Hey All,

It’s Joey B here. Thanks to all of you who called, sent cards and prayed for me. I was released from the hospital last week but I am still groggy about what was going on. First of all I had no idea that I was in the hospital for 6 weeks and no idea what was wrong until Anneke told me. As for all those praying-AMEN-I do believe prayer works. Most of you know that I’m a Christian and my church and my church family were praying hard (they probably had all the lines tied up).There were people cooking dinner for my family every night and bringing it to our house. Poor Anneke was a wreck, thank GOD she has a flexible job because it seemed whenever I opened my eyes she was there (I am a lucky guy to have such a wonderful wife). Anneke’s family took turns staying here and helping her with the kids etc (they all live back east).They flew out in shifts. Also when I went into the hospital our kitchen/dining and living rooms were completely gutted so there was no place to cook or sit. Anneke took the plans we had and had the work completed, most of the workers were friends of ours which helped.
Our friend Melody set up a blog where many of you left comments and it was unbelievable all the comments we received. As of right now I am going down to UCLA in the mornings for hyperbaric treatments (what a trip) and a nurse comes every day to administer antibiotics thru a pick line that is in my arm. I have a long way to go but it is overwhelming to see and here all of you, it brings tears to my eyes. For anyone that doesn’t know I went into Los Robles hospital because my back was leaking after the first surgery. After going in again they could not find the source of the leak, but by now my condition was getting worse. So they transported me to UCLA (go Bruins) where they proceeded to open me up again. Well after 5 surgeries they found a pocket of bacteria from a surgery 16 years ago, but the bad thing was that by now I had an infection in my brain and E-Coli throughout my body. In any case by the grace of God I am home and hopefully on my way to a complete recovery. They did leave a drain tube in my body and its helping drain fluid into my stomach.
Anyway I’m getting tired and I am going to go and rest. Please feel free to e-mail anytime. Patfan15@gmail.com.

In His Name,
jb

Joey is home! He walked through the door of our new living room and kitchen around 6:30 p.m. last night.
He is still very weak, but you can already see a huge difference, just by him being at home.
There will be quite a bit of follow up therapy in the next month or so, please keep him in your prayers as he begins to realize the magnitude of some of this.
Once again I am amazed at the body of Christ in action. Thanks to everyone, our friends that are believers and non-believers for the outpouring of love on our family.

“…..but if all of these trials bring me closer to you, I will walk through the fire if you want me to.”—Ginney Owens

We have been through the fire, but not alone and the scars we will carry could never compare to the nail scared hands our Savior bore on our behalf, because he loves us.
Love
anneke