Today, my devotional time was on Deuteronomy 4. (I'm going through Numbers and Deuteronomy right now)  Verses 9 and 10 say, "Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live.  Teach them to your children and to their children after them."  I think one of the most encouraging things that people have written me that they are praying for is for our kids to not lose their faith through this time.  This isn't an easy thing to explain to the kids.  Yes, I know God has a reason, but I don't know what it is yet, and can't tell my kids with confidence what it is.  Sure, someone might become a Christian because of this, or someone else might avoid some future suffering that they don't even know looms ahead, but I don't know what it is.  So please keep praying that my kids and I don't let the things we've seen God do before this trial 'slip from our hearts as long as we live.'

Amy's had a rough day.  She is getting dehydrated and not eating well.  She's losing her ability to swallow and can no longer see, which makes eating that much more difficult.  When we try to sit her up she often seizes or passes out.  'Why don't you put in an IV?' some of you might be asking.  Before Amy was delirious she clearly stated she'd want an IV if she was nauseated and couldn't keep from vomiting, but not if she was no longer lucid or comatose.  Just because we can prolong her life doesn't mean that we should.   What good would putting in an IV bring?  But when we ask questions like that, we have to ask ourselves, 'What good does hovering over her throughout the day encouraging water, mangos, cereal, bread with honey, and apple pie bring?'  Somehow that seems right, so we continue to encourage nibbles of those things, though we recognize that we are really doing those things for ourselves not for her.

Amy hasn't been able to eat at the dinner table for a couple of days, but since she was doing a bit better yesterday afternoon, we decided to have her try sitting at the table with the family again.  It didn't work:  She kept reaching for things (she can't see hardly anything), dragging her hands through her food and would have knocked many things on the floor if it were not for Mia's cat-like reflexes.  So it looks like were done with sitting at the table unless she rebounds markedly.

Last night she was hallucinating and yelling and hitting me again.  When I say 'hitting me', she's not clenching a fist and punching me, but her arms flail a lot during the night and she smacks me in the face over and over.  At 1 am I finally gave up on hoping that she was almost asleep and would stop soon and I moved to a camping mattress on the floor.  She continued to talk and yell, but I could sleep a bit better through her yelling than getting smacked in the head.

Last night Amy hallucinated and talked loudly almost the entire night.  She also kicked and pinched and hit me several times.   I only got an hour's sleep.  Several times I pled with her to be quiet, hoping that a rational part of her brain would be able to take over, but that never happened.  The good news is that she didn't seem to be in much pain and seems to not be in much pain today.

The last two times we've weighed Amy she's actually gone up in weight.  I think it is helping that we keep feeding her even after she loses interest.  She's not been vomiting for several days too.  Plus, I've been making lots of icecream and sourdough bread with butter and honey, which she can't resist!

Amy's lost a lot of weight over the last three weeks because she's had no appetite, or worse, nausea and vomiting.  She's been feeling better recently, so we've been trying hard to get her to eat more.  She's really got a sweet tooth and yesterday ate a lot of Swedish Cheesecake (Östkaka.  Doesn't translate well into Spanish) and today for dessert at lunch ate two pieces of apple pie, slathered with whipped cream.  I've learned that if I get a snack in the morning and sit by her to eat it and offer her some, she'll pretty much eat all of it.  She will almost always eat mango, and unbelieveably (to a non-coffee-drinker), will drink a full cup of coffee with milk and sugar.