Praise Report and Prayer Request

A reader wrote last week:

About a month ago I posted a request for prayer in the comments section of one of your posts as my wife and I had just received word of his condition and was distraught and wanted to tell someone, someone Catholic who might appreciate what we’d just had dropped in our laps so to speak. A couple of your regulars responded to my comment with generosity and said they’d pray for him. Well it’s been a month and so I thought I’d drop you a line and give you an update.

The reason we were distraught and beside ourselves was because our regional high risk pregnancy centre told us definitely that he would die from his condition and that there was nothing we could do about it. They offered to terminate him even though we had explicitly asked them not to bring it up. Believe me or not but they seemed very interested in discussing termination but not much else. They told us that the simple procedure that we’d read about on-line was no longer being offered by a local hospital because it didn’t work. We were left with no hope and asked if we wanted to speak to a social worker. We cried, said thank you but were going to speak to our parish priest and thanked them for their help. And that was that, until my wife literally just googled the procedure and started making phone calls.

So to make a long-ish story short, the doctor was wrong about the prodecure and it is still being done, albeit in rare cases. But guess what? We qualified; our son passed the tests and he’ll be getting the shunt put into his bladder this week! The doctors at this other hospital are confident that he’ll survive and think that it’s even possible he may make it through this without any permanent damage to his organs.

Mark, we have been praying so much since that 19 week ultrasound for good news and this past Friday we got it. And so that’s why I am writing to you, so that you know that what you do makes a difference in people’s lives, even if it sometimes feels like it doesn’t. We don’t have any Catholic friends as we live in a very very secular place and so I guess that’s why I reached out as clumsily as I did that day.

Anyway I just thought I’d let you know in case you might be wondering about that strange comment on that unrelated story.

Please if you’d like to continue to pray for little Eddie, that the procedure goes smoothly this week and that he is born without a scratch, please do. 1 month ago we were told to prepare to bury him, last Friday we were told he may be good to go home in time for Christmas. I don’t know if any of the prayers actually made a difference in the end but it sure feels like they did.

Father, thank you for hearing our prayers and for the hope you have given. We ask that you would heal Eddie completely in body, soul, and spirit through Christ our Lord. We pray the surgery went well and that healing will be swift. Mother Mary and St. Luke, pray for Eddie and all who love him. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.