We had a very busy weekend.. on Friday we finally celebrated Kiley’s 9th birthday. Yes, her birthday is in January but with all the complications that we have had with Zachary in and out of the hospital her birthday kinda got pushed out a few months. Well, I guess 7 months. But the point is that we finally celebrated and she had a blast!! Then on Saturday  we went to another Birthday of a little boy that also had a kidney transplant a year ago. Then on Sunday HopeKids invited us to the ST Paul Saints Baseball game!  Zachary was called a little half pint and he threw the first pitch. We all had a blast! and after the game the kids got to meet the players and get there autographs.

Don’t forget we are walking in the Hopekids walk September 20.We need your support! this is a great organization, Every week they have something special to keep these kids wanting to fight and live their life. It is like having a never ending wish  for these kids with life threaten illnesses.

Now about Zachary…

Zachary is still holding his own. He is still struggling with his weight. The Doctors want him to be over 41lbs and he is still sitting between 36-38lbs. He is still on about 20 hour J-tube feeds a day which I think we might have to go back to 24-hr feeds again. It sad because he loves the time off his pump. Zachary is still not eating much maybe, 200-300 cals a day and that is with a struggle. He has also started to throw up in the mornings again. On monday I have to call his GI doctor to get him  for a new G-J-Tube. Zachary’s tube is defected again and has been leaking at night. I love getting up at 3 am to give him a bath! Not!….. To replace his tube  it requires a special machine and the procedure can take 5mins to 1 hour depending on who is replacing it. Thank god for his Nintendo DS.. Usually they put these kids to sleep but Zachary has been able to handle it a wake since he was two. Zachary is so amazing… nothing phases him! Labs draws  and IV’s he finds the vein for the nurses. For only being 5 yrs. old he is one tough cookie!!! for all that he has been through,  but this is all that he knows.

Overall Zachary is doing awesome!! His Kidney function numbers are still jumping around, but his blood pressures have been great!! 120/70! still a little high but way better then they have been. We are still having problems with catheterizing him through his Mitrofanoff. But hopefully over time it will get easer.

We got some exciting news. the Anoka County Harold called and  they want to do a story on Organ donation, they are also going to talk about the kidney walk and the hopekids walk. They are coming out to interview us on Wednesday and then it will be posted  in September 4th News paper.

Please keep Paityn in your prayers… she is a little girl that we meet when Zachary was in the hospital last Feb-April. She is 13 months old and just had a Liver Transplant and lost it right a way and just last night she received another transplant. Paityn is very sick and need lots of prayers.     http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/paitynelston

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers,

Stacey

Zachary at the game

The kids

Beauty Queen!

My little Joe Cool!!

Zachary is doing Awesome!!! Bedrest for a week was hard but he did it! Zachary’s pee is golden yellow and that is how we like it!!!! With the help of lots of movies and his video games and now we have a TV that has a blown lamp light . Yes we are now living without the Big screen.

Tomorrow we are heading to the hospital for labs to make sure we are still heading down the right road. I talked to his Doctor today and she feels that we can wait until September to re-check his Kidney ultrasound but in the mean time Zachary needs to hang low for another 2 weeks!! no riding his bike or jumping on the trampoline. Zachary is a little bummed but he does not want to pee blood again, I think that scared him.

 Once again our family is walking in the National Kidney Walk this year, October 10, at Midway Stadium in St Paul. Come Walk with us!!! Last year we raised almost 2,000 and had 28 people who walked in honor of Zachary and Bill. Bill also had a Kidney Transplant and he is in Kidney failure again and is waiting for another Kidney.  If you would like to walk with us click here.

We are Team Zachary!!!

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This is a wonderful article from HopeKids

Open your eyes. We see so many things every day. We live in an amazing world. We take most if it for granted, but they reveal much. Consider earth. Its weight has been estimated at six sextillion tons (not sure how they actually weigh the earth, but that’s a six with twenty-one zeros!) Yet it is precisely tilted at twenty-three degrees. A slight change and our four seasons would be lost in a flood from melted polar ice caps.

The earth revolves at the rate of about a thousand miles per hour – that’s pretty fast. At that speed, we travel twenty-five thousand miles per day, or nine million miles per year, yet none of us has ever tumbled off the globe and into space.

As you consider God’s amazing creation, how precise it is, let me ask a few questions. If He is able to place the stars in the sky in a perfect formation, do you think it is possible that God is able to guide your life in the big and the little decisions? If God is mighty enough to ignite the sun, is He able to light your path – even in the scariest darkness?

God is more than able to guide your life and light the path for every step you must take. Not only is He able, He is willing. Just ask.

God is truly amazing!