Amos Ross Updates

Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you for your prayers for safety and good results over the past few days. God has heard our prayers once again and we were given the “all clear” for Amos’s MRI on Tuesday. Praise God!

I seem to say this every time – probably because it is true every time – but it was a whirlwind trip. Perhaps that feeling was particularly acute this time because, when we left, it was snowing in England. The transition to sunny SoCal is especially strange that way!

Amos had four main appointments on this trip. First was his appointment with his prism specialist for vision issues. Amos continues to have problems with range of motion in his eyes, even though he can coordinate them for the most part. For example, although Amos is doing a great job as he begins to learn to read (using his eyes very much together!), he isn’t currently able to sweep his eyes to the right together past mid-line or so. Thanks to some last minute finagling, Amos was also able to see his ophthalmologist, who confirmed he will likely have another surgery to try to help remedy some of these range of motion issues.

Amos also did another sleep study on this trip. That is when he gets all wired up with sensors (literally dozens of wires all over his body) and is told to sleep normally. When you add in nine hours of jet lag, this is no small order. But we did our best, and we will receive results over the coming week or so. This will tell us how Amos is doing with his sleep apnea, and whether he will continue to need oxygen at night.

Finally, Amos also had his MRI of course. He is an old pro at the process by now, but of course it is always a scary prospect. We are so thankful for our amazing team in CA who literally go out of their way (thanks, Jody!) to make these scans possible. We were told that Amos’s scan was “clear and beautiful” – praise God!

Despite all the chaos of medical appointments, we try to squeeze in some fun stuff too. This time that included exploring the neighborhood, checking out some nearby botanic gardens, and even a trip to the driving range. Amos now has his own set of clubs and we were all astonished at his ability to use them! (Pictures below)

We continue to give thanks to God for his goodness towards our family. Our next MRI trip will likely be in July. Although there are many more details to come on this front, that timeline means that I have the window I need to finish a draft of my dissertation before we go on the next trip. In case you didn’t know, finishing a doctoral degree at Cambridge is pretty difficult. Throw in brain cancer, and there have been many days where I have deeply doubted it all. To now see my route towards a finished dissertation is another astonishing testimony to the Lord’s faithfulness to our family, and we praise Him for it.

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! (Ps. 95:2)

With thanksgiving,

The Ross Family