Hannah Winter is a 23 year old wife and mother of two young children. She had been diagnosed with a serious form of Lupus. Please join us in praying for her full recovery.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Update!
Hannah Winter is sleeping peacefully right now, praise God! She had plasmapheresis done this morning/early afternoon, so that has really wiped her out. It is similar to dialysis in the sense that there is two lines that run into her jugular vein, they hook that up to a machine and as her blood runs into the machine it cleans out her plasma, and puts the new plasma into it. This takes about three hours to do, and then your body is very worn out. So that is where she is right now.
Her blood pressure is still very high, 181/111, they are giving her medicine to bring it down, but it is not responding like it should, we would like it to be 140/90 or less. So please pray that will come down.
Her blood count was a 6.5 and they gave her the units of blood, which brought it up to a 9.5, which is better, just pray that her body does not continue to destroy her own blood. A normal persons blood count is 12-14, so 6.5 is very low.
Her immune system is basically attacking her body, so they have upped her dose of steroids to help "shut down" her immune system so it will not attack her blood or her kidneys anymore. Please pray that her body continues to respond to the steroids! In the mean time she has been working out quite aggressively, trying to take advantage of the steroids! (Ha Ha, that is not true!!) Steroids are not a long term option as then her body is vulnerable to other types of virus'. So pray that God will heal her immune system. They were hoping that was the last time for the blood transfusion and plasmapheresis, please pray for that to be true.
They are also giving her medicine for her kidneys, so pray to see a change in her kidney function, they have the worst disease they can have and still be functioning. It is not that they are not cleaning the blood, they are cleaning the blood, but letting to much of the "good stuff" out of her blood into her urine. A healthy adult will spill about 150 milligrams of protein in their urine every day, Hannah, the first day we were here, spilled 19 grams of protein in her urine (19,000 milligrams). That is what is causing the swelling in legs, because her blood does not have what it needs it is losing fluid. That is the way I understand it at least. Please pray the medicine helps bring her kidneys back online.
Hannah and I are also very grateful for everyone's prayer and support! Hannah is looking as beautiful as ever in my eyes! I love her so much.
Creed and Adonia are happily staying at my parents house, they are having so much fun playing with their aunts and uncles! We are extremely grateful to my parents allowing them to stay there this past week! With several visits to the hospital to see mommy, of course! I have been spending the nights here with my lovely bride, except Wednesday night, she had a roommate and I stayed down at my parents with Creed and Adonia, I enjoyed that time with them! Thankfully they have moved her to her own room where she is more comfortable and I can spend the night here with her!
God is great! We are thankful for all he has done and is doing for us! This will be a long road to full health, but we appreciate your prayers the whole way, but especially as she is here "in the woods," Your prayers as she stabilizes to the point where we can all be as a family once more! When she can go home.
Thank you all for all you are doing!
To sum it up Pray for:
Her blood pressure to drop to normal levels.
That her immune system will function properly and not attack it self.
That the steroids the doctors are giving her will help her body not attack itself
That the Kidney medicine will bring her kidneys up and running again
That her body will start functioning on her own and we can go home
That we keep our faith in God and keep our thoughts on a eternal focus!
Also for Daniel, Melissa, Elijah and Esther Maddux to have peace while they are in Africa through this time. I know they must be anxious not being able to be here!

Thanks for your time, I am not a doctor but I explained it to the best of my knowledge.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!!
Daniel Winter

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