UPDATE

Yesterday was mostly a restful day for Parker. He remains stable and is down to 55% oxygen. He was awake and alert last night when Jason arrived which is difficult because he wants them to hold him and they want to, too. He tries to cry but of course he has a tube down his throat. They have been treating the airway constriction and are going to try to take him off the ventillator again this afternoon. We hope and pray it goes well this time.

A friend of ours shared something with us that helped her in a very dark and difficult time with one of her children. It's a scene from the second Lord of the Rings story, "The Two Towers." Mr. Frodo has a job to rid the world of an evil ring. He has his best friend, Sam, along to help him with this task that only he can do. Frodo is at a point where everything that could go wrong has. As he sinks to the ground he says, "I can't do this Sam." Then Sam goes into this speech: "I know, it's all wrong, by rights we shouldn't even be here, but we are. It's like the great stories, Mr. Fodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?" And as Sam goes on to share his thoughts, the scenes that begin to unfold in the movie are things being put to right without their knowledge. The HUGE battle his friends were fighting in another part of the country is finally being won, there is a scene where a gigantic flood washes away the place where all the evil stemmed from, and the evil wizard is left standing helpless. Sam continues: "But in the end it's only a passing thing this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come and when the sun shines, it'll shine all the clearer. Those were the stories tha stayed with you... that meant something. Even if you were too young to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back (giving up), only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something . . . ."