Happy Thanksgiving...

We have so much to be thankful for. I don't even know where to begin. Braydon is still having only one seizure a day and he is off all medication. Our kids are happy and healthy and want for nothing. My husband has a great job that allows me to stay home and take care of our boys. Our home is warm. Our bellies are full. Our families are near. We are so thankful.

This year we mixed things up a bit. Because my husband has to work Thanksgiving evening but was off today...we celebrated our Thanksgiving on Wednesday instead of Thursday. So I cooked a full traditional thanksgiving meal for just the 4 of us. And we stayed home all day, enjoyed great food and put up our Christmas decorations. Although we broke tradition, we set a new one. As much as I love seeing all of our family on the holidays, we chose not to run around like mad trying to see everyone but to stay home, just the four of us and have a nice intimate family day. It was WONDERFUL. For that I am thankful. Enjoy the pics!


And we had our own Thanksgiving Day Parade! It went right in front of our house! LOL.

When it rains it pours...

Blessings that is!!! When God rains down blessings on our family he makes sure we know it! Not only is Braydon having only one seizure a day with NO SEIZURE MEDS. He has felt so good and been such a joy the last four days. The first two days off the Depakote we noticed Braydon was extremely wild and hyperactive. He was a little out of control and Jacoby and I couldn't figure out what exactly was going on with him. Concerns over his ADHD diagnosis from a year ago began to creep in and confusion set in as to why it was so prevalent all of a sudden. Then while Braydon was helping me cook breakfast Thursday morning there was a moment of eye contact between us and it just clicked with me what was going on. "This" was the real Braydon. Sadly, it had been so long since we had seen him off medication that we had forgotten that this hyperactive, wild, loud little boy is who he really is. It made me laugh and cry at the same time. It's so good to have him back!!! There is a sparkle in his eye and an excitement in his smile this week that I haven't seen in a very long time.

\o/ PRAISE THE LORD \o/

Psalm 126:3 "The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with joy"

Medical update on Braydon

I'm going to attempt to relay all of this information the best way I can. When you have three medical conditions and 4 different doctors things get complicated and hard to explain but I'll do my best.

We just got back from Houston for follow up visits with Braydon's oncologist and neurologist. Everything went well. Braydon's lab work and physicals went great. One doctor commented that outside of the seizures now, Braydon is "healthy as a horse"! We did do an EEG to see what the current seizure activity looks like and it looked "about the same" as the last one, which was done three months ago. However Braydon is having less seizures than he was three months ago. He is now down to one seizure a day. This is so great considering there was a time that he was having 6-10 a day. Although we are so thankful for less seizures, our goal is ultimately NO seizures!

We have been unsuccessful this far and finding the treatment that will cease all seizure activity. We have tried 3 medications so far....Keppra, Tripletal and Depakote. We have seen the most results since starting the Depakote but we knew he was on a pretty high dose and we were still seeing at least one seizure a day.

On a recent visit to Braydon's homeopathic doctor we discovered through lab work that his medication level for the Depakote was too high. It should never be over 100 and it was 136. We reduced the dosage and checked the level again in four weeks. That time the level was even higher....147. So I spoke with Braydon's doctors at MD Anderson and we decided that since the medication is only helping somewhat and not completely alleviating the seizures, we should start weening him off the medicine completely. This took a full week to do. He is now taking NO SEIZURE MEDS. The best part is...the seizures did NOT increase when we stopped the medicine. He is still only having one seizure a day even without meds. THIS IS A MAJOR PRAISE!!! This means that the decrease in seizures was not due to the Depakote but another miracle!

We are seeing an epileptologist the 2nd week of December and will be admitted into Hermann Hospital in Houston for 5 days for Braydon to undergo an epilepsy study. This will hopefully give the doctors more insight as to why there have been so many inconsistencies and rarities on Braydon's EEG reports and hopefully aid in finding the right "treatment" for the seizures. In his neurologist's words: "to say Braydon's seizures and the information surrounding them have been rare is an understatement". So....we are on to our next journey in hopes to find answers soon. Right now our biggest concern with the study is the fact that I will be with Braydon and away from Deacon for the five days. That is going to be so hard. I seriously will need prayer about that. But I know Braydon needs me more at that time. Jacoby will be home with Deacon.

As if that is not enough to have going on medically, there is one more thing we are addressing with Braydon at this time. On another visit to Braydon's homeopathic doctor, we did some extensive lab work that showed toxins in Braydon's blood. To determine what they are we did a metals test. The report showed that Braydon has too high of levels on three different metals, two of which are toxic. Two of them are also related to contrast and machinery used in medical testing. (No suprise there). He has had about 30 MRI's. We are now doing Kelation therapy to try and rid his body of the toxins and metals that were present. We are traveling to Rowlett twice a month for these treatments. We will do this for 60 weeks. :-)

We appreciate your prayers on all of this and we thank you for continuing to care about and follow our family! We love each of you!

Something to share...

Last week I gave my testimony in front of about 200 women at CBS in Sulphur Springs. Click on "Devotional- November 10th". There you will be able to listen to what I shared. Hoping the story of what God has done in my life will bless someone and give glory to Him for all he has done.

***FULL MEDICAL UPDATE FOR BRAYDON WILL BE POSTED TOMORROW. THANKS! :-)***

Our Family...

New Life...

This past Sunday our family celebrated a new beginning for Braydon. He accepted Christ as his Saviour on August 15th of this year and was baptized by his dad on October 10th. He along with 5 of his best friends were baptized and we had a great celebration to follow. My mom, dad, sister, 2 neices, a nephew, my father-in-law and my best friend and her family were there to celebrate it with us. Enjoy the pics!

The latest with Braydon...

I haven't given a medical update in a while and I know everyone is wondering what is going on....it's a lot of information but all very interesting. Braydon hasn't seen his neurologist at MD Anderson in two months. For the most part things have been pretty uneventful. He is still on the same medicatin (Depakote) and his seizures are less frequent than in the past but not gone. Right now we are in a time of seeking "alternative treatments" (i.e. non-precription drugs/treatment).

After more research and meeting with and talking to more doctors, we have come to the conclusion that the Ketogenic diet is probably not the best option for him. While his condition is serious (seizures for 11 months with unsuccesful treatment by at least three different anti-seizure medications-only 24% of all seizure patients don't respond to medication by the third one), his condition might not be serious enough for that diet in particular. The diet is so extreme, any doctor hates to see us try it because it is hard. And a three year committment. If he was having convulsive seizures and the medication side effects were severe in nature then they would have us go for it, but praise the Lord this is not the case!

We have also been to see a homeopathic doctor in Rowlett that we really like. We did some in depth blood and urine tests at that office that showed us (literally showed us on a screen-we got to see all of Braydon's cells and blood through a microscope and have it all explained to us). His cells are healthy and normal but he has a large amount of toxins in his body. That's not that surprising with what all medications and the amount of meds he has had. We have started Kelation pushes to help the body rid itself of toxins and also doing several supplements and diet changes to get the body as healthy as it can be. We are also testing for gluten sensitivity and doing a metals test. We don't have a lot of answers yet, but we feel like we are on the right track. We do know that since we have changed his diet and started the supplements we are seeing the least amount of seizures we have ever seen. We started th Depakote and saw a decrese (lowest was 3-4 a day) and since the supplements and diet changes we are now down to two a day!!! PTL!

An ingredient check on the Depakote revealed that the medicine is made with heavy metals and the same key component that makes anti-freeze. That is scary. Our goal is to continue to get the body healthy and the seizures gone so we can start weaning him off this dangerous poisonous medicine he is having to take. It's not time yet. But that is the goal! Keep us in your prayers...especially Braydon's body and health.

A great date...

We went out this past weekend with some friends of ours, Jason and Diane Barnes, and had the best time. We went to an outdoor concert, a steakhouse and a butter factory. YES a butter factory! Jacoby took us on a tour of his company. He has worked there 8 years and I've never even walked in the building so it was a real treat to me to see how it all works. We had to get suited up in our hair nets, safety glasses, lab coats and all! Best time I have had in a while! Definitly not the outdone dinner and a movie date! Enjoy the pics!

"Welcome" Fall...

We welcomed fall by doing "apple-pie-on-a-stick" over a campfire in our back yard over the weekend.

"UN-welcome" Fall...

Deacon's first shiner...he fell into the fireplace. Ouch!!!