Last weekend - the outcome

The scope that Jacob had last Friday went very well. Other than getting an ultrasound done in about six months (which we will have sent to Dr. G), the Urology side of things looks very good. Dr. Lau, who handles the colostomy and stoma side of things, came in during the scope to evaluate that situation. He still feels like surgery will be necessary in the coming weeks, but wants some additional time to think about the best course of action.

Jacob does not have a lot of muscle tissue in his abdomen area to help hold his colon/stoma inside. So, it is not simply a matter of putting it back in, because it may prolapse (come out) again. What he may do is put some sort of mesh in that area to be sort of a make-shift abdomenal wall. He said this is a little more complex of a surgery that the revision that he had back in January. He has asked us to call him back towards the end of this month, and make the arrangements at that time. We will let everyone know once we have a date and so forth.

As for the remainder of last weekend, we did get to attend the Exstrophy picnic that was held on Friday night and Saturday morning. Daddy BA had his five minutes of fame and delivered what he thought was an OK speech. This year was probably one of the best so far because there were about seven families there, in total, who have someone with the same condition as Jacob. They ranged in age from under one year to about 17. There were many others there, too, that have a slightly more common condition called Classic Bladder Exstrophy, but actually having our own group session with the Cloacal Exstrophy patients and families was really great.

Saturday afternoon we left Baltimore and headed toward Papa A and Grammy's home in Virginia. We stayed there Saturday night and headed out Sunday morning. We stopped by Knoxville to see Papa and arrived safely back in Chattanooga on Sunday afternoon.

For now, it is back to the summer routine. Thanks to everyone for your prayers during this past week.

"He paid a debt He did not owe, I owed a debt I could not pay - He is Jesus, Our Lord and Savior."

Daddy and Mommy