I (Katie) just had a follow-up appointment with the GI doctor. I’m so relieved to be able to report that it was all good news! All the biopsies from my endoscopy and colonoscopy came back with little smiley faces stamped on them. Well, at least that’s how I interpreted what the doc said! She said that there is basically complete healing from the damage previously done to my colon from my celiac disease and that there is no longer any evidence of the microscopic colitis I had in 2019. She said that whatever I’m doing – I should keep it up! This is even better news than I had hoped for!
To sum up, after all my doctor’s visits this summer, nothing was found to account for me being anemic. But I was told to take iron supplements and retest (in Senegal) in three months. We can pray that that will be enough to resolve the anemia. But otherwise, in spite of several red flags necessitating visits with a variety of different doctors, I have now been given a clean bill of health! Which means we can return to Senegal on Saturday!
As you can imagine, we are so grateful for this good news. Now our thoughts turn to packing and saying goodbye to our girls and other loved ones here in the US and our travel back to Senegal on Aug. 9th. Because of the delay, I am missing this week of teacher training and prep time for the new school year so I will have to hit the ground running. The first day of school is August 14.
We appreciate all of your prayers. This summer has been a whirlwind of medical visits and time with loved ones and travel and visiting our dear partner churches on the east coast. We didn’t feel like we had enough time here in the US but we are counting this as a “half furlough” and we will look forward to doing the other half in two years. Our heartfelt thanks to each of you who supports us financially and through prayer. And we thank God who is the One who has called us to Senegal, the One who has prepared good works ahead of time for us to do there, the One who gives us life and health and our daily bread, and the One who is the Lord of the Harvest for whom we all labor! May He bless the work of our hands during this next 2-year term with much fruit!
