The boys are doing great!

Wanted to give you a quick update that dad and Mason are doing great. Dad's blood pressure has evened out a bit. We went to see him today and he was up and walking around. He is looking more like himself and his cough has subsided. Recovery is a slow process for him and therefore we need to continue to pray for patience. He's ready to get life back to normal so keeping him down is going to be a challenge :).
Mason had a general checkup today and he is doing awesome. He is 15.6 pounds and 27 1/2 inches. We continue to praise God for his steady weight gain. We've been trying to reintroduce oral feedings and we've had our ups and downs. Trying not to get discouraged. We go next week to check in with Dr. W our GI doctor. We'll see what he tells us to do about oral feedings. We will also be heading to Shriners on Thursday to see Dr. Garcia about Mason's hands.
Kevin and I are going to begin the process of discussing invetro and figuring out our options. If you could please keep us in your prayers as we seek God's perfect will for our family. In two short months Mason will be 1 year old!! I can't believe how fast the time has gone. Kevin and I stand in awe at all the amazing things God has taught us this year. God's grace and love is fresh and new everyday. We look forward to the miracles He will continue to perform in Mason's life. Praying that you have a blessed week! Wendy

Dad and Mason Update

Dad is doing much better!!! He is beginning to look better as well. They moved him out of ICU yesterday afternoon. This morning they were able to remove the tubes from his stomach and lungs. He was able to get up and move around this am. Now he would love a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. Hopefully, tonight he can get some. He should be able to go home tuesday or wednesday. Then he will have 24 hour care for a week. Even with all of the pain he has still managed to keep a sense of humor. Many of the negative side effects they warned us about have not seem to bother him. We are praising God for all the blessings that have come from this. Deborah was able to come down from N.C. for a few days. Her employees came together to cover her shifts for Thur. and Fri. Her friend Stephanie (manager w/ her) put everything together w/o her knowing. It meant so much to her and all of us. It's been nice having all of our siblings up at the hospital. It has been a long time since we were all together. We told Dad next time just tell us you want us to get together. No need to go to extreme measures. :)

Mason is doing much better today. It takes him a couple days to get off the anesthesia. One problem we've been having with him is throwing up this brown mucus stuff. While they were putting in the tube yesterday they saw that he developed esophogitus (not sure of the spelling). They've changed his reflux meds to help solve this problem. He was throwing up dried blood so this will hopefully change soon. He's enjoyed hanging out with his Grandpa at the hospital. He feels right at home. All the boys in our family are starting to feel better. Thank you for your continued prayers. We are praying that our lives will be very boring soon and we won't need to visit a hospital for awhile. :) Have a blessed week. I will be posting pics of Mason's new friend Stella in the next couple of days. It is an amazing story that I've waited a long time to tell.

Dad's Surgery

Well it's amazing how a day can have a turn of events. My dad has had heart disease for a number of years. He has had several heart attacks and many stints put in his heart. Today we thought he was going in for another angioplasty and stint. When they went in they saw that all of the previous stints were clogged as well as arteries. Tomorrow morning he will be having triple or quadruple bypass surgery. They are not sure with the fourth ventricle until they open him up. They will be taking veins from his leg and arms to put around his heart. They said that it would be a 4 hour procedure and he will remain in the hospital for the next week. I'm asking that you will please keep him in your prayers. We are shocked as a family and worried. Mason still has his surgery on Friday so this week is a little stressful. You all have been so faithful to pray and we cannot thank you enough. We continue to trust God in all things.

We have been enjoying life outside of the hospital. We've had a couple hiccups with our tube but overall we're seeing amazing progress. Mason is almost at 15 pounds. This is the most weight he's gained since December. We are praising God for all the good things that have come out of our hospital stay. One of the biggest blessings is being able to play with him and move him around. We've seen him make great improvements in therapy since being out. The other day for the first time he reached for my face. This is the first time he has ever reached out for anything. Of course, I was a puddle of tears and just amazed over what God is doing. We go back this Friday to replace his tubing with the button. Not sure what time surgery is but will probably be in the morning. Hopefully, Saturday we can begin to orally feed him again. We also went to an ENT specialist last Friday and we're going to be doing a sinus probe and removing his adenoids on April 20th. This should help with the mucus problem he has been experiencing. We can't believe he is already 9 mths old. Where has the time gone? Thank you again for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. Have a blessed week!

Pictures from Hospital

We are having trouble pulling up pictures. Here are a few. This is Mason on Superbowl Sunday. We were pulling for the Colts. :( Peyton you're still the man
I love Miss Ashley
Aunt Debo came to visit!!!!


Mason and Aunt Le Le

We're Home!!!

Surgery went great today. They put the tube in as deep as it can go and we're only going to feed Mason through the tube until Saturday. Saturday we will add in oral feeds as well as tube feeds. They told us at 5:00 if we felt comfortable with everything we could go home. We had everything packed and we were out the door in an hour. Now we're praying that this tube can stay in for 2 - 3wks until we can do the button tube.

We're so grateful to be home. We are ready for life to get back to normal. Kevin is going to put some hospital pictures up from this past month. Thank you for your continued prayers and words of encouragement. We praise God for all the things we've learned and the weight that we KNOW Mason will gain!!Love you all, Wendy

Remaining in Hospital

Funny how your day can literally change hour by hour. We went to Radiology to check Mason's tube. It made its way out again. Mason began throwing up when we started to feed him. They are going to keep us in the hospital over the weekend and do the procedure again on Monday. I'm sure you're wondering why this is not working. Because Mason is an infant the first 6 wks they have to use a Jtube that is really light and small. When Mason throws up he keeps throwing the tube up little by little. In 3 wks. they switch to a button tube which is much heavier and thicker. We're praying that we won't have as much trouble with this tube. The next few wks. will be a bit annoying but after that we're hoping things will go smoother. We're a little disappointed but thankful it happened now and it wasn't an ER incident. We'll update with pics another day. Just means you'll have more to view when we arrive at home. Love you all, Wendy We're in rm 871 if you're down in St. Pete this weekend.

Mason Update

Dr. W just came in and decided that we will be going home today!!! Yeah!!! We've had some ups and down but we're ready to sleep in our own beds. First, let's start with the best news of all. My precious son Mason C White (aka MC White) slept through the night for the first time!!!!!! Hallelujah!!! I woke up this am and looked at the clock and thought I was dreaming. Yeah MA MA so proud of you buddy! The not so great news is that when he woke up he threw up. Here's what we are figuring out. Yesterday we did an xray on Mason's stomach to see if the tube is moving when he throws up. Indeed it has moved quite a bit since Tuesday :(. Sooooo before we leave today we're going to have radiology put the tube back in place. What this means is we will prob be back here soon. Until they can replace the tubing with the button ( in 5 wks) we will continue to have this problem. Right now he only throws up mucus. (unless it was an oral feed) When we begin to see him throw up milk, we have to come back. I'm grateful that we are beginning to understand his body more and we are getting answers. Even though it's not always a great solution at least we have one. So we'll go home and live life until the problem comes up again. Tomorrow we'll post some pics from the past few weeks. Thank you for keeping Mason in your prayers. We continue to pray and believe that he will continue to grow and have an abundant life.

Mason's Surgery

Surgery went great today. Mason went in at 12:30 and finished around 1:15. The tube was placed lower in his intestines and we're praying that we will see great results. He's had a good afternoon and evening. He's been able to receive feeds all day and done pretty good with keeping them down. Tomorrow will be a big testing day. We will be moving him around more and treating him like normal. We're praying that his food stays down and we can be sent home in the next couple of days. Thank you for all the amazing phone calls and texts. You guys keep us going with a smile on our face. Thank you to Tyler (Zilla), Emilee, P.K, Laura and Miss Donna for hanging out during surgery today. We actually had a blast waiting for Mason's surgery. I have to tell you this story b/c I know you're prob. feeling a bit sorry for us that we're still in the hospital. Really, we're having fun. :) In the pre op room they have these stools on wheels (very comfortable). Of course we were the only ones in this huge room and you can only wait for so long before you find ways to create trouble. I discovered that these stools roll unbelievably well. I layed on the stool stomach down a took off like an Olympic Gold Medalist. P.K and I got quite good at it. So I felt that our doctor needed to experience the fun we were having. When he came in, I showed off my talents to him. He had to leave the room b/c he was laughing. It's all about making the doc's smile and have fun. We told the nurses the next time they're bored they could have a serious competition going.

Again, thank you for keeping up with our family. We love you all and feel so blessed to have amazing friends and family. We will keep you updated on Mason throughout the week. God Bless, Wendy

Update on Mason

I was hoping that this message would be coming to you from our home loaded with great pics from the last two weeks. We do have tons of pics to post. As soon as we're back home, we will be sure to put them on the blog. This past week has been a whirlwind. We were sent home Wednesday afternoon. Before leaving the hospital Mason threw up. We didn't think much of it but he continued to throw up Wednesday and Thursday. Our doctor sent us back to the hospital Thursday evening to get a test done to evaluate where his J tube was placed. They discovered that the tube needed to be put further down in his intestines. We went back to our GI doctor on Friday and asked if we could be admitted Monday and remain home for the weekend. We wanted to give Mason a chance to sleep in his own bed and get back to a schedule. She said as long as we made sure he was hydrated then she was fine with it. We were supposed to have surgery this am but there was a miscommunication between the doc office and hospital. Tomorrow morning they will be fixing the Jtube. Since Friday it has continued to come out so we're very thankful we are here. They will keep us here for a couple of days to monitor his feedings. He does fine if we don't move him but that is not reality. We continue to pray that God will heal his body and that his GJ tube will work. Dr. Condino did say that she thinks he may end up needing the fundoplication surgery. We are putting it off as long as possible. Thank you for your continued prayers. We praise God that we're at a wonderful hospital with great nurses and doctors. We've been able to get to know many of the staff members. They quickly become your second family. We will continue to update you on any new information we receive. Love you all, Wendy