Results

Healthy boy!  That is what the test results say.  Here in our home tonight we are singing God’s praises as we see this as a direct answer to prayer. 

Owen’s MRI showed no mass or tumor and a clear sinus cavity.  His EEG showed good brain function and no abnormalities.    The doctor was very reassuring and optimistic as he answered the millions of questions we threw at him.

We do not have a clear answer to what has happened or what will happen in the future but what we have done is knock the scary stuff off the list.  The doctors cannot rule out seizure disorders but at this time Owen does not need to be medicated. 

Owen’s episodes both took place in our kitchen.  If they were seizures his trigger may be the lighting/ceiling fan above the table.  We will be replacing it as a precaution.  Many kids have seizures with no real rhyme or reason and eventually outgrow them.  This could be our case.

Leaving the doctor's office in a good mood!

Another possibility is that Owen has breath-holding spells.  It is possible that after a fall he attempts to cry but never quite catches his breath and then passes out.

Twice I have taken this precious gift to Children’s Hospital for neurological testing and twice I have been told by the specialists that everything is going to be ok.  We are so blessed and I thank everyone for the prayers.  We went through all of the testing when Owen was a baby and when it was over I remember telling a friend that God can remind me to trust Him fully however he chooses but I hope he never has to use my kids again.  What God has done for me in last few weeks is use what I love the most to yet again remind me that the sacrifice of His son was the greatest gift anyone could ever give.  There is nothing more gut wrenching than the thought of losing your child, and God did it voluntarily to save my soul.  That is the real blessing!

Last night after all of the testing I took Owen and Allie to my parent’s house while Jeremy napped.  We walked in the front door and Owen ran up to my dad for a hug and told him, “Papa I ok.”  The words gave me chills and I clung to the hope that it was all going to turn out fine.  My baby is right he is ok.

I know I have said it a lot in these few short blogs but it can’t be said enough…God is in control.  I wrote a paper in high school and in it I included a poem by an unknown author that says it all.

My life is but a weaving 
between God and me.

I cannot see the colors; 
 yet He works steadily. 


Sometimes he weaves sorrow, and I in foolish pride


Forget He sees the upper, 
and I the underside.

Not till the looms are silent and the shuttles cease to fly


Shall God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why.

The dark threads are as needed in the Weavers skillful hand


As are the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned.

Just waiting for results

Owen and the ball machine on the first floor

You don’t ever have to look far to see just how blessed you are and to be reminded that chances are someone is worse off than you. 

Last night Owen had a great night, no ever told him to go to bed.  With each yawn we started something new.  We played puzzles, trains and watched movies till after 1am.  A brief nap and we were up again by 4:30 and hit the road by 5.  I gave Owen a flashlight to try and keep him awake on the car ride; it worked for all of 15 minutes.  If you are a parent you know that the moment you get in the car you tell your kids to close their eyes and rest so to try and keep a two year old awake was torture…for all of us. 

Putting on electrodes for the EEG

Owen needed to be sleep deprived to get the best test results, and my boy was a rock star.  He was super cooperative and even though he was tired and hungry his smile still lit up the room. Two nurses attached 27 electrodes to his scalp and he never moved.  The EEG itself took about 90 minutes start to finish.  We went immediately from neurology to the radiology department and checked in for the MRI.  Again Owen held still and locked eyes with the nurse while hey put him to sleep, never fussing.

It is unnerving to have a child under general anesthesia.  They do it everyday but in the back of your mind you know they wouldn’t make you sign consent forms if there were no risk.  We were given the kind of buzzer you get at a restaurant to let you know your table is ready but for our sleeping son and left to explore the hospital for two long hours. 

Your mind can go a lot of places in two hours but Jeremy and I kept coming back to the fact that God knew Owen before we did and He loves him very much.  Went left the hospital with our groggy yet still smiling little boy.  So many others there today were not as lucky. 

Thank you so much for all of your prayers.  We will meet with our pediatrician in the morning to go over test results.  We are ready for whatever they may be, trusting God is in control.  

Test Time

Distracted, yes!  The last week has been a blur of distractions from tomorrow’s upcoming tests, which has been great.  We have seen God at work in amazing ways and for that I am so thankful.  When the testing was originally set my thought was “that is so long from now, I will stress for weeks.”  What I have found out is that God set the test date just far enough out to accomplish great things in our lives.  If the testing had been the day after the second seizure I know for sure I would not have the peace going into it I have today. 

Jeremy is self employed, has been for years.  One of the great hardships of self-employment is never knowing for sure if and when a paycheck is coming.  Jeremy began applying for full time employment again knowing we needed something more reliable going forward with the unknown of Owen’s health.  He immediately received a call back and a second interview with the Budweiser Event Center.  The seventy plus applicants were from across the country and he was a part of the elite three asked back.  We were praying hard and praying for wisdom.  If Jeremy were offered a full time position he would have to put his own work with Big Creek productions on hold for a while.  If he were offered the job it would be a lot of technical and not a lot of creative.  As his supporter I had my own concerns for his happiness as well as for our stability.  Thursday night as we discussed the what-ifs of the job he told me his hope was to not get the full time job but that they would offer him freelance work instead.  Friday morning we received a phone call, just not the one we were expecting.  Out of what seemed like nowhere Orion Media contacted Jeremy and offered him freelance video work for their hunting and fishing shows on Verses, Outdoor Network and ESPN.  They had seen his work and wanted him.  He called the Budweiser Event Center to inform them he was taking another job.  Their response was, “great, we wanted to hire you but not for the position you applied for.  We would really like you to work part time on a freelance basis.”  Yes, God was most certainly at work in all of this!  We now feel confident moving forward that Jeremy has steady work on the horizon and it will be what he wants to do. 

We have also had the blessed distraction of Allie Lou’s first birthday.  We had a party for her on Sunday with many friends and family around to help celebrate.  When the party was over we sat back re-reading birthday cards and reminiscing.  I was reminded of Mary in scripture where it says she gathered all these things up in her heart and treasured them.  Oh how I understand that so much more as a mother than I ever did before.

Now the distractions are behind us and all that is left is the testing.  I have felt like I am walking around in a fog today.  Between mom group meeting, speech therapy and the daily chores I have been running like mad but really just feel like I am running behind.  I have made list after list today of things to accomplish and few of them are done….my mind is on tomorrow.

Today Owen’s balance is off and I have noticed a loss in appetite.  Are these for real or tricks my mind is playing on me out of fear?  I am doing my best to let faith answer the door when fear knocks.  I know that God answered our need for employment in a way that far exceeded my hopes and if He will be faithful with the small how much more can we trust Him with the great. 

Calendar has been marked

What a long weekend. We didn’t see the pediatrician until four o clock on Friday afternoon and I knew no one would call until Monday, so the sound of the phone was wonderful this morning.  September 14^th we will be headed down to Children’s Hospital to begin testing.  That seems so far away when you want answers right now but we needed to sync up different schedules of the radiologist, neurologist and anesthesiologist. 

I was sitting at the kitchen table with my calendar open and pen ready to write down whatever day or time they gave me.  While on hold I read the words under a beautiful picture of sunflowers on my Hope for Each Day wall calendar and I was flooded with emotion.  “Cast all your cares upon Him.  If He loved you enough to take away the burden of your sins, can’t you trust Him to take away every lesser burden as well?”  Whoa!  Suddenly three weeks doesn’t seem that long as I was once again reminded that my God is in control.

So three weeks from now we will be seeing a neurologist to perform an electroencephalogram (EEG) to evaluate electrical activity produced by brain. The EEG takes about an hour to complete, and the results are automatically sketched on paper, while a video monitor records his movements. Part of the test is used to examine seizure disorders, and he may be directed to look at flashing lights, which might trigger a seizure. The lights are stopped if evidence from the EEG shows that he is in pre-seizure mode. Not sure how well this will work with our rambunctious two year old that sits still for nothing.

Immediately following the EEG Owen will undergo an MRI.  He will be under general anesthesia for this procedure.  This will not be his first MRI so I feel more confident that I will be able to hold it to together this time around.  Owen was four weeks old for his first and I cried the entire time.  We should have all the results back within 24 hours and we will meet with the doctor to see what the next step is.

Please continue to pray for Owen’s health in these next few weeks.  We do appreciate the outpouring of prayers and well wishes for our sweet boy.  We do consider ourselves very blessed to live where we can meet with specialists in a relatively short time.  It is also a huge “God timing” that I started a new at home business this week and we will have some extra income coming in to help pay for the blessing of specialists and tests.  

God is in control-the begining

I can still remember the lump in my throat grow as our pediatrician returned to the room and told me he had just gotten off the phone with the neurosurgeon at the Denver Children’s Hospital.  Our sweet baby O needed an MRI to determine what was going on with the bump on his head. 

Owen and Daddy at Children's Hospital in 2009 

Owen was just a few weeks old when he was given a clean bill of health.  They had run all the tests and said my baby was fine. Cephalhematoma, like a giant bruise under his scalp; nothing to worry about but he would most likely always have a bump.  Now the lump in my throat is back, this time with seizures.

It is every parent’s worst fear.  Calling 911, because your child is not breathing.  It was not something I had on the agenda for grandma and grandpa’s visit from Texas.  Yet there I was dialing the numbers while my husband shook our limp little boy in hopes of a response.  I had no idea that lips could turn blue so fast.  The paramedics came and went, and by the time we went to bed he was a happy little boy playing his harmonica.  My husband slept in his room that night just to be sure.

I went to bed my head swirling with thoughts of what if and why.  Then I sat in the pediatrician’s office only to hear those words again…neurosurgeon at Denver Children’s Hospital and my questions came back to how.  How did we get back here again, they gave my baby a clean bill of health?

He has most likely suffered a seizure and we think it was not the first.  I have been sent home with a medicine to administer should anything else happen before we meet with the neurosurgeon again.  It is glaring at me from the white prescription bag now as I write this.

I came home tonight and found my yard freshly mowed and I broke down in tears.  My husband is out of town and someone out of the goodness of their heart mowed my grass.  That’s right, my son’s health is in question and I am crying over the grass.  So I gather up my tears and sit down to write.  A way to release what is obviously building up. 

So welcome to my blog. I pray that there is a happy ending down the road.  It is my hope that I will be able to report wonderful praises on my sweet baby’s journey but I do not know what the future holds.  I do know that as I sit here now my heart is at peace as Owen sleeps nearby.  My God is in control.  Writing this out has helped me remember that.  So I will say it again and wrap my heart tightly to what that means as we wait to see what comes next….God is in Control.