Medical Update

 An update on all of us!

First up is Bruce. He had his six month scans the last week of December. He has had multiple calls as no one could locate the results. Luckily they finally found them and he saw both his oncologist and nephrologist this week. He continues to be in remission from his colon cancer. He will stay the course with labs every three months and scans every six months as they continue to monitor several suspicious spots on his lungs, kidney, and pancreas. Bruce loves his position as a Construction manager for 7-11 in the fuels department. 

Overall, I am doing pretty well. I have had a few flare ups of my autoimmune stuff which comes with some significant pain. We continue to adjust medications and in between flare ups, I am feeling pretty good. I stay crazy and busy between helping Alex prepare for college, teaching Maddy three days a week, getting her to all of her extra curricular activities, getting the kids to all of their appointments, doing medical stuff at home and keeping the house running!

Alex is feeling much better. His colitis flare up seems to have responded to the medication and he is back pretty close to his baseline. This is such an exciting time in his life and we are so grateful he is feeling better to enjoy it. He and I have made several visits to Dallas Baptist as we continue to meet with different departments to try and ensure a successful first year at College. We have not heard yet if he has been accepted into Stone House, the housing/discipleship program he interviewed for. We expect to hear something by the end of the month. We are busy applying for scholarships and working on his ability to do all of his medical care independently. IT IS A LOT! 

Maddy Moo is the busiest of us all. She works hard at everything she does. She continues to do extremely well at school. The schedule, small classes and kindness make Trinity Prep a perfect fit for her. We have enrolled her to continue on next year for fourth grade. She has the sweetest class of 12 kids (10 girls and 2 boys) and they are all friends and enjoy being together. In addition to ballet and art, Maddy decided to add Tap with Mrs. Joli this year! She is really loving it and anxiously awaits Thursdays for her time dancing and being creative with Joli. Her very favorite place remains the barn. She loves everything about it. The people, the horses, the hard work, the fun. She continues to learn new skills and is able to do more and more independently each week. She is working hard as we have a big show coming up in March and she will competing in more classes than normal. 

I have the most medical updates on her as we sort through some issues and have had several appointments. We saw her knee surgeon this week. This appointment was a bit of a mixed bag. Let me back up a minute for those who don't remember what is going on. About 2 years ago her left knee started dislocating every single time she straightens her leg. We saw several doctors and eventually wound up with the top knee surgeon at Scottish Rite. Despite popping out and in hundreds of times each day, the dislocations don't generally cause her an increase in pain (her knees and ankles always hurt). Several times a year, her knees will dislocate more "forcefully" and is VERY painful. When this happens she can't walk for several hours and limps for several days. The surgery she needs is very extensive. It is not arthroscopic. It is an open surgery and involves both bone and ligaments and screws. So back to our appointment. The surgeon had told us from the time that we started seeing him that we needed to try and make it to 10 years old before doing surgery. Otherwise there is a very high likelihood that we will need further surgeries in the future. We discussed timing of when best to do the surgery as Maddy will be 10 in October. If we do the surgery when she is 10, there is about a 20% chance of needing further surgeries. He told us if things stay exactly as they are right now, if we can make it to 12, the possibility of needing further surgeries drops to under 10% and never gets better than that. So we have a new goal as far as age. BUT if at any point going forward she starts having more pain, more painful dislocations or swelling we need to do the surgery right then. The bad news we received was that she will likely also need surgery on her right knee. The good news is that originally we were told she needed to stop horseback riding for 4 months. I explained that she rides in a therapeutic riding program and we have the ability to offer extra support and modifications. He agreed that she can get back on horseback after 8 weeks with some very strict rules and modifications. Before I get bombarded with questions...yes we have tried other interventions...we have done therapy, bracing and she has been seen by no fewer than 5 doctors. It has been made clear that surgery is a guarantee. it is a when not an if and things will only get worse as she gets older and bigger. 

The other thing we have going on is some  bladder/kidney issues. We have know there was some issues, but they got much worse in November. After ruling out the easy causes, we were referred to urology. We saw the urologist in January and she did determine something is not right, but not exactly "what". She started a medication as we continue to do testing. Unfortunately the medication has not made any difference and it is really hard for Maddy as she is in the bathroom about 3-4 times an hour when she is awake. We have a kidney ultrasound scheduled at the beginning of March and a follow up. If that still doesn't provide answers we will do further testing.

I think I have you all caught up!! We would ask that you pray for continued remission for Bruce, less pain for me, excellent health for Alex and for answers for Maddy so we can get her some relief. Thank you for all the love you surround us with!

Ali