Saturday, March 16, 2013

Reaching for the Hem of His Garment

Faith sleeping this morning with her bipap.
Well, here I am with time on my hands able to post.  The family is all gone this Saturday morning and headed in different directions.  Grace and Eli were thrilled out of their minds because they were headed to a class on Robert's Rules for meetings with their Nana.  Oh it does sound exciting.  Gideon spent the night with a friend for his birthday, and Hope is with Jesi at Upward Cheerleading.  I am stuck home because Faith has been bleeding again.  She is still sleeping...probably just tired from a lack of blood.  She started bleeding the other night; although, we are not sure what caused it this time.  We decided to start giving her watered down food again yesterday, but we should have waited to do so.  She had fresh blood in her diaper last night.  We keep her away from everyone during these times because her immune system is certainly compromised.  We continue to reach for the hem of Jesus' garment that this little girl will be healed of this issue of blood.

Jesi with Grace, Eli, Gideon, Hope, and Faith in front of the Michigan State Capital building.

Hope in the Senate Committee chambers just before the hearing started.
We were thrilled Thursday morning to learn that the Medical Good Faith Act was voted through the Michigan Senate Health Policy Committee by a vote of 7-0 with the two democrats joining our side.  I think this happened mostly because of Jesi's great performance (very proud of my wife).  We may see the bill hit the floor of the senate as early as this Thursday morning.  We have a bold republican majority doing many things not liked by the other side so I think our bill is not viewed negatively like it was in Minnesota because they have bigger fights on their hands.  Plus, I think, we might have found a good way to sell it.  Once we have it as law, I will share the bill.  The Michigan Catholic Conference wanted to rewrite the bill without mentioning "Medical Futility" of which I was unsure.  They did and both Jesi and I thought it looked pretty good so I sent both bills to Senator Rick Santorum to get his thoughts.  He liked the new version as well so Michigan Senator Jim Marleau's office did a final rewrite of the bill on Wednesday night and submitted the substitute bill on Thursday morning.  Once we get through the Senate, the bill heads to the Michigan House where our friend and State Rep Tom McMillin will help guide it through the house.  We are excited about getting this to Governor Snyder's desk for a signature.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

SENATE COMMITTEE HEARING LINK

Jesi and I will be testifying Thursday March 7 at the Michigan Senate Health Policy Committee session at 2:30pm.  The hearing will be streamed so anyone can watch.  I am providing the link here to make it easy to find.  By God's grace, this will be the first step toward making the Medical Good Faith Act the law in Michigan.

http://www.senate.michigan.gov/tvschedule/tvlive.htm