Little Joe Update

I am writing to ask you all to pray and to pass this on. Most of you know of the little boys that stay with my parents and how much we'd love to adopt them.

Little Joe, who is almost 4, went into the ER last night..he was shaking, vomiting, and unable to recognize anyone. They thought he might have gotten into some drugs at his mom's house. The doctor tested his blood and urine for narcotics and didn't find any. He then sent them home...Jo and his little brother and their mom spent the night at my parents' house. Joe slept peacefully through the night, but this morning was back to freaking out. They took him to the ER again and now he is on his way to Children's Hospital.

The ER Dr. seems to think its one of 3 possibilities:
a.) Joe got into the seizure medication that his mom's live in friend takes. If this is the case, Joe will be fine as soon as it leaves his system...but it should have left his body by now...unless he has gone toxic from it. If that's the case, it will take 3-4 days for him to be back to normal, but he will be fine. They will have to send his urine away to test for this, so it could be days before they know if he has the medication in him.
b.) He had a large seizure. They are going to do an EEG and they will know if he's had a seizure. If he's epileptic, they can give him medication and that's not a huge deal. If he has had a seizure and is not epileptic, they will have to determine what has caused the seizure (a lot of illnesses produce this response...Beth is an example of that)
c.) Apparently in the ER this morning Joe was fine until Marie (his bio mom) walked into the room and then he began freaking out...puking and screaming and callling her a b**** and then he would get quiet and not talk. This happened a couple of times while the Dr. and nurses were in the room so the doctor made note of it and even said in front of Marie that Joe seemed to be most upset by her and that they were going to have to check him for abuse...specifically, head trauma. When the Dr; left the room my aunt asked Marie if she had shook Joe and she said "he was spinning and I tried to grab him.,.." which, God only knows what that means. It is possible that he was reacting to the meds and she thought he was misbehaving and shook him or something like that. An EEG will show if Joe is dealing with head trauma. This can sometimes be permanent or require lots of therapy to regain speech adm motor skills and such.

Tests are being run now. Please pray. Pray they can quickly determine what is wrong and that Joe and Josh can get away from their current environment.

God has saved Joe's life on 3 occasions already... their house was broken into by a crack addict, the second floor fell through in their house 6 months ago, and Joe was in a horrible car accident last Jan...thrown 35 Ft through the windshield... We really believe God is sparing his little life because there is a calling on it. The Enemy is trying everything to take him out and that tells me there is a reason...

When Joe was 7 months old, he spent weekends with me and he had terrible night terror. One night he slept peacefully and the Lord kept waking me up. I would go over and lay my hand on his little chest to make sure he was breathing (that's how uncommon it was for him to sleep without wrestling and screaming and crying) The Lord said to me, almost audibly, "prophesy over him" (this has never happened to me before or since) The Lord led me through words claiming protection over his physical body,...words renouncing the lifestyle he lives in with its drugs and prostitution and violence...and then the Lord led me to read the story of Joseph from the Old Testament. I read and cried. Joe's namesake was beaten and betrayed in his youth and then the Lord made him the One to save his people. I knew that night, the calling on little 'JoJo''s life was real.

If you could meet Joe he would tell you with his broken words about Jesus and how Jesus made his hurts from the car accident better. He would point to the place on his head and chin and look into your eyes with those dark brown eyes of his and you would see that at the tender age of 3, he really does know that Jesus healed him. If you ask Joe what he does at church, he will lift his hands and say 'worship' and then go get his Bible and show you. If you asked Joe to let you pray for him, he would bow his head and close his eyes and say 'yup' after everything you say.

Today in the ER the only time he was coherent, my aunt Deb said "Joe, Jesus is with you" and he looked up at her and spoke his only real word all day "yup"

I attached a pic, so you can see those beautiful eyes while you pray for him.

Thanks!
Kate & the rest of the fam