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Jason's granddaddy, Pepa, passed away on Sunday late morning - Jason was so thankful to be able to spend some time visiting with him and the family before Sunday. It's been tough on Jason b/c he has so, so many childhood memories, very fond memories, of his Pepa. If there was a baseball game, he was there. They had such a special connection. There is no one that Pepa liked talking about more than Jason. Pepa will be sorely missed - we are so thankful, though, that he is no longer in pain and that he is now visiting with his Maker.

We will be traveling home tomorrow morning to be with Jason's family - please keep his family, especially Mema (Dorothy Pike) in your prayers. She has spent many years caring for Pepa, and she has done a stellar job, so the emptiness of not having him around will be so very tough.

While we felt compelled to go to TN to be with the family, we had Reed's appointment at UK this afternoon. We are so relieved and thankful that we now have some answers to why Reed has been vomiting!!!

We had a MUCH better experience this time at the hospital and the pysician that talked to us was so very kind - and took extra time to answer our questions, bless her heart! To make a long story short, Reed has a few issues that they feel need to be addressed and we can address them with medication - woo hoo! First of all, he does have acid reflux and so we have to keep him on the Prevacid. The technician told us that it wasn't a mild case either, so to be diligent with that. So, we will. They noticed that Reed's stomach empties in to his small intestines at an exceptionally slow rate - due to the fact that the pyloris is spasming and not allowing the empting to occur normally. This results in food/milk backing up in the stomach and coming back up... and they said that b/c this has been occuring over some time that his stomach was large (so, so sad!!!). This is treated by a compounded drug that they assured us is very safe - and takes anywhere from a week to a few weeks to make a drastic difference. It will cause the flap to open and close more... So, by allowing his stomach to empty properly, the backup will not occur, vomiting won't happen and his stomach will become regular size. They explained too that different formulas digest at a different rate, so perhaps the Nutramigen just digests faster in his stomach and that may be why we saw some relief when we changed formulas (I guess that would cause less back up in his little system too). We are going to get the prescription first thing in the morning and we'll go from there.

We are so thankful that we went through the testing and we know now that there was a functional problem that needs to be fixed :-). We know that TONS of prayer and we were possibly thinking Bob Evan's multigrain pancakes (he LOVES THEM) have helped Reed tremendously!!!

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers through this emotional and trying season for us. We have never before experienced the calmness brought on by so many people lifting us up in prayer. We have been humbled, broken, and grateful - all at the same time.

My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God can not do... (DD, what is the guy's name that taught you that song? I can't get it out of my head!!!)