It's been a hectic afternoon.  Read on.

First, Anna is much the same, she is sleeping a lot, doing the shuffle a little, not opening her eyes much.  She is very peaceful.

About 3pm Lael and I were enjoying lunch (another date!  two in one week!)  when we got the message that they were taking Anna for an MRI.  This was totally unexpected.  They took her down to the MRI, and while she was in there Lael and I went to Anna's room and prayed.  They brought her back, and we waited for Dr. Ayed to give us the results, which he did at around 5:30pm.

I must confess I was tense.  With the suddenness of the decision and everyone's somber faces, I thought he would give us bad news (more whales belly).

So, he took us through the pictures of Anna's brain.  First, do you all remember how we asked prayer that there would be NO SWELLING of her brain?  Well, have a guess...  there was NO SWELLING of her brain.

The part of the story that makes me jump up and down is this:  Dr. Ayed does not normally do an MRI at this stage, since he can't do anything with the information - it wouldn't make him alter his care, so why do it?  BUT if he hadn't done it now, we would never have known FOR SURE that there was NO SWELLING.  But because he did, we can see the direct answer to a direct prayer.

To cut a long story short, she has very little damage to her brain.  A little lighter shade of grey in a couple areas which indicate some damage, but nothing at all severe.

Dr. Ayed's main concern has been the lack of a gag reflex.  So yesterday we prayed specifically with Bro. Erickson that the next time he did the gag test, she would respond.  So after we'd finished discussing the MRI, I asked Dr. Ayed if he'd done it - he said he had done the test just before our meeting.  I asked him the result.  He paused for a moment, then said that she'd made the machine beep.  Not understanding, I questioned him for a while, and the bottom line is that she made a small, beginning, not at all strong, gag when he poked the back of her throat.  Wow.

Now might be an appropriate time to shout "Halleluia!" if you haven't done so already and are so inclined.

Now remember, Anna's symptoms haven't changed much at all.  She is still fighting for her life, same as before these encouraging reports, and answered prayers.  She looks just about the same as she did yesterday, the day before, etc.  We have renewed faith and encouragement, for which we give thanks to Almighty God.

Need I say, please keep praying, and we thank you all SO MUCH for your encouragement.

I also get a kick out of little things - like the fact that if you go to www.thoughts.com and click on "popular posts" near the top, currently every single one of the top 10 most-viewed posts on this entire website is about Anna.  I know it's not a big web site, but it still makes me smile...  :)

God bless,

Richard