a short email update in the next few days that you can send on to your friends.

 

In Christ’s Peace,

Katie Guy

 

Earlier this week Lucy had her last dental hygiene appointment before her surgery.  This is exciting and scary at the same time.  I know the hygienist will be glad when she can finally get in there and clean all of her teeth properly.  We are all anxious to see the condition of them too.  From Lucy’s last CT scan the surgeon said it didn’t appear that she had much decay but that it wasn’t exactly conclusive.  I’m hoping all of the things we have been doing to keep her healthy have paid off.  Much of the decay on her front teeth that she developed right after her first surgery hasn’t progressed.  This is primarily due to the fact that I have been using the Thieves toothpaste and mouthwash on her religiously.  I have been so pleased with the effectiveness of these products.

I know Lucy is looking forward to being able to open her mouth and truthfully she likes to go to get her teeth cleaned.  She has come a long way since her last surgery.  The first few times we went to the dentist, after her first surgery, we focused on getting her comfortable with the chair.  She slowly progressed to letting the hygienist clean her teeth and then at longer intervals.  We are very proud of her progress and pray that she is old enough now that this surgery will not set her back emotionally in that area or any area for that matter.  So, for any of you adults that make excuses for getting your teeth cleaned, you don’t have one anymore…if a 4 year old who can’t open her mouth and is in constant pain can sit through one, so can you!!  :)

 

In Christ’s Peace,

Katie

 

I have been working very hard over the past several days to get my site up and running and looking good(thanks to my husband!). I think it is finally finished. I’d like to send the link out to you guys first to let you see if it is working for you, specifically the Lucy Mae Timeline. Please feel free to comment here on Lucy Mae or on the new site, Swell Living.

In a day or so I will send out an email with all the necessary information and links for you guys to forward on to friends and family that may be interested in donating to help with Lucy’s surgery.

Please also keep us in your prayers in the coming weeks as we were informed that Lucy would need to have an angiogram and an MRI before her surgery.  She will need to be put to sleep for the MRI for sure and if they can’t do them at the same time she will need to be sedated for the angiogram.  This wasn’t something I was planning on having to do before the surgery.  It especially makes me nervous to have her intubated, nasally, prior to the surgery, but God is in control and I have to put my trust in Him.  This is easier said than done sometimes though.

Thanks to all of you that have already offered your help in many ways when Lucy has her surgery and, of course, for your continued prayers.

In Christ’s Peace,

Katie Guy

 

Today we went to the surgeon to schedule Lucy’s surgery.  I have been thinking alot about this and for some reason August 15th kept popping into my head.  I think mainly because it is smack in the middle of the month and I couldn’t decide if I wanted it to be earlier or later.  The Catholics reading this will note the significance of this date and know that was a contributing factor to my attraction to this day.  I really just left it up to God.  When it got down to the time to pick a date I told the Dr. I wanted to do it in August and he explained that he only operates on Monday’s.  I got out my calendar and started to look at the Monday’s.  August 15th was the third Monday, with two Monday’s before and two after.  It couldn’t have been more perfect.  His calendar was open and so it has been set on his end.  We just have to wait until this coming week for the assistant to call the hospital to make sure there is an opening on that end.  We don’t see any reason for there not to be though.

There are many things to prepare before then…scheduling where the other children will be, determining how long I will be completely occupied with Lucy’s recovery, getting in shape physically, as I’m sure this whole process will be draining, figuring out where/what homeschool co-ops the kids will be taking, how to raise money to pay for this very expensive surgery.  I’m sure there are many, many more things I am not thinking of, but I can only deal with what comes to mind right now and try not to stress too much about it.  I can’t do anything about getting the kids homeschooling organized until I know what co-ops they will be in and that won’t be for a few weeks.  I have been planning on putting them in as many as possible for several months now as I know my time will be monopolized with the very extensive physical therapy Lucy will have to do to prevent her mouth from closing up again.  Lucy is a very strong willed girl and getting her to do something she absolutely doesn’t want to do can be very difficult.  I’m trying not to dwell on this, but it sometimes seems like an overwhelmingly, daunting task…to get her to put an appliance in her mouth and crank it open especially because this will most likely be very painful.

For now, I am focusing on some practical things.  I have been working on another blog, mainly where I will be writing about essential oils, but I am also putting a page on there that will be a modified version of this blog with a fundraising feature.  It will have significantly less information so that I can disseminate it to more people and on Facebook, to help raise the money.  We won’t know exactly how much it will cost until we schedule with the hospital and negotiate with them but the estimates we have been given are between $50,000 and $100,000.  This will also be determined by how well the operation goes.  If she has to stay in the ICU for any time the price will be significantly increased.  The surgeon has been really great and knows that we do not have insurance.  I’m not positive but I’m pretty sure his rate will be discounted.  He also told us he won’t put her in the ICU unless it’s necessary and he knows how we feel about this.  Whatever Lucy needs it should be done regardless of the cost.  We refuse to let that determine her care.

I, once again, humbly ask for your prayers for all of this and, of course, for Lucy and a very successful surgery.  I hope to be updating soon with my new blog and fundraising page, but until then you are all in my prayers.

 

In Christ’s Peace,

Katie

 

Wow, I can’t believe it has been over two months since I last posted.  The Lenten season and Easter kept us extremely busy.  We enjoyed the penitential preparation for the death and resurrection of our Lord even though this year it seemed as if, not only us, but everyone we knew had some sort of extra suffering during this time.  Perhaps God allowed these adversities to happen to those of us He knew would offer it up as reparation for the sins of the world or, for all one knows, He allowed it because we needed it more than others for our own purification.   It is very likely that because of these trials I am now very delighted to be celebrating the Easter Season…

This past two months has also been full of new knowledge and revelations.  I will try as best I can to convey this without writing too much.  Back in February I went to visit a friend who had recently had a baby.  Her little one was having some difficulties, “colicky”, fussy  and what seemed like thrush-aka-candida.  This friend is not only very knowledgeable but a chiropractor and midwife. (This is how I met her.  She was my chiropractor while I was pregnant with Lucy and I was very blessed to have her attend Lucy’s birth.)  She asked me to watch her little one nurse.  I noticed right away that she wouldn’t put her upper lip out.  We tried pulling it out but it instantly went back in.  Thank God that this friend is VERY well connected with some very wonderful people that eventually helped her figure out what was going on.  To make a long story short she had ankyloglossia or tongue tie.  She didn’t have the typical kind where the tongue is attached to the floor of the mouth but instead her maxillary frenum that attached the upper lip to the gum extended too far making it difficult for her to move her lip out properly during nursing.  She ended up flying to New York and had a simple laser procedure and she began to nurse perfectly immediately.  You can read the whole story here, here and here.

Why am I sharing this friends story with you, you ask???  Well, it was not until I read her second blog post on the subject while in the hospital about an hour after helping a friend to achieve a VBAC.  After having been up all night, tired, drained, excited and hungry it hit me.  I guess all of those things can make for a good ah-ha moment.  I read it and immediately thought LUCY!!!  LUCY…It all come flooding back to me.  When she was a newborn her jaw clicked when she nursed, she made a chucking sound, she was MEGA fussy, allergies, etc.  I say she cried for 6 months straight and I’m not kidding.  She wouldn’t take the plug as I wrote in an earlier post, “we pushed the plug on her like the corner drug dealer”.  My friend remembers too.  She remembers adjusting her jaw, working on her sacrum because all of the intestinal distress from swallowing too much air caused her to not have a bowel movement for days on end.  The strange thing is that Lucy is my fifth child.  I had successfully nursed four children before her and noticed nothing wrong with her latch, accept the sounds she made.  I now know her big beautiful lips (she gets those from her dad, mine are paper thin) gave the illusion that she had proper lip flare while nursing.  Even in utero they were big.  I remember commenting on them in this sonogram picture:

Anyways, I got home after this ah-ha moment and tried to catch up on some much needed sleep and the next day proceeded to have all of my kids lift their lips up for me.  In my lack of sleep state I forgot it was April Fools day and the older kids were extremely reluctant and kept asking if this was some sort of April Fools joke.  After much sincere convincing they raised their lips.  My older three have a slight frenum but the younger two, the only two with allergies, were much worse, with Lucy’s being much more severe than Miles.  I couldn’t believe it!!  Miles’ and Lucy’s were actually torn away from the gum line near the teeth.

A few weeks later, I was perusing through iphoto and ran across the following picture.  I’m still in shock.  I took the picture of Lucy’s broken tooth when it abscessed and didn’t pay a bit of attention to her lip.  I have looked at the photo so many times before never questioning the frenum.  It’s amazing how blind we are until we have the knowledge to understand or look for something.  It makes me wonder what else am I missing.  What don’t I know that I need to know in this life…and how can I learn it?  This is probably one of the reasons I am particularly drawn to non fiction books and documentaries.  Unfortunately, I’m certain my brain won’t hold all of it.

I have spent many days pondering this.  Wondering, what if?  If only?  But it’s too late for that and it won’t do any good now.  I am convinced that this is the first thing that started Lucy down this path of unexpected turmoil.  A piece of skin no more than centimeters long.  Who knew it could cause so much trouble?  It all started with the improper latch, swallowing air, not being able to nurse effectively, not getting enough hind milk, intestinal distress, severe allergies.  The clicking jaw most likely weakened that whole area making her susceptible to the super bacteria that caused the infection of her mastoid, which in turn led to her blood clots and follow up MRI that she had the intubation trauma with.  It is my belief that this intubation trauma was the straw that broke the camels back or jaw so to speak.  I don’t believe it was THE cause of her ankylosis of the TMJ.  I think it was the last of many tragically, perfectly coordinated events that led to Lucy’s jaw deciding to grow so much extra bone.  Alas, these are all hindsight observations, hence “Bitter Sweet”.

The “sweet” part is knowing and we all know “knowing is half the battle” right?  If we have more children I will know to look for this.  I am telling you so you can tell everyone you know.  I will know when my children start to have children.  If I can prevent anyone from experiencing the hellish, crying period with an infant we did it will all be worth it.  Deep down I know that God knows I am the type of person who can handle this and that I will spend my time informing as many people as I can.  Sometimes, though, I don’t feel like I can “handle” this and wish He didn’t think I could either!!

My friend is the same way.  Her and her husband have scheduled to have the Dr. from New York come down and give a seminar open to the public but with continuing education credits for professionals entitled “Breastfeeding Should Be Pleasurable and Fun”.  It will be Saturday May 14 from 9:00 am -12:00 at the North Richland Hills Library.  If you know a Dentist, Physician, Lactation Consultant, Doula, Midwife, Speech Pathologist, anyone with breastfeeding problems or parents of infants please let then know about this.  Full details can be found and forwarded to friends here.

Once again, thank you for your continued prayers.  Please pray especially for us next week as we meet with the surgeon to ask all of our questions about the jaw replacement surgery and the cost of it all.  Please feel free to send me ideas of questions I should ask.  On a happy note, Lucy has been telling me lately that she is ready to get her jaw fixed.  On many occasions she has emphatically proclaimed “We need to get this jaw fixed, it’s just going to keep getting smaller and smaller, we need to hurry up!!”.  Your fervent prayers for her, no doubt, have contributed to this attitude of  haste and sometimes excitement at the prospect of having jaw replacement surgery by a four year old.  God is good!

 

In Christ’s Peace,

Katie Guy

Once again, ladies and gentleman, my vision has been reduced to a narrow scope.  I can see only what is in front of my face and nothing further.  I am, what seems to be, at this moment, hopelessly stuck in a sea of pixels and I can’t make out the picture to save my life.  Why?  You may ask.  Well, let’s see, Lucy was scheduled for her CT scan on February 8th.  As those of you who are in North Texas know we got hit with snow again on that day and the appointment was postponed until Monday February 14th.  (I wrote the preceding last week and I am doing better now but still not able to see much beyond my daily duties.  Every time I try to imagine what is in store for us I can feel the anxiety setting in.  So, for whatever reason, maybe I am just supposed to focus on one hour at a time, for now)

We had the appointment and Lucy did wonderfully.  She sat very still even thought she was obviously nervous and scared.  We did one test run, the guy let me strap her in, talk her through it, coach her to sit still and shut her eyes and did the scan on my command.  This part was awesome.  I was so proud of Lucy for sitting so still.  They said she is probably the youngest they have had sit still for the scan.  Thanks to all of you for your prayers for her to be wiggle free!!

Afterwards I met with Dr. Sinn (the surgeon we last consulted with in October) to go over the results.  Since our last visit he has changed his mind on the approach he would take for Lucy.  He now says he wouldn’t do the rib graft as they tend to re grow back together.  He would recommend still removing the jaw and putting in an artificial joint.  Then when she is done growing. sometime in her teen years, do the rib graft then.

At the time of the appointment I was exhausted as I had just returned from out of town and coming down with a cold so I didn’t question his change of mind/inconsistency.  I just sat and listened and took notes.

On the scan he saw what seemed to be signs that her other side is possibly ankylosing.  Nothing was concrete but, none the less, he recommended removing that jaw as well.  I did get around to asking if he could just remove the one side first and see how it goes as it seems obvious to me that the only reason the other side would be laying down bone is because it has no movement.  If you can get the movement going the body will stop this process.  Anyways, he said what he would do is remove the right side first and see how much range of motion he could get, in the operating room, before deciding to remove the left.  Yippie!

I also did ask him if anyone has ever tried to remove the extra bone and salvage the joint.  He said this would be a much more technically difficult procedure so it isn’t done.  Also, he said the therapy would be very painful, but he later said she would have to do very painful therapy after having the artificial joint put in.  So, what the difference is I’m not exactly sure.  I do know the chances of it re ankylosing are higher if we debridement the area instead of removing the joint.

These are all things we will have to weigh heavily.  At this point, I am in no condition to make a decision.  I know it needs to be made in the near future, I’m just hoping God will show us a coherent, consistent option.  As of right now, we have consulted with three different surgeons who have three very different opinions, two of which have changed their minds over the course of appointments.  I kind of feel like I’m on that game show with the three doors, “Let’s Make a Deal”, taking a chance at winning a car over a diamond ring over a waffle iron, except the welfare of my child is what I am risking.  Or maybe I’m on the movie Brazil…

I still need to consult with the last Dr. we saw before the CT scan.  He was waiting on the results of the scan to see about some non surgical options.  However, I did meet with one of the other Dr.’s, who has been helping us with Lucy’s therapy, with the results of this new CT scan and his opinion is that non surgical procedures are most likely not an option at this point.  There seems to be too much bone to do anything other than surgery.  He does, however, agree with me that looking into cleaning the area up and trying to salvage the joint is a viable option that should be researched and weighed.

For now, I will take it one hour at a time and see where God leads us next, trying very hard in this process not to get discouraged and frustrated.  Those of you that know me well know that I like to be in control of things.  Right now I’m not!!  Did I seriously need this big of a thing to break me from this iniquity?  That is totally a rhetorical question, please don’t answer it in the comments!!

In Christ’s Peace,

Katie Guy

The other day I was working with Lucy on letter recognition. We went through the first stack of upper case letters. Each card had a corresponding picture on the back. Then we started on the stack of lower case letters, again each card with a corresponding picture. I would tell Lucy the letter, she would say it and then turn the card over and say the picture, like this “A..is for ants, B..is for bear, C..is for cat” and so on until we got to the letter X. I told her it was an X she said “X” turned the card over and without missing a beat said “is for cat scan”.  It’s funny what things they will pick up that you don’t even notice.

On another, funny/not so funny, note.  I finally received our CPS report that I requested about a year and a half ago.  Quite an interesting read but conveniently missing the actual report that was filed on us full of lies by the “Dr.”.  I’m not sure how to go about getting this part of the report as it took them a full 18 months to get this much to me.  It was taking so long that I forgot for many months and finally called and they said they were completely back logged, no surprise for a government office, and that they were getting to the requests in the order they were received.  By this point they weren’t even giving priority to the people who needed the report for a court case and have no plans to do so because they are so backed up.  What can you do?

I guess I’m glad that the 20 year old case worker who came to interview my children in private about not only neglect but physical and sexual abuse reported that I appeared to be “neat and clean and appropriately dressed”.  Good thing it wasn’t a bad hair and clothes day!!   For those of you that don’t know we refused the request to interview our children and hired a lawyer.  If you are ever put in this unfortunate position I strongly recommend that you do the same as these case workers are allowed to ask you child any manner of questions, exposing them to perverse sexual things they have no business knowing.

So the moral for today is “X…is for cat scan”.  Seeing as we have scheduled another CT scan for Lucy on February 9th, I’m not sure she will be convinced any time soon that “X is for X-ray”!!  Please pray that Lucy will sit still for this scan and that the image shows improvement!!

In Christ’s Peace,

Katie

Lucy with her cousin Sammy, bathed in the pink light of a beautiful sunset on Lucy’s birthday.

Last week I spoke to the people at the Young Living clinic and at this time they are not doing the injections. The training they had scheduled for a group of doctors to learn the procedure in November fell through. I’m assuming the civil unrest that was going on had something to do with this, but for whatever reason it’s not available right now. So much for making plans, right?? I sure know how to make God laugh, Lucy’s passport, check. Katie’s passport, check. Call clinic, make appointment…screech…plans de-railed!!!

You would think that after the events of this past month I would not be surprised by any events or change of plans. Some of you know already but on December 14th, my fit, healthy, 39 year old brother suffered a massive heart attack while out of town and underwent quintuple bypass surgery two days later. Praise God, he is at home now and recovering. My families “plans” for the Christmas season were seriously rearranged. We all handled it with instinct and grace. It wasn’t until it all settled down that I realized just how much everyone went through, changes we made, duties we took on, things we got done, how we all came together to make it happen.

I know the Grace was from God, as well as the ability for our instincts to take over. When I got this news, about the injections, my grace and instincts were malfunctioning and I became apathetic. It has taken me awhile but I think they are warming up and I am getting back into action. We had an appointment with another doctor a few days ago. He confirmed what I had already been thinking since I learned that the injections weren’t an option in the immediate future, that we need to start doing aggressive therapy with Lucy.  She is young enough to see results and old enough to cooperate, maybe…she is till pretty stubborn!!

Like I said, when I got the news that she couldn’t do the injections any time soon, I became momentarily apathetic.  I felt like everything I do or try to do to help her fails.  Then I remembered that everything happens for a reason.  I had thought the reason for all of the delays was so that we could get the injections.  Maybe she will still get the injections, but not right away.  Maybe the reason was so that we would get the third opinion from Dr. Sin, who doesn’t even want to think about surgery for about five years.  Either way, I know I’m not supposed to sit around checking my watch waiting for the surgery day to arrive.  I need to be proactive and take measures to help her body heal without surgery.  It would be irresponsible of me to do anything less.  It’s going to be hard, time consuming and expensive but nevertheless it needs to be done.

So, what exactly am I going to be doing.  First, we need to get a current CT scan.   Things may change after we see exactly what is going on inside her body, but for now my plan is to work with several doctors doing therapy, cranio-manipulation, chiropractic adjusting, cold laser, using an appliance like the ora stretch press I talked about in an earlier post, continue the oils, but more aggressively on her jaw several times a day and possibly look into forcing her jaw open under sedation.

The doctor I met this week also confirmed what I have been thinking all along.  We need to do everything possible to avoid amputating her jaw.  If we amputate her jaw we are, FOR SURE, condemning her to a life of surgery.  We need to exhaust all other options before we do that.  What is the worst that can happen?  We end up having to amputate her jaw???    If at the end of all of this that is God’s will, I will accept it, but for now I need to make sure I am helping the other options along in case it is God’s will that she not have her jaw amputated.  I know God could perform a miracle and heal her jaw without me having to do any work, but that is not His usual way.  The best example of this He has shown us is His own suffering and death on the cross. Sure, He could have saved us by a painless miracle but He didn’t.  I don’t always understand why but I need to understand that if it is good enough for Him it should be good enough for me.  Suffering, pain, hardship, work, are all a part of our lives.  We can sit around and be apathetic, blaming God for not granting us shock and awe miracles or we can get to work, be His instruments and make them happen.

I was listening to a priest on Catholic radio the other morning.  He was talking about how people will say “I prayed to God and He didn’t answer me” and he said “yes He did, He said, ‘no’, that’s an answer. God doesn’t always say ‘yes’ to our prayers, we don’t know what is best for us, He does”.  For whatever reason, God has chosen to not heal Lucy by a shock and awe miracle.  We may never know to the full extent why He does what He does.  I can only fathom it with my limited human knowledge.  Is it because God wants to bring Himself to people through Lucy, does He want all of us to learn to go deeper into prayer through praying for Lucy, does He want me to be able to share the natural things from His creation we use regularly with all of the medical doctors we consult with, maybe it is simply for Lucy, to strengthen her to live a holy and pure life???    I don’t think we will ever know for sure while on this earth, we can only suspect and hope.  We just need to have faith that it is all part of His greater plan.