hi everyone!

someone turned one this past week and we have had a LOT of fun celebrating! we are being pretty extra & going all out in our celebrations, it is like a double celebration for us in a way - we are so happy that our baby boy is ONE! & that we are done with surgery & at home. we weren’t sure if we would be home or if lewis would be feeling well enough for a first birthday party, so we were extra glad that he was.

lewis has been recovering well. his eyes are continuing to improve, we are doing the eye patch for two hours everyday, & that with the surgery has helped his eyes improve. please pray for continued improvement in his eyes!

lewis will also be starting medication this week to hopefully reduce the size of his tumor, or at least keep it from growing bigger. we will be dealing with unknowns with this medication & a lot of time at the hospital, so please be praying for good results, comfort, no bad side effects, that lewis does okay at the hospital, & all the other things.

to get started with treatment, we have to do some tests this week to establish his baseline, including a quick MRI. this will be the first MRI post-surgery, so we have all sorts of feels - hope / fear/ anxiety / we feel it all. if you could be please praying for us & that god would show his healing power through the size of the cyst on the scans we would appreciate that so much!

thank you to everyone for showering us with love when we got home & for all the birthday love that you showed us & lewis this past week. it’s been so exciting to celebrate his one year, but also pretty hard to look back & see all the pains that happened - we are some place i never ever imaged we could be.

some things are weird. just the other day we got rid of a bag of potatoes that we have had since before lewis was diagnosed. we were going to cook them the day that we ended up having to go into the hospital & found his tumor. and the other day we just finished his thing of baby wipes that they gave us when we were at the hospital in SF. all of these time markers hit me weird, i’m not really sure what it is - i think it’s just something to do with how life continues to go on even when devastating things like this happen — which i am thankful for, but also kind of can’t believe.

anyways! lewis is also back to exercising his strong-willed nature (he is truly my son lol) and i am a little worried about our hospital visit this week, so if you could say another prayer that he would be comfortable & understanding at the hospital, everyone involved will appreciate that!

thank you so much for your prayers & thinking of us! we are thankful for this community and are praying god’s peace & love over all of you as well.