Trotting in place

Hi all!

First, we want to say thank you SO MUCH to everyone who helped organize and who came to the taco night on Monday.  It meant so much to us, more than we can ever say!  My mom shared this but in case you didn't already see it:

I read your email this afternoon Megan, and wanted you to know that at 3am while I was up unclogging Jason's feeding tube, I was overcome by the emotions that I felt for you and our ward family. I am truly blessed to be surrounded by all of you and honestly don't know how I'd still be standing without all of you. Thank you so much for doing this for my family, it brought much needed peace to my heart and soul and helped me to again be humbled by the love that our Savior and Heavenly Father have for each and every one of us. We are not alone. I love you guys, all of you and will never be able to adequately express how much this meant to me personally to see such an out pouring of support for Jason. --much love and appreciation Jenn Franke

One of our favorite pictures is this one:

This picture hangs in our kitchen, and has been hanging there since around the time Jason was first diagnosed with cancer.  We all have heavy handcarts to pull in this life but we are all also surrounded by angels, both seen and unseen, to help lighten our loads.  We witnessed that this week when we watched our friends and neighbors gather together to serve tacos, desserts, and service.  You are the angels in this picture, helping us trudge uphill through the snow.  We can't thank you enough <3

How's Jas?

Since Jason has had his feeding tube he has gained 13 pounds and actually grown half an inch!  But he still has a long road ahead of him and you could write a book on everything we don't know.  I can't decide if that book would be a long book full of questions or a short book because we don't have answers but whatever.  Jason had appointments with an endocrinologist and a gastro doctor this week.  The endocrinologist ran some blood tests on his pituitary gland that we found out should have been run before he started receiving nutrition.  Now that he is getting the nutrition that he needs it skewed the test and so everything came back (wait for it) pretty normal.  The doctors were sort of expecting that though.

On the gastro side of things however we are slowly making progress.  The doctors have finally agreed to scope JJ (an endoscopy and a colonoscopy) but they are unsure how to proceed.  He is still severely underweight and the anesthesiologist is concerned that the procedure just isn't safe for him.  They feel he may need to be admitted to a hospital, or that the procedure should at least be done in one instead of an outpatient clinic.  We aren't looking forward to more time in the hospital but it's not like he's been in the hospital latel-oh wait.... ;)

So basically, after another weeks worth of doctors appointments we are stuck waiting again.  

In other news, we are trying to help JJ get back on his feet a little bit.  We don't want him to over-do it but we do want JJ to keep doing things he enjoys and getting out while still recuperating and regaining his strength.  We are pretty excited about how he'll be doing this.

Meet Sam:

Sam (or Sammy) is an approximately 14 year old American Quarter Horse/Arabian mix.  Sam is also a very special horse.  He is a therapy horse and gives lessons to kids and adults of all ages.  Jason and Sam were riding for about an hour once a week before he was admitted to the hospital.  Check it out:

Jason is riding in an English saddle here.  He learned to direct rein and was learning basic dressage patterns at a walk and learning to sit a trot.  Here are some of the differences between western and english riding:  

http://www.equisearch.com/horses_riding_training/training/beginning_rider/english_western102200a/

An english saddle is a little more challenging to ride in than a western saddle, but Jas was picking it up like a pro!  Now we are moving him towards getting back in the saddle (literally!).  It's good to see old friends:

It's pretty safe to say that some angels chose fur instead of wings :)

Jason will hopefully start riding again in the next couple of weeks.  In the mean time, thank you for your continued prayers and support, we couldn't do it without you!

Top of the muffin to yah!

-LeAnne