Startling and very sad news

Dear James, Daniel and Emily,

This afternoon Kim called me at work with some unexpected and possibly horrible sad news. Austin had gone to Denver today for his annual checkup on his heart. For those who don't know he was born with a defective heart and had a transplant at 26 days, and had gone all this time with no problems. Well they discovered that he he has some very serious problems. I don't know all the details, but it breaks down to he is on heavy medication right now and if the medication doesn't do the trick very soon he will need another transplant.

As you can imagine this is just horrid, tragic and totally unexpected news. I guess there were some reports of kids like him who received early transplants going into rejection when they hit puberty, but of course you don't and can't expect that to happen. So he is in the hospital tonight on medication. Kim drove her mom up there and they are there with Tammy just waiting. I have the other 6 kids sleeping here tonight.

I had a little cry on the way home, and of course some more when Kim left. It just doesn't seem right for this many horrible things to hit the family in such a short time. All we can do at this point is hope and think good thoughts (and pray for those who do pray). Of course that meant I had to lay it out here, my form of stress relief (that and eating way too much junk food for dinner).

I will be staying home tomorrow with the kids, hopefully we can make other arrangements by Thursday. That or the news will change what we are doing, I just don't know at this point. All I know is I will be home tomorrow.