Angelia, has suffered with Nephrotic Syndrome ( a congenital kidney disorder) most of her life (8 years). She has had her ups and downs for the past five years, until recently when it become critical. Once they finally release her from the hospital, she will be on home dialysis. This will be an enormous challenge for the entire family, as well as a huge financial burden. See below how you can help.
The following is mostly from Rachel, her mother, and is what has transpired the last several weeks (most recent first):
We thank all of you from the bottom of our hearts, for your much needed and appreciated prayers and gifts!
June 4th
Thank you all so much! I figured I’d give you all an update. Angelia is home now but still doing home dialysis, she will be going on the transplant list in October/November and we are hoping for a kidney as soon as possible once that day comes. This whole deal was more costly than anticipated and wanted to let you all know your financial assistance has helped tremendously. I don’t know what we would have done without it. Also we had our baby, Arukah, who she and momma are healthy. We give God all the credit for the financial help, healing and comfort we had through this time. God Bless you guys!
June 1st
Angelia is back home! Even though her kidneys are working better than they have in years (thanks be to God), she has to be on dialysis every night while asleep. We are praying and believing for God to complete the work and heal her totally.
She did however, have the opportunity to see her baby sister being born on June 1st, just as she greatly desired to do.
May 30th
Angelia just got released about half an hour ago and they are on their way home!!!
May 27th
Unfortunately, they are not letting Angelia go home today. None of the cultures have come back positive as of this morning but they still want to keep her on antibiotics for about a week that can’t be oral. So they are keeping her here until Thursday at least.
May 26th
Angelia only had a fever for a few hours last night. They took a bunch of cultures to check for infection and haven’t gotten any results back from them that are conclusive yet. They did find out she got a cold somehow so even though she is feeling great still, they won’t let her leave the room until we are discharged, which they are still hoping will happen sometime tomorrow. But could be as late as Thursday depending on test results.
May 25th
Angelia just spiked a fever a couple hours ago. Please pray this doesn’t keep us from leaving on Monday and also that she doesn’t have an infection. Thanks!
May 20th
Getting a game in before dialysis.
May 16th
Angelia underwent surgery today in oder to place a port in her abdomen for home dialysis. She went through the surgery fine, and is now in her room resting.
May 15th
Angelia got some mail today and got to meet a new dog.
May 14th
Update: Angelia is right on the border of needed dialysis so her specialist thinks it would be best for her to go ahead and get the surgery to put in the dialysis port on Thursday. As of now the plan is for Josh and everyone to come up to the hospital next Monday and stay until Wednesday for training and then we will all go home that Friday and he will have to take her back here as an out patent for one last dialysis treatment here at the hospital since the port needs two weeks to heal before using it. And then we will start the home dialysis that Thursday night.
May 13th
Great news! God is answering prayers. Angelia has started urinating a lot more the last three days, and her kidney function from her blood tests have been somewhat improved without having a dialysis treatment since Friday morning. They decided she didn’t need dialysis today and just want to keep monitoring her blood work. They have pushed surgery off until Thursday or Friday but if she continues to do as well as she has been the last few days they will cancel it. Please keep praying her kidneys keep doing better!
May 12th
May 11th
Angelia is doing much better. Her latest test results show her protein level in the normal range for the first time in five years–PRAISE THE LORD!!! She is also urinated much more than she has since her admittance. God is indeed healing this child!!!
May 9th
Angelia update: she has been doing great. We are now able to go out of the room and go to the playroom or garden or the library or even just go down and do laundry with me. We are still waiting to see when she can get the surgery to put the port in her belly for home dialysis. They want her to be off of antibiotics first and for her liver and spleen to be back to normal or at least close or find out why they were big. Pray this happens soon 4 weeks until the due date and we have to be here at least two weeks after surgery…
Or better yet God heals her kidneys and she doesn’t need surgery at all. Praise report last night was the first night she had no belly pain since being off pain meds.
Just heard that Angelia’s liver and spleen have gotten smaller. They are talking about scheduling surgery for Monday. Will post if anything changes.
Click on pictures to enlarge.
May 7th
May 5th
We are all happy she got the breathing tube out today!!! Woo hoo!
May 3rd
Still in the PICU. They are hoping we can get out and move to the floor again next week sometime.
May 2nd
Angelia update: Unfortunately she has to keep the breathing tube in at least for today. Since she developed an infection overnight, which they are working on pinpointing. As of now she is on broad spectrum antibiotics until they know more.
(Josh) We are so blessed to have family like every single one of you who has set aside time to speak to God on Angelia’s behalf. Thank you so much for not giving up, we serve an awesome God our Master and Savior Jesus Christ. It’s times like these that true believers are exposed for their faith. Thank you all for being faithful and loving. It means a lot.
May 1st
Not much to update on. All the cultures came back negative for infection. They are leaving her on the breathing tube all day today and are planning on taking it out tomorrow. They wanted to give her lungs a little more time to heal.
April 30th at 12:00 PM:
Angelia update: She is improving a ton. Everything went great last night. All her brain waves remained normal so they removed all the wire things on her head. They are taking the removal if the ventilator really slow to make sure her lungs have time to fully recover from what happened. But I think they are planning on removing that tomorrow morning sometime. They are pretty definite that we will have to do the home dialysis so we will be talking more with people today about what that will look like. But once they get the port in for it we will have to stay another two weeks to let it heal and learn how to use it.
April 30th at 11:18 AM
Angelia update: She is improving a ton. Everything went great last night. All her brain waves remained normal so they removed all the wire things on her head. They are taking the removal if the ventilator really slow to make sure her lungs have time to fully recover from what happened. But I think they are planning on removing that tomorrow morning sometime. They are pretty definite that we will have to do the home dialysis so we will be talking more with people today about what that will look like. But once they get the port in for it we will have to stay another two weeks to let it heal and learn how to use it.
April 29th at 8:11 PM
She has been awake most of the day. As of now she doesn’t seem to have suffered any brain damage. Her brain waves look normal but we aren’t out of the woods until tomorrow morning. Still trying to figure out why she was having belly pain in the first place. They haven’t found anything yet on the ultrasounds they did. And haven’t gotten the results back yet from the cultures. To find out if it was caused by infection. If nothing comes back they plan on doing a Cat scan.
April 29th at 6:19 PM
She seems to be pretty stable. But they are monitoring her brain since her heart stopped for 6 min. She has been able to wake up and mouth words to me as well as move her arms and legs. Thankful God was protecting her through all of this!
(Update from Josh) Thank you all so much for praying, it means a lot. We have the ability to approach the Holy God through the work Jesus did. There is nothing in ourselves that can do anything right now, but we know that God who is the inventor and designer of our bodies can repair and restore. He gives science (Latin for knowledge) to these doctors and nurses and understanding to treat our molded clay bodies. Yahweh is in control and to say otherwise is foolish. Thanks again for your continued prayers, it is the only thing that is worth anything right now. So far she seems stable.
April 29, 2019 (early morning)
Pray now! Critical. (from Josh)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, please pray right now, EXTREMELY critical. I know the power of prayer, so I beg you to please pray in the name of Jesus for Angelia right now, her heart stopped for 6 minutes last night.
She had bad stomach pain that lead to respiratory arrest, she was rushed to the PICU again, while putting the breathing tube back in, her heart stopped but they were able to bring her back by CPR. She is somewhat stable at this moment, and they are putting in a port on her thigh. Waiting to hear more, they won’t let Rachel in the room until the port operation is done. Me and the kids just got back home from visiting them a few hours ago so I’m waiting to hear from Rachel on updates. Please continue to pray.
April 28, 2019, 12:36 PM
Angelia is feeling better today after another rough night. She ate a good breakfast and is now painting, while we wait to move to our new room out of the PICU. Yay!
Angelia got to get out of bed and leave her room for the first time in a week.
April 27, 2019, 1:18 PM
My sweet girl, finally getting better rest now that her belly isn’t hurting all the time.
April 27, 2019, 12:34 PM
Angelia update: Her belly pain has finally gone away, as of the last couple hours. She has been eating more as well. Please pray that they can get her blood pressure down though since that has been the only thing keeping us in the PICU. Yesterday and today. Also pray that her kidneys start working again they are giving her until Monday before doing another dialysis treatment as long as she doesn’t need one before then. They are hoping to see if her kidneys will start working more on their own again.
April 26, 2019, 9:09 AM
Had a very long night yesterday with the diarrhea and bad stomach pain. I (Rachel) ended up staying with her from 3:00am to 5:15, until they were able to give her more pain meds and they kicked in. She is sleeping now thankfully I think she went to sleep soon after I went back to bed. Her blood pressure is a lot better they were able to lower how much meds she was getting for that. And her heart rate has gone down to around 114 instead of the 140’s to 150’s it was at all day yesterday and into half the night.
April 25, 2019, 4:37 PM
Angelia update: she took her breathing tube out this morning since they said she couldn’t eat until it was out and she was hungry and got tired of waiting on them. They also removed the tube in her nose and took her off the sleep meds. And off the 24 hour dialysis. They plan on getting her back on the other one tomorrow where she will only have to stay in bed for a few hours until the treatment is done. Instead of staying in bed 100% of the time. And they took the line out of her leg and one of the IV’s in her arm. She has been eating and drinking a little since then and can talk.
April 24, 2019 1:22 PM
Angelia update: they lowered her oxygen support down to 8 now it started at 12 this morning and she just needs to get down to 6 to get the tube removed. They will probably wait until tomorrow morning to take it out though since they don’t want to do it at night just in case things get worse while she’s sleeping. They have also decided to hold off on putting in the port on her arm to see if she can get off of some of the things she is on and won’t need it.
April 23, 2019
Angelia update: she started 24 hour dialysis this morning. They are hoping to get more liquid out of her lungs since more build up after the blood transfusion last night. That way she won’t need all the help breathing and they can get the tube out of her throat. She has been opening her eyes for the first time since getting here and responding with nods when asked questions.
April 22, 2019
Please pray for Angelia. She was flown to St. Louis. We are all in St. Louis now. Josh and the other kids will have to go home probably tomorrow though. I am (Rachel) staying with her in the hospital looks like we will be here for the next two weeks. Got this picture before she left Springfield.
April 21, 2019
After 3 days of diarrhea and vomiting, Angelia couldn’t even keep Pedialite down and had become quite dehydrated, so Rachel and Josh (Angelia’s parents) took her to Urgent Care, where she was sent on to the ER in Springfield, MO. They found her blood work looking extremely bad as far as kidney function, starting IV fluids and helped her breath with a respirator because she started having trouble breathing after arriving at the ER, but the diarrhea and vomiting had stopped by then. With the blood work showing dangerous levels, they life flighted her back to Barnes-Jewish Hospital PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) in St. Louis, MO, while Rachel, Josh, Nathan, Evan, Eliana, and Arukah Faith (in utero 33 and a ½ weeks) drove to the hospital. Dr. Barton, their pediatric kidney specialist was there to meet Angelia when she arrived on the helicopter after being called at his home on Easter Sunday night.
You can help by sending a check or money order to:
Freedom’s Hope Ministry
PO Box 1886
Bonners Ferry, ID 83805
or
Go to “Donation” page for PayPal transfers.
Please designate “Angelia Fund”.
As always, all donations are tax deductible, and with check or money orders; 100% is sent to the need. PayPal takes a small fee, but not as much as some other options.