Please pray for Zachariah

February has been a hard month for Zachariah.  On the 7th, after being home from school sick for a few days he went to CHEO (the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario).  The Dr's gave us a diagnosis of Henoch Scholenien Purpura which is a blood infection that also causes pain in the joints.  This gave us a clear understanding to why he was so unwell and why he was unable to walk comfortably.  He went home and we waited for him to slowly get better.  Unfortunately the Dr's did tell us this could go on for a while before he feels better (some cases lasting 4-6 weeks)

By the following week Zachariah had not been able to eat or drink anything, had a consistently high fever and a lot of abdominal pain. So... back to CHEO we went. On this visit it seemed the Zachariah is suffering from some of the more severe side effects of this diagnosis.  They are all known but not as common so we hadn't really been prepared for them.  After three days in the hospital Zachariah looked much better thanks to the IV and nausea medication.  The Dr's told us what to watch for and when to come back in. 

Zachariah started this week well with attempting to go to school on Tuesday, that only lasted 2 hours and he was back at home with stomach pains.  Although he had stomach pain we didn't rush him back to the hospital but thought maybe he needed a few days to regain his strength.  So a couple of more days home from school and Thursday morning found us back at CHEO for another 2 day hospital stay.  This time more meds, another ultrasound, an IV and steroids and we are good to go...  

all that to say we are now home again and Zachariah looks like he is feeling better this morning.  We have three weeks worth of medication to give him and a long list of instructions of when to bring him back to the hospital. 

In saying all of that this is what we would like you to pray for: 
ULTRASOUND RESULTS:  Swollen kidneys, growth on his liver and the intestines are telescoping into themselves (this is the one that cause his pain). 
MEDICATION: He is now on a strong does of steroids for the next three weeks to help the swelling and telescoping, pray for no side effects from the medication.  He is also taking a second medication to protect his stomach from the steroids
ENERGY:  Zachariah is very run down from this illness, he needs to build up his energy and his reserves (having lost 3kg's in two weeks he needs to gain that back). 
WISDOM: please pray that we have wisdom on when to go back to the hospital or not. It is easy to both downplay symptoms because you already have a diagnosis and also to overreact to the smallest amount of pain. 
ONGOING TREATMENTS:  We now have appointment for the near future with both the Kidney and Liver specialist, please pray that when they come around his little body has healed enough that we don't have further issues from this.