I have made it a point to try to update everyone about Jason and what he is up to on a more regular basis. Since the last time I posted Jason has started his second year of tee ball and is loving it. He is on a team with two of his friends from preschool and is doing a little better than last year. My expectation for this year is to not have Jason chase after birds mid-game. He mostly loves it for the social aspect, he is my “I made a best friend” everywhere I go kid. I am not sure at this point if he will end up making it to the pros, but we have a way to go before then. We have made some trips to the zoo when Grandma Peggy came to visit which is usually a trip to see the reptiles, and alligators, then hit the gift shop. This time Jason wanted to see the Komodo dragons as well and is obsessed with them now. He had wacky hat day at preschool for Dr. Seuss week and wore his praying mantis costume hat, which was a big hit. He is such a goofy little guy, and busy, but we love his adventurous spirit.

Jason has started to ask some big life questions lately too. He asked his dad if people die, and his dad explained that everybody dies, and when they do they go up to heaven to be with God. He got very sad after that and so I explained to him that God puts us on earth to spread the goodness that we have, and that God doesn’t want us back in heaven with him until all the goodness we are supposed to do is done. I told him that he is just starting to spread his goodness, so he doesn’t need to worry about dying, and that God still wants him here with his family and friends. He was content with that answer but still likes to ask about it and get reminded. We remind him that instead of focusing on the dying part of life that we need to think about doing good while we are living. Death is a tough subject for most adults, let alone a 5-year-old.

A month or so ago Jason had a couple health issues we have had to deal with. We had a round of the stomach virus in our house where Jason had a whole day of not being able to keep anything in him, which in turn caused some strain on his kidneys. This was just prior to our first appointment with his new nephrologist at Banner Children’s Hospital. His kidney labs were a little elevated from his normal and his rejection medication level was also elevated. The kidney levels are still not coming down despite increasing his water intake. We are hoping this is just his new normal and doesn’t indicate worsening kidney functioning. He will continue to have his labs checked to make sure his kidneys aren’t getting more strained. Praying they stabilize and we don’t have to change his anti-rejection medication or worse. I am glad he does well with lab pokes (sits in the chair on his own and watches), if he didn’t it would be really rough. He also may have had myositis from a respiratory infection. One morning he woke up and wouldn’t put pressure on his leg which was weird. We got x-rays and there was no break, but it went away in a few days. Hoping some of his kidney levels were because of that too and will get better.

We got some good news about our insurance, the hospital and our insurance came to an agreement and so we will be seen at full coverage now. The anxiety and stress from all of that was not very fun for Mom and Dad. I even started looking into planning trips to out of state hospitals because I didn’t think there was going to be an agreement between the insurance and hospital. We are so grateful for all of the love we have received from all our family and friends. We thank each and every one of those who donated to COTA for Team Jason, and the COTA funds will continue to help Jason throughout his life with transplant-related expenses. Until next time 🙂