Please Keep Praying!

Hi all-- First of all, thank you for praying for the Ehman family! They made it here safely last night.

Second, many of you have written to tell me you are praying for my daughter. I appreciate it so much-- but we need your continued prayers. She has gotten worse, not better, since we started the antibiotics. I know it can take a good 24 hours to start making a difference and I am hoping that will be the case here. The other element that we have no idea about is that she keeps complaining/crying that her arm hurts. She points to the exact same spot every time. (This has been going on since Friday. We wrote it off as "growing pains" at first.)

My first tip-off that she was going downhill was at about four yesterday afternoon. She started to cry and I could not get her to stop. (This was while she was on Motrin and wasn't near due for more.) I tried everything. Finally, out of desperation, I put her in the stroller and she and I and my 8yo daughter went for a walk. We were about halfway through our walk when she began vomiting everywhere-- which meant I had to push her all the way home covered in vomit and crying. I then had to hose her and the stroller down-- all the while she was screaming.

That was my first clue that things were not going to go as I had hoped-- I had hoped she would get two doses of medicine in her, be on the mend by nightfall, and sleep peacefully through the night.

Instead, last night was a horrible night of her waking up crying about every hour to an hour and a half. She is so miserable-- and consequently, so am I. I have no idea how much of her pain is related to the arm and how much is related to the ear. And at two years old, she can't tell me. To top things off, she now has a croupy cough that has developed and cries every time she coughs. I think it hurts her ear when she coughs.

I called our pediatrician first thing this morning and they said that I should definitely bring her in-- as in come back from the beach. She said that, if she isn't any better by tonight, we should plan to drive home and be seen tomorrow afternoon.

Did I mention that my friend Karen drove 16 hours from MI to spend a week with me here at the beach?

We had such big plans to talk and laugh and work on things together. And now it looks like I will be leaving her here with my older two and taking my younger three home. Curt has said he will return this weekend to close up the house, clean up, and retrieve our older kids. Karen is being so gracious about all of this, but I feel so bad.

So, I am just asking for an eleventh hour miracle, here. And I would appreciate it if you all would pray with me/for me. I am not sure what will happen yet-- I will keep you posted. And for all of you who emailed me or commented to say you were wishing you were at the beach, I'll bet you don't want to trade with me now!!