Dan Gould

Category: Prayer

  • Prayer for Jackson and Us

    Tonight, Jackson will go to a sleep study to see why he stops breathing and why he snores/wheezes tosses and turns.  Yesterday the Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist said that Jackson’s Adenoids and Tonsils weren’t extremely large and so now we are taking the next step and praying that the sleep study will get a good read and be able to determine the problem and cause.

    Please pray for our sanity.  Stephanie and I both seem to be emotionally, and physically drained.  It’s hard enough dealing with the seizures and now with all of this I feel we have hit our limit.  I don’t think I have felt so helpless before.  I want to fix it but can’t.  I have been praying this verse since last night.  It was the theme verse for our small groups talking about coping and how we do that when stressful things happen.

    “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 4:4-7 (NIV)

  • Our Early Time

    This morning as we were getting ready Josiah said something that really caught me off guard but encouraged me also.  As he was in the shower he said, “Dad, we haven’t had our early time yet.”  I had to ask him what our early time was and this is what he said.  You know that time you get up early to talk with God.  WOW!

    A couple of weeks ago Josiah got up a little after I had and came out in the living room to ask what I was doing.  I told him that I get up early to read my Bible and talk with God.  I had no idea that it totally registered with him, but after today I understand that it has.

    Here is the lesson for me . . . He is watching everything that I do!  I know I have a lot of bad traits and habits that unfortunately Josiah and Jackson will probably pick up.  However, what I model for them is impacting them in real ways.  Nothing humbles me and yet excites me more than what Josiah shared with me today.  It almost like I was being held accountable by a 4 year old.  But he is watching, and as he grows, he will remember that his dad would get up early to spend time with God, and hopefully he will do the same thing because I modeled that for him.

    This song captures what I am feeling right now!

  • Back from Cali and the crazies begin

    Stephanie and I had a great time in California attending The Gathering at Saddleback Church.  It was a much needed break!  However, when we returned it didn’t take Jackson long to give us another scare.

    When Jackson sleeps he sleeps hard, but he sounds like he is snoring but we are learning that it is probably more of a wheeze.  On Sunday Night, he decided to stop breathing while he was sleeping.  Stephanie and I are already on edge at night because of his history, so we called the doctor, and the nurse asked how long he would go without breathing, I told her that I put my hand on him and he started breathing again.  The nurse said that it could be a form of sleep apnea and we should take him to the hospital.  So, we wake up Jackson, load up Josiah and start driving to the Children’s Hospital that we got to visit just 2 weeks ago.  Of coarse at this time Jackson is awake and seems to be his normal energetic self.  The ER Doctors were great, and said that by what they are seeing there is no reason for them to keep him; but if we would feel better they could monitor him through the night.  So we asked to stay since we have already met our deductible and just paid the $100.00 co-pay to address a problem that is unseen when he was a wake.

    So, Sunday Night Stephanie and Jackson stayed the night in the Hospital and Joe and I came home.  Jackson didn’t sleep much Sunday night so they were not able to observe him like we had hoped for.  He did fall asleep for a little nap in the morning and the nurses were able to hear him sleep.  At least they were able to hear what we hear and understand why we were there.  Later that afternoon Jackson fell asleep for a longer period of time and again stopped breathing a couple of times and the nurses were able to witness it this time first hand.  The monitors that were hooked up to him showed that he stopped breathing for about 7 seconds a time.  That’s good news but still not normal.  After they saw this, they did a throat and nose x-ray to see if there was any blockage and called an Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist.  We have an appointment tomorrow with the same doctor that clipped Jackson’s tongue when he was newborn.  The doctor says that it could be his tonsils or adenoids.  His tonsils are to much bigger than they are supposed to be but she couldn’t see his adenoids.  So needless to say we are home.  We know a little bit more than we did on Sunday, but we still have a son that stops breathing when he is sleeping.  Please continue to pray for him and our Family.

  • Change . . . It has to happen

    Like I said yesterday, I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the simple changes that can be made in my personal life that can lead to living healthier and longer.  It’s ironic that we are talking about developing spiritual habits on the weekends with our students and today I am talking about changing some habits in my personal life.  Here are the four areas that I want to change in order to have a healthier, longer life:

    1. Sleeping Habits – I have been bad about not getting enough sleep at night.  I typically go to bed late and get up early averaging about 5.5 hours of sleep.  I am going to try to add 2 hours of sleep each night.  This shouldn’t be too hard, I just need to go to bed and hour early and then allow myself to sleep in an hour later.  That sounds pretty easy but I am sure it will have challenges.  I guess the other option would be to take a nap in the afternoon.  I understand this is an ideal, life doesn’t always happen this way but if I don’t have something to aim for I will miss it every time.
    2. Eating Habits – I haven’t ever really watched my eating habits.  I have been fortunate enough to have a high metabolism, that is unfortunately slowing down with age, so I have pretty much eaten and drank what ever I wanted.  I was the kid in High School that ate a little debbie brownie for breakfast topped off with a glass of coke.  In college I was the guy that went with his roommate to Burger King at midnight to get 99 cent Whoppers.  This will probably be the most challenging.  I have cut caffeine out of my diet once before and it wasn’t that bad, but I came back to it.  I am on day 3 of no caffeine right now and feel like I can kick it again.  I am also going to try to eat healthier.  There are some little changes I can make that will have huge results, so I am optimistic to see what happens.
    3. Exercising Habits – I haven’t been the best here, there can be several days go by without me really having any kind of activity for more than 12 minutes.  My goal here is to add 30 minutes of activity everyday.  This helps bring up your good cholesterol and bring down your bad cholesterol.  Which in affect makes your heart healthier.  This is probably what my body needs the most and will demand probably the most discipline.
    4. Work Habits – I’ll admit it, I am a workaholic, mostly because I love what I do.  There isn’t much time that goes by that I am not thinking about student ministry or the church.  I think it’s just the way I am wired . . . or the way I have programed myself.  However, if I am going to change and create other habits, there are some things that I am sure need to change here also.  I don’t know exactly what that looks like yet, but I am sure after some talks with my wife, (she will be real honest with me) and our student staff, we can come up with a plan and empower others to take on some new aspects of ministry.

    This weekend we talk about accountability and why we need it.  If you’re a reader of the blog feel free to hold me accountable to the things I have just listed.

  • Stress . . . Can’t do a body good!

    Since Jackson has been born, the stress levels have been high for me.  In January I found out that I had high blood pressure.  Some of that I believe to be the high stress of both ministry and the things going on with Jackson, but most of it I have been told is genetics.

    So I said all that to say this, this week I seemed to hit the climax of what my body can take.  On Tuesday my wife had a doctors appointment and found out that she needed to take a test on Wednesday to determine what the next steps were.  I guess that stressed me out a little too much causing me to experience some chest pressure on Tuesday Night.  I had never felt like that before and it really freaked me out . . . enough so that the next day, Wednesday I made and appointment to see the doctor.  However, I never made it to the doctor on Wednesday because of other circumstance that seemed to culminate at 2:00pm yesterday.

    As I was sitting with Stephanie, who was just coming out of anesthesia, I got a phone call saying that Jackson was given to much medicine and was being taken to the ER.  Also at this time Josiah was needing to be picked up from school.  So needless to say, I needed to be in three places at once.  I left my wife there with the nurses and rushed to the hospital to make sure Jackson got the care he needed.  On the way to the ER I made phone calls to get Josiah and Stephanie picked up.  Thank goodness we had some life lines that were able to drop what they were doing to meet our needs.  The good news about yesterday is that Jackson and Stephanie are both ok.  Jackson never seemed to miss a beat and slept most of the 4-5 hours we were at the Children’s Hospital.  So yeah yesterday was stressful and my body felt it.  The pressure was still there and I was fearful that I might have been experiencing the beginning stages of a heart attach.

    I had already canceled may 3:25 appointment on Wednesday and set up an appointment with the doctor for 8:15 am on Thursday, but Wednesday Night, I didn’t know if I should wait that long, so I called the doctors office and talked to the doctor on call.  I explained my symptoms and told him my levels and he encouraged me to get some rest and get it all checked out in the morning.

    So there I was today, feeling better than yesterday, but still wanting some answers.  The doctor came in and listened to everything, gave me a EKG, chest x-ray, and blood work.  Everything came back normal.  Even my blood pressure today was the lowest it has been in 6 months.  I am still waiting on the Blood Work and think it should be good since it was good just a couple of months ago and I have been eating better.   However, this doesn’t mean I am out of the gray.  He said that by the test everything seemed to be ok.  But with my family history I should watch it.  He thinks that stress is the cause of the problems and pain that I was experiencing.  He also said, and I wish I would have had him put in writing, that I need a vacation!  Lucky for me, Stephanie and I are going to Cali Sunday for 5 days.  It couldn’t have come at a better time.

    Since this morning I have been thinking about the changes that I need to make in order to live a longer and healthier life. After all, my wife and kids deserve to have me around as long as they can.  And I believe some of the best parts of life are ahead of me not behind me!  I will post later what the plans are and how I believe they will help me live with less stress.

  • A Showing!!!

    Tomorrow (Friday) our house is being shown for the first time!  If you have time to say a prayer we would appreciate it.

  • It’s Official . . . our house is on the Market!

    We just met with the Realtor today to put our house on the market.  We are selling so we can move closer to a Children’s Hospital since Jackson likes to visit the Hospital so often.  Our last experience was enough for us to say that’s enough.  Knowing that this is a temporary situation, meaning that Jackson should grow out of his seizures, we are looking to move closer to the church and the new Children’s Hospital less than 5 minutes away.  At first we were skeptical, now we are starting to get excited about the new adventure and believe God is at work in this.  My wife shared a great post about this here!

    Apartment life will be much different than what we expected.  Our first thought was that the apartments would be small, crowded, and if we were lucky, they may have a pool.  We have been home owners for almost 8 years.  So we are use to larger rooms and privacy, plus our neighborhood has a two nice parks and a pool.  Needless to say our expectations were low.  However, we were wrong.  The place we are looking at has pretty much everything we want minus 2 bed rooms, a second living area, and a partial bathroom.  But we gain the use of an indoor basketball court, racquetball court, theater room, workout facility with a children’s play room, heated pool and hot tub, gas grills throughout the facility, and a business meeting room.

    It will be different, but we believe that by moving closer, we will be able to provide the care that Jackson needs.  If it means giving up a house to have a healthy child, I’ll take the healthy child any day!  Please join with us as we pray for our house to sell and begin to transition to this new adventure!

  • The New Setup

    Well, since we have been home we have been busy taking care of Jackson.  We are watching his temporture closely.  Josiah and I were busy moving his crib down to our room.  We decided to make the switch to a more permanent set up until we get a better control on his health.  Jackson has been sleeping in a pack-n-play in our room since April when we took him to the hospital via ambulance.

    We joked about selling our house and just getting a one room apartment.  In all honesty, that may not be a bad idea given the situation with Jackson.  Maybe we could find one down by the new Children’s Medical Center Legacy in Plano.

    Josiah has been a big help!  Today he helped me put together the crib.  He is such a good big brother!

  • Prayer for Jackson – Day 3

    We are HOME!!!!  Jackson is almost back to himself!  He is still congested! The respiratory nurse said it wasn’t in his chest anymore but sound to be in his upper respiratory.  He tends to run a slight fever so we will be watching that like a hawk and continue to give him Motrin.

    Thanks again for all the prayers, visits, comments from posts, phone calls, e-mails, and txts.  We are so blessed to have friends and family that care so deeply for us!

  • Prayer for Jackson – Day 2 update

    Well Jackson is doing better.  He had a breathing treatment this morning and starts another round of antibiotics this afternoon.  If everything keeps going as planned we should be going home tomorrow.

    This morning things got real exciting when a special visitor made an appearance!  I believe this was a turning point in Jackson’s recovery because he seems to be doing much better after Spider-man came for a visit!