Just got this from Nick Warkentien:

Sorry I haven’t written any updates recently. There’s honestly not a lot to tell about. We continue to spend most of everyday at the hospital. There is oddly a sense of home there now. Missy is in a room that is right next to the “family waiting room”. We try to only have 1-3 people in her room at a time, so we spend a lot of time in the waiting room. It feels like this little corner of the hospital is ours…..like we belong there. In the last week or so, I’ve spent the night in several different places: 3 beds, 2 chairs, and 1 couch. Needless to say, we’ve been pretty tired. Last night we were able to spend the evening with Amy’s parents, to have dinner with them and sleep together in a comfortable bed. It has been a nice break. We’re still at there house now (11:00am). We’ll head back up to the hospital this afternoon, and back to NC saturday.

Missy has had some good days, and some bad days. Yesterday was especially hard, both physically and emotionally. They day before, she had a really good day. Everyday is different. She continues to have radiation treatments everyday, which seem to hurt more and more every time, like being in the sun when you already have a sun burn. The radiation does seem to be helping as far as her breathing, and because she can breath better, she has more strength. She will be at the hospital at least until monday or tuesday next week, when her radiation treatments are finished. After that, we really don’t know what will happen. These treatments have most likely saved her life, temporarily. The doctors still tell us that it is just a temporary fix, and has no effect on her long term health. Most likely, after the treatments are over, she will continue on a downward spiral, and eventually die from suffocation. Of course, we still believe that God can heal her completely. Although, we still have to prepare ourselves, because it might not be his will to do so. We don’t know how much time she has left, but it has been nice to be home this last week and few days. While it’s hard to see Missy like this, I think we’ve all become closer as a family this week. It’s been nice to spend all this time together and be able to support each other and cry with each other, and sometimes laugh with each other.

As far as Jerry goes, he was released a couple of days ago. The doctors at the hospital could not figure out what was wrong with him. He does have kidney stones, but they decided that was not causing his pain. They had him on pain meds for the entire 4-5 days he was at the hospital, and about every 4-6 hours, he would have very intense pain in his back that would last for about 1-2 hours straight. He is home now, and they think they’ve found the problem, through a Chiropractor: he has a bulging disc in his spine, really close to his kidney. One doctor said that he has the back of a 50 year old man. He is only 27. Please continue to pray for he and Andrea (Amy’s sister, Jerry’s wife) as they deal with his pain, and try to correct the problem.

Love,
Nick