Courage

Mason did great at his procedure this morning.  We took him down to Children's Hospital in San Diego to have a laryngoscopy and bronchoscopy.  We received good news from the doctor.  He believes that Mason has GERD or gastro-esophageal reflux disease (kind of funny because I thought this was an "old-man" disease).  He is apparently producing too much acid and it is refluxing up his esophagus and spilling over onto his larynx and causing inflammation which at times the larynx gets so swollen he has difficulty breathing.  This is good news in that there was no structural malformations that need treatment.  The treatment for GERD is quite simple (no eating before bedtime and elevate the head of his bed, if that is not successful then some antacids or other medications might be prescribed).  We also have steroid medication at home for when he wakes up in the night gasping for air.  The steroids have usually been successful and have prevented many ER visits in the past 5 years.  We were very impressed with the doctors and nurses at Children's Hospital.  They did a fantastic job and made Mason feel comfortable.  Mason learned about courage today.  He trusted his daddy because daddy is doing what is best for him.  Mason learned that courage is doing the right thing even if it is hard and scary.

Part 2 of today's story....                                                                                                              We had a fun day planned for Mason after we left Children's Hospital.  We were going to take Mason to get some new Legos and then eat some yummy food at the Cheesecake Factory.  But as you have all experienced, things don't always go as we have them planned.  When we got in the mini-van (notice it is no longer referred to as the "great Cobb Odyssey") in the hospital's parking garage it wouldn't start!  It was having the same problem as it did last week.  So we called AAA and had the van towed to the mechanics.  Erick was able to share with the tow truck driver (a soon-to-be new dad) about the blessings of having children. We got a rental van and still got to do all our fun stuff.  Mason got some cool Lego race cars from Geppettos Toys and we ate a delicious lunch at The Cheesecake Factory.  Mason ate a grilled cheese sandwich and fries (with a ton of ketchup and ranch, of course), Erick ate a cheese steak sandwich and wild mushroom soup, and I had chips, guacamole, and salsa (and I scavenged off everyone's plates).  All in all, it was a good day.  Thank you for your prayers!  God is good all the time!

*BTW:  I still think my Honda is awesome!  I continue to fully recommend them and I still plan on buying Honda forever.  We just have a hard to diagnosis problem with ours  ;-)