Monday, September 8, 2008

Please Pray for our Friends!

We have some very special friends, Kevin & Shanna Sherman, who live in Abilene, TX. They are the adoptive parents of Mary Grace. What is so special about this little girl is that she is the biological 1st cousin to our adopted daughters, Brenna and Bethany. So, you can understand why we will always have a close connection with this great family. I'm writing this post so that all who read it will pray for Mary Grace's dad, Kevin. He is about to undergo a series of procedures that will lead to brain surgery. He found out back in February, after having a seizure, that he has an Arterio-Venous Malformation, or an AVM, on the left side of his brain. With this AVM being on the left side, there are some risks/side effects of removing.

The main risks are partial vision loss, short term memory concerns, and problems with speech. The risk of not having the surgery to remove the AVM, is it could bleed which could be fatal. So, after much prayer and talking with his wife Shanna, and other family members, Kevin has decided to have the surgery even though there are risks involved.

The process begins on Wednesday with blood work. And then he will have 3 seperate embolization procedures which will help reduce the blood flow to the AVM before the actual surgery which will be on the 19th.

Please pray for this special family. They have 3 biological sons, and two adopted daughters (pre-K, and Kindergarten age). They are blessed to have grandparents who will be helping with their children while they are in Dallas. Kevin will be in ICU most of the time and I do not know at this time when he will be able to go home. It's hard enough raising 5 children when you are home with them everyday, so it is even harder when you have to be away and depend on others to care for them.

Please also pray for Kevin's parents, Shanna's parents, and their 5 children as they walk through this difficult time. They are a Christian family and know that all of this is in God's hands. Kevin stated in an email that he expects nothing less than a full recovery. Let's join him and ask God to heal him completely.

Thanks for praying! I'll update as I know more.

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