Hi friends and family,

Thank you so much for continued prayer and support - I know it's been a while since we've updated, and a lot has happened in the past month or so!

First off, thank you so much to everyone who came out and helped us move into our new place. All the hours painting and lifting furniture have blessed us so much and made the move into our new house so much smoother than we thought it would be. THANK YOU! We are so happy to be here, and despite all the unpacking and reorganizing we still need to do, it already feels like home.

One of the reasons we haven't updated in the past month is because of how back-and-forth everything has been with Lewis. Due to changes with Lewis' cyst and the treatments we were doing, as well as receiving different opinions from doctors, it's been a bit of a roller coaster these past few weeks trying to figure out our next step. We even had surgery scheduled for May, and then we feel lucky we were able to cancel/postpone it - we have just been all over the place & it has been exhausting. Your prayers for wisdom and patience through this have been sustaining us!

So, here's the good news: Upon repeated attempts to drain the cyst using our catheter, it finally has started working - amazing! We've finally been able to collect a bit of fluid every couple of weeks. We had an MRI in between drains to check, and we can confirm that it has actually shrunken down the cyst - just a tiny bit, but every little bit counts! What- WOW. We are SO grateful to God for this! We've had so few instances of good news in this past year, but this was a big one!

We've also been able to successfully give Lewis a full dose of his infusion medication three times in a row, which has felt like a miracle too. In the past, his low neutrophil count had forced us to use a much smaller dose, but now we've been giving the full dose and haven't had any side effects.

So while the cyst is still quite large, we finally feel like we have reason to be hopeful that we'll be able to buy more time for Lewis to continue to grow naturally before having to do a more final surgical intervention. His vision seems to be stable, and aside from that, he hasn't had any other symptoms. In the past week, he even became a very confident walker, which has been fun!

The last bit of good that came from this past month is that if and when we do a full resection of the tumor, we know what our plan will be in terms of what type of surgery it will be and what doctors and hospitals will be involved -- and we feel really good about it.

But for now, we'd just ask for prayer that God's mercy would flow through the combination of catheter drains and the infusions, and that through all this, Lewis' cyst would continue to shrink. We are eager for more healing!

And one other thing that we could really use prayer for is for peace during this period. We are very thankful that we don’t have to have surgery now, but that puts us in a place (again) where any new symptom could mean bad news - cyst growth and/or the need for surgery right away. With every little thing we worry, “Is that a normal development thing, or is something off?” It’s a lot of tension to stay in. We want to enjoy this time while noticing new symptoms appropriately, and to believe that if symptoms do emerge we will be able to get surgery scheduled asap with everything taken care of (like insurance coverage) & that new symptoms will be clear and easy to recognize (& not too bad or anything permanent).

I know that was a lot, so here’s a list of things we would love prayer for:

Praise for the teams of doctors caring for Lewis & continued good communication/relations
Good growth & development to continue
Drains would continue to be successful & that we would be able to drain even more
Full dose infusions & good blood counts
No new symptoms! Healing of his eyes & pituitary gland
Clarity & peace for now & next steps
We (Luke & Rachel) would be on the same page about decisions, everything, etc.

As always, your messages mean the world to us. Thank you so much for walking with us through this and keeping us in your prayers and thinking of us. We love you all!

Love, Rachel, Luke & Lewis