Update 4/10/10

What can I say?  God is so good!  I am happy to report that my recovery and healing to this point seems to be baffling everyone!!  All praises to our God/King /Great Physician!!  I have been coming down on my prednisone with the goal of my cpk not going back up and having a flair up.  Initially, this process was very hard on my body.  I was having extreme headaches, my muscles hurt and I was exhausted.  I expected this process of coming down on the prednisone to continue in this manner.  However, God has proven so wonderful and merciful.  A week and a half ago when I went for blood work, not only did my blood work show that my cpk did not go up, but it actually dropped by 80 points!!  And the process of coming down on the prednisone has gone very smoothly for the last 2 weeks!  I am now down to 15mg of prednisone and feeling great!  I am still very tired, but I believe that is a side effect of my other medication.  I am making it though with lots of coffee and hey I could not be headed back to a better place for needing coffee!!  Costa Rica coffee is the best!!  I went back to the cardiologist this past Wed. and she just sat there and smiled at me.  She was shocked also at how far I have come since the last time she saw me.  She was amazed!  She said that she does not feel that we need to treat anything right now with my heart.  She feels that as I get mobile again and start to have more of an ability to get better exercise my heart will get back into better shape!!  Yay!!  Also, I have been going to physical therapy twice a week for about a month!  It has been amazing to see my progress.  Each time I tell my therapist what I want to work on and we focus on it for a bit I have seen huge progress!!  I am able to climb stairs and go down them!  My balance has really improved and I am currently working on squatting.  My muscles are relearning quickly!  I am beginning to stretch them out and I am very happy with how far I have come!

Jacob and the kids are doing great in Costa Rica!  They have settled into a nice routine again.  He even believes that he has found us a log cabin to live in near Bocaron.  It is on a hilltop and has lots of fresh air flow!  It has been used in the past for retreats and so it will easily house our family and have room for a team of about 12!!  It is also way less expensive than we budgeted for, so we are praising the Lord for opening up this door!  I will post pictures when I can!

All of these wonderful things that I am reporting all today are all to the glory of God.  He as worked all of this out for us.  He also uses our prayers and I am so thankful for all of your prayers.  Please continue to pray for us.  I am still coming down on the prednisone, so please continue to pray for that.  Please also pray for Jacob and the kids in Costa Rica.  I am also trying to get our paperwork together while I am here so that we can apply and hopefully receive residency in Costa Rica, so please pray for that.  Please also continue to lift of the others that are suffering from polymyositis/dermatomyositis, especially my friend Aidan.  I thank each of you for your continued support and prayers!  Please keep it up!  All glory, honor and praise to our Heavenly Father!