November 16th 2008... Mikey is well.. thank You, Lord. His heart is still pounding a little harder (and louder), but we're keeping an eye on that. Mister Ed has been out hunting this week, so Mikey and grandpa have been doing a little more A&E sitting than ususal (A&E= grandkids Andy & Emily). We got the kids some Plasma cars, and they've been riding them a lot in our garage. They're really neat.. no pedaling, no pushing, no batteries.. you just sit down on the seat and steer.. they work like magic on some kind of "inertia system" (that I don't understand). Where were these when I was a kid?!? I found a good deal on them, so I bought four of them.. You can see Mikey, Andy & Emily riding a couple of them in the photo above. In the photo below, they're playing GloGolf at our local mall.

T.G.I.S. .. Thank God It's SONday, and we get to go to church today! God is Good!

Mikey IS doing well. He has regular pacemaker checks via phone modem, and he visits his cardiologists in Little Rock. They have a new surgery team there that will perform Mikey's next heart surgery. It's hard to believe, as healthy as Mikey appears now, that he is still so very ill. The expectation is still that his life will "be short". That's what this page is about. Thousands of wonderful people have visited Mikey's page and prayed for him. Many have been inspired, blessed, and even found Jesus through these simple pages. It's surprising how many emails we have received from "back-slidden" couples and families who have returned to church after being inspired by Mikey's simple pages. To God be the glory. It's all about Him.

Mikey IS well. His last trip to Little Rock he saw his cardiologists and got a great report, thank You, Lord! He had ekgs, a pacemaker clinic and a heart echo done, and everything looked fine. The dacron conduit in his heart is clear and the porcine valve is working well for him. He still has "heart rub" and a leaky mitral valve, but medication is controlling the sinus tachycardia (fast heart rate), and we are all very happy with Mikey's progress since his latest heart surgery last summer.

From August 15th, 2004... Mikey preaching! If you click on the top left photo, you can hear Pastor Don introducing Mikey. Click on the top right photo to hear a brief snippet of Mikey's sermon. Mikey's sermon was about "decisions".. how God gives us free will to decide, and how we make decisions everytime God speaks to us. He also prayed and sang. Mikey looks good doesn't he? We're very proud of him. He did a good job. In the picture below, you can see Mikey in prayer, preparing for the sermon he delivered sunday.

One would have to go back and visit page 1 and page 2 etc. to believe what Mikey has been through... and just what God has brought us through. Mikey is a loveable child.. always has been. He loves life and he loves to smile and laugh. We are very blessed and cherish every minute with Mikey. Thank You, Lord!

See Mikey on TV and read the Net4TV News articles about Mikey: Mikey's Miracle - Answered Prayer and Mikey: The Miracle Continues. His most recent heart surgery, this summer (2004) begins here. See Mikey singing for the mayor and our veteran's on Memorial Day last summer here.

To bring everyone up to speed: After enduring a number of heart procedures in his young life, Mikey entered the hospital a few years ago, so the doctors could "help God heal my heart".. as Mikey says. After extensive open-heart surgery, Mikey suffered a lot of set-backs. DAYS turned into WEEKS (many weeks spent on a ventilator). Weeks turned into months, before he recovered and was able to go home for a few days, but he returned in congestive heart failure and he was placed back on the ventilator again. Thanks to a lot of answered prayers and the excellent doctors and staff of St. Francis Hospital, Mikey came home. His vocal chords had become paralyzed again, and one is still damaged, but we're praying about that, and we believe that God is healing that vocal chord, as we speak! Within a year, the "homograft" (donor conduit) that the surgeons implanted, began to calcify. Children's Hospital in Little Rock placed a stent in Mikey's homograft last summer to open it, but it failed within a few months. Mikey entered Arkansas Children's Hospital this year, May 27th, for more open-heart surgery to replace the homograft. Surgeons implanted a dacron tube with a porcine valve, and Mikey was able to return home in June. He has sinus tachycardia (fast heart beat) since the surgery, and they have now discovered that his mitral valve is also leaking. They will try to decrease the leakage with medication first, in lieu of more surgery.

We probably should explain to everyone that Mikey's heart condition is "incurable". The surgeries that have been performed are "life-saving measures", not repairs. The heart surgeon explained that this last surgery was "just to make the next surgery easier", and that the surgeries will need to continue to "extend his life". Incurable? Well.. we KNOW that with God, ALL things are possible.

A special thanks to everyone praying and believing with us.