Thank You Lord

Dee's PSA level is down - its been thirteen years since his prostate cancer diagnoses

Grandpa's PSA level is down - he will continue the hormone therapy in hopes that it continues to bring the levels down and destroy the cancer cells, EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM

Thank you for all your prayers, love and support, Thank YOU LORD, You are so good to us, we worshop and adore, love and thank you for all your mercies on our family

A perfect day!

One of the radio stations here in South Africa, called Jacaranda , has an amazing programme called Good Morning Angels - people write in specific requests to them and then they get corporate sponsors to try and meet those requests and wishes.

This morning, a dream came true for Deqlans school, Little Leaps - they recieved R120 000 from Wimpy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please go and watch the video clip and read the full story - it has me in tears all over again!!

Did i tell you how proud i am to be a part of the Little Leaps family and how much we love Little Leaps? AND WIMPY AND JACARANDA!!!!

http://www.jacarandafm.com/kagiso/content/en/jacaranda/jacaranda-blogs-good-morning-angels?oid=1090454&sn=Detail&pid=399938&Good-Morning-Angels--Wimpy

Thank You Lord for leading your earth angels to help this amazing school make an amazing difference to our kids!

Thank you to Di from Kidi - sportz for sending the wish in!!!!

Rejoice in The Lord!

Praise Our Lord friends – Deqlan’s ultrasound is perfectly normal and clear!!! Thank you SO much for all your prayers – please do continue them as we await results of blood and urine results 10 March – please continue to pray that they remain perfectly normal and clear forever and always thank you ! Deqlan was a superstar!! He lay perfectly still for the ultrasound and then got the urine collection first time around, and blood draw went very well. There were tears, but he was so so so brave and i couldnt be prouder! Thank YOU Lord! Thank YOU!

All our love and thanks
Mark Samm Deqlan Logan
xxxx
REJOICE IN THE LORD ALWAYS AND AGAIN IS SAY REJOICE

Army please start your prayers!

Hello Deqlans prayer army,

Please can we ask you for your prayers for our precious Deqlan as he goes for his 6 monthly check up this morning.

We will have ultrasound done at 9am and straight after blood drawn and urine collection – we will get results 10 March

Please continue to pray and believe with us that the ultrasound of Deqlans abdomen is going to be totally normal and clear and perfect in every way. Please pray that the blood and urine collection is not to traumatic for him , as he is so much more aware now of what we doing there and what to expect. Please pray that Our Lord continues to stamp His authority on these results to and that they will be absolutely perfectly normal to and that Deqlan will remain free from cancer and ned forever and ever and ever AMEN

Thank you friends, God Bless, all our love
Mark Samm Deqlan Logan
xxxx
'FOR I KNOW THE PLANS I HAVE FOR YOU' DECLARES THE LORD ' PLANS TO PROSPER YOU AND NOT TO HARM YOU , PLANS TO GIVE YOU HOPE AND A FUTURE'
JEREMIAH 29:11

Blessings

gorgeous Khloe and Nanna sharing a giggle
isnt she lovely??

Megs and Khloe

Deqlan and Keaton enjoying some of their special cupcakes!

mmmmmmmmm!

Adorable Kaiden

We had a little "welcome to our new house" braai for our family over the weekend, was so lovely to have everyone together just relaxing and enjoying the kids - they are all such blessings, they are all such gifts and its so stunning to see them all playing together, and interacting with and enjoying each other!

We have settled into our new home for the most part - there are still lots of things we would like to do , most important on my list is to get some of our frames up on the wall - i think that would really make it feel like home - you know how much I love photos ! Cant wait!

Deqlans room themE has undergone a transition from Cars to Toy Story - and we are all loving seeing the characters splashed all over the house not only in his room ! Deqlan ADORES Toy Story 3, but his absolute favourite, hands down, are the aliens ! He has 3 now and they go everywhere with us - its lovely to see him talking to them, interacting with them and saying appropriate things to them ' HI ALIENS , LETS GO JUMP ON THE TRAMPOLINE' for egsample.

Deqlans speech therapist is delighted with his increased vocabulary and is now focusing on communication on their sessions - Deqlan has learnt to say lots of things , like ' HELLO NITA. HOW ARE YOU?' for example

Deqlan continues loving the alphabet and saying things like ' N IS FOR NOSE' ' O IS FOR OLD FASHIONED' We have to laugh - we dont know where he figures some of these things out - O could be for orange or octopus, but for Deqlan O is for Old Fashioned???

We have one busy week ahead of us ... Deqlan goes for his 6 monthly ultrasound , blood draw and urine collection this Wednesday, we will get the results 10 March - we continue to believe and trust and say thank You God that the results are going to be perfectly normal and continue to confirm Deqlans forever NED status . We ask you please to pray with us for Deqlan to remain NED forever and always and his results to be perfectly normal in every way .

On Thursday is Dee's check up - please pray for continued improved PSA count

On Friday is my Grandpa's 3 monthly check up, please pray that his PSA count has lowered , showing that the hormone therapy is indeed helping him and that he can continue on it , and just continue to improve.

Thank you as always for following Deqlans adventures, for all your love and support and most of all your prayers

Have a blessed week everyone

God Bless, all our love

Mark Samm Deqlan Logan

BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD

BY JESUS STRIPES, DEQLAN HAS BEEN HEALED

Deqlans Flavours of the moment

Goldilocks and the 3 bears - especially when Nanna reads or tells the story to him! Its also the story currently being read at school, Deqlan is lapping this story up!
The sandpit or 'snow' as Deqlan likes to call Nanna's Zen garden - he is absolutely LOVING playing in the sand more then ever, at school and at Nanna's house! He loves putting Rosey and the Aliens from Toy Story under the sand and waking them up again!

Kerwhizz is back - this must definitely be one of Deqlans favourite favourites, he LOVES it and takes in every activity , every colour, every laugh!

Watching Kerwhizz with my best buddies, Rosey and the Aliens - they go everywhere with Deqlan, even to school!!! Rosey has her own chair at school and is even sung to in greetings. Deqlan talks to them, jumps with them, baths with them, even eats with them and gives them food to! Its awesome to see the friendship relationship being understood and again, imaginary play blossoming!!!

Reece's party

Deqlan has such an awesome time with Conrad throwing him up into the air 'AGAIN, AGAIN'

How stunning to see Deqlan running in to JOIN the celebrations with Keaton and all the other kids ,instead of avoiding it!

Little Khloe, before she got her grommets, she wasnt a happy chappy shame!

Peyton and Phoebe!

The birthday girl, when i asked who her favourite princess was she said " Me!"

Deqlan LOVED the sandpit and of course his best friend Rosey was enjoying it to!

Peyton!

Happy "Valens" Day

Happy Valentines Day to everyone! Hope you have had a wonderful day and feel very loved!

Wanted to share these beautiful Valentines gifts Deqlan made for us at school. The first is a link of hearts with a beautiful poem to me, decorated with Deqlans hand prints. And then a beautiful flower to Dada and Mama and i saw Deqlan write is name at the back . Deqlan says ' Happy Valens Day'

Happy "Valens" day to you our beautiful boy, you are the love of our life and we thank God for you every single day - thank you for filling each day with an abundance of love and laughter and lessons, we love you with our everything, to infinity and beyond

Happy Valentines day Logan we hope you are enjoying your extra special Valentines marshmallow and know that we are so proud of you and love you so very very much!!


To all our wonderful family and friends, who fill our lives with Love, thank you!

Have a wonderful day, God Bless, all our love
Mark Samm Deqlan Logan

FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD, THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY SON

Rhombus

We took Deqlan for his assessment with a paediatric neurologist last week Tuesday in order to get a more official and more up to date look at how our gorgeous boy is progressing.

We were not sure what to expect as we had heard some real horror stories and tried really hard to prepare ourselves for someone who was not going to be to understanding and would not treally get the correct picture of who Deqlan is and how far he has come.

I must say we were pleasantly surprised at how well it went and that this doctor actually got to know Deqlan before giving us his opinions.

Deqlan ran into his room straight past him to the cars that were on the table. But he played appropriately with them ,taking the characters in and out ,moving the cars along the table and carpet as they should be played with. We gave a bried history of what Deqlan has gone through, his first autism diagnosis, the improvements we have seen etc

He asked Mark and I a lot of questions and then turned his focus to asking Deqlan to do certain things. He easily completed a coloured stacker excercises matching colours correctly. He answered questions about and matched shapes. He even called a slanted diamond shape a rhombus! I haven't heard that word since matric geometry so we were all blown away that Deqlan had used such a technical word correctly!

Defintion of Rhombus - In geometry, a rhombus or rhomb is a quadrilateral whose four sides all have the same length. The rhombus is often called a diamond, after the diamonds suit in playing cards, or a lozenge, though the latter sometimes refers specifically to a rhombus with a 45° angle.

He then wanted Deqlan to identify some animals he was pointing to in a book.Deqlan started reading the words, which were in afrikaans by the way! Again, we were blown away! We knew he could read English but Afrikaans to?

Dr then drew a heart and a balloon onto a piece of paper and asked Deqlan what they were,which he identified correctly,and then asked him to colour them in specific colours. Which he did,but didn't really enjoy. Dr pushed him a little to colour in completely and when he had Deqlan was proudly saying ” good job well done”

He asked Deqlan to try and copy some other things he had drawn like a road but Deqlan wasn't into this anymore and kept looking at me in the cutest way saying "hello mom” His best and cutest attempt to get out the activity!

Dr asked him to sing Happy Birthday which he didn't do,but actually can and has sung about 20times since then :) I asked Deqie to sing the Thomas theme tune and off he went, the entire song! After that we watched him kicking a ball back and forth with the Dr, giving cheecky smiles and laughter to him to!

By the end of the evaluation the Dr we were so not sure of, was hugging Deqlan,kissing his head and throwing our boy uo into the air. Deqlan loved this and kept asking for more and more!
Mark and I were so extremely proud of Deqlan!

Dr has diagnosed Deqlan with high functioning Autism - i wanted to shares some excerpts from the official diagnoses letter :

DOCTOR FIRST GAVE BRIEF HISTORY OF NEUROBLASTOMA BACKGROUND THEN MOVED ONTO

"It marked the onset of autism.

He is now 4.4 years old and displays the profile of a high-functioning autistic child, being
· moderate aloof in his own world
· having good underlying intellect with some unique savant functions, like reading and working computers
· mild over activity, and fleeting attention span
· unfortunately with some maladjusting behaviour (ignoring, escaping demands, opposing)

He does however connect with dear-to-him folks, with gentle hugs.

His language is fairly good, with semantic and prosodic and pragmatic oddities, and he signs a few songs (many words however are muffled and not clear).

He is well in the somatic sense
· 16,7 kg
· 53,5 m skull

There is no evidence for a secondary cause for his autism and therefore we consider his as a primary form.
I wonder whether he will be hypercalculic too, eventually, but rote maths memory is exceptional.

With his keen little mind, the chances are that he may better fit into a specialised school like Tomorrows People (age 6 to 7). He will have to learn a higher level of compliance however. I really hope he will. I have purposefully opted not to offer him risperidone treatment."



SAVANT LIKE - When one has an extraordinary single skill in an otherwise unexceptional intellect, he or she may simply be described as a savant, without qualifier, although savant is usually meant to mean a person of learning, especially one of great knowledge in a particular subject, without remarking on the person's overall state of intellect.
It is a rare phenomenon which occurs in some autistic people and/or people with certain developmental disorders. Some people have acquired savant-like abilities after suffering from head injuries.
Autistic savantism is usually recognised during childhood and is often but not always found in autistic children. However it is also sometimes acquired in an accident or illness, typically one that impairs the left side of the brain. There is some research that suggests that it can be induced, which might support the view that unusual savant abilities are innate within all of us but obscured by the normal functioning intellect.
Most autistic savants have very extensive mental abilities, called splinter skills. They can memorize facts, numbers, license plates, maps, and extensive lists of sports and weather statistics. Some savants can mentally note and then recall back perfectly a very long series of music, numbers, or speech.
Some other autistic savant skills include:
lightning-fast arithmetic calculations, including finding prime factorizations
precisely estimating distances by sight
calculating the day of the week for any given date over the span of tens of thousands of years
perfect perception of passing time without a clock
Why autistic savants are capable of this sort of astonishing ability is not quite clear. Some savants have obvious neurological abnormalities, but the brains of most such individuals savants are anatomically and physiologically normal.
Examples of autistic savants include Blind Tom, who had exceptional musical ability although no musical education, and Richard Wawro, who is an exceptional artist although autistic


HYPERCALCULIC -
hypercalculia refers to exceptional arithmetic skills in relation to intellectual ability



A lot to take in ! I know - im still doing all the reading i can to get to grips with all of this - but mostly, just saying thank you to God for the gift of Deqlan and the gifts He has given our gorgeous boy

We are extremely pleased and proud that Deqlan is loving life, being who he is and letting us into his amazing world of possibilities and gifts!

We will be looking into different options for his primary schooling and will keep you all in the loop as always!

Hope you all have a super weekend, ours is going to be unpacking and sorting out our new home! Which we are settled into , and happy with , but got lots to do still!!!!

God Bless, lots of love
Mark Samm Deqlan Logan
BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD

Good bye goggas!

Boy oh boy have the goggas been making their rounds this past week! We were back at Dr Anne on Thursday last week with a Deqlan having temps of 39.3 and surprise surprise finding out it was tonsilitis again!Dr Anne expressed her horror at how bad his tonsils looked and put Deqlan on a very strong form of augmentin. We had to go back on Monday to make sure it was working and thank Our Lord it did its job! I'm afraid that the next time Deqlan gets tonsilitis it will be time to talk about taking them out ! We really don't want him to go under any anaesthetic if he doesn't have to as there is always a chance he can regress.

On tuesday Deqlans little cough became a medium sized cough and yesterday rather a large sore sounding ,every 2 minute cough emerged that kept our little guy out of sleep for 2 nts.Nanna suggested we try her cough medicine as it was colourless and alcohol and sugar free. Reluctantly we gave it a bash ,and what do you know? Deqlan slept fantastic last night and its loosened all the stuff that was bugging his chest! Thank you Nanna! We had to go bacl to Dr Anne today so she could make sure there wasn't another infection brewing!

Keaton was in hospital with pneumonia 2 weeks ago,then poor Khloe got sick,then Nanna got bronchitis , Grandpa is man down in bed with a upper resp infection and I managed to just escape this gogga but dosing myself with everything I could! So many of our friends and their little ones had the same issues with tonsilitis and urti's!

Let's pray that everyone is on the mend and. Wave goodbye and good riddens to the goggas plse!

WELCOME TO THE WORLD ELIJAH

Huge Congratulations to our dear friends Grant and Coreen,

On the arrival of

Elijah Daniel Young

7 Feb 2011, 3.6kg and 53cm long

He is ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL and perfect in every way!!!

We cant wait to meet you little man !

Enjoy every moment with your beautiful gift from God!

God Bless and all our love

Mark Samm Deqlan Logan

COMPUTER CLASS AT LITTLE LEAPS

Deqan absolutely loves his computer classes at Little Leaps! Ayline has started doing more challenging excercises with him to get him to learn new things! I sure wish my days at school were like this...smiling all the time!!! WE LOVE LITTLE LEAPS