Two Updates on Jason

It was a good night last night: no seizures. After the seizures Jason had Monday night, you worry that the event will repeat itself. That was especially good for us because Karen was sleeping around town again last night. That is, she was doing a sleep study at Hendrick Hospital to see if they can do anything about her troubling sleep habits.

Secondly, we received wonderful news yesterday. Jason has been nominated to attend the Junior National Young Leaders Conference in Washington D.C. this coming spring. He was nominated by the teacher at his school that selects students from Craig based on his "scholastic merit, maturity and strength of character." This opportunity is not without its challenges, however. It costs almost $2000 for Jason to attend. We will be looking at our finances in the next few days to see if we can afford it. It looks like we may have to wait on the new flooring for the house. And, there is always the issue of Jason's seizures. Truth be he doesn't have them very often but the stress of a trip like this could be just the thing to set them off. One of the weeks available to him is the same week that I will be in Philadelphia for a conference. It would be very helpful if I could fly with him and at least be in the same part of the country.

We ask for your prayers for Jason as he continues to deal with these two very big issues in his life.

A Bit of Bad News For Us

We received a note from the school nurse a few weeks ago that she was concerned about Jason showing signs of Scoliosis, a curvature of the spine. She suggested we have him checked by his pediatrician.

We took Jason to Dr. Wiley's office yesterday. Dr. Wiley looked at him and had us go to Radiology for an x-ray. Dr. Wiley called us back today to inform us that Jason's spine is curved at 14 degrees. Anything at or above 10 degrees is considered problematic. He suggested we get Jason to Scottish Rite Children's Hospital in Dallas as soon as possible. Dr. Wiley's office is setting up the appointment for us today.

The good news in all of this is that it is better to find this issue earlier in a child's life and apparently before puberty. Having found it now in Jason gives us some less stringent therapies and may allow us to get his Scoliosis under control before it gets worse.

This is heart breaking for Karen and me. We're probably taking it worse that Jason will. The hard part for Jason is that it means more trips to more doctors and more medical things to do. Its hard for a 10-year-old boy to deal with everything he is dealing with.

My hope is that there is nothing here that will prevent him from doing some of the things he wants to do this summer, which includes playing soccer in the late Summer and early Fall.

Keep Jason in your thoughts and prayers in the coming days, weeks and months.

I'll add more to this story as things unfold.