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I can remember a few years into our marriage, my wife katis started getting some serious baby fever. I knew I always wanted kids but honestly, I still felt like a big kid myself. For most people, the experience of your first child is new and exciting and that was typical of our story at first. When Katis went into labor I remember thinking to myself how blessed I was and anxious to meet my boy. After a night of labor, the Dr. seemed a little concerned and was preparing for a C-section.

I have to admit, I was getting a little nervous as I was expecting her to have one of the sneezing deliveries. When my son came out there was no cry, at the time that was probably the one thing I knew should happen. it never gets easier to relive that moment and no matter what the nurse told me I could see the urgency on the medical teams faces.

Thank God for the respiratory therapist who revived my son after a couple of minutes without a heartbeat or oxygen. To spare every detail of a nightmarish 2 weeks in the hospital, we were finally leaving the NICU, JJ's MRI was normal, EGG was good and they even pushed some genetic testing which came back fine too. We thought everything should be on the way up from here.

JJ was late on just about every one of his milestones, we spent the first year of his life in and out of specialists and therapy offices, my wife would drive him all over town and we never felt like we were getting anywhere. My wife and I really felt led to learning everything we could about natural medicine and alternative therapies. We still kept doing traditional stuff but really saw the biggest strides in our son with good nutrition, Hyperbaric oxygen treatment and a neurodevelopmental program that was extremely difficult and took up a lot of time every day. Our lives really revolved around this child and to our own fault probably sacrificed giving each other the time we both deserved.

We both now see the importance of having some date time for ourselves. For everything we were doing for him, the progress felt to slow. We started looking into genetics, as a means to counter any nutritional deficiencies, we were actually offended if a doctor asked if my son had genetic testing, we were certain everything he was going through was because of his birth. My hope was we would find one of the mutations you could aid with a vitamin or supplement and be hoping this would speed his recovery. Well, Against all odds JJ's results came back and he was diagnosed as the 38th person in the world diagnosed with a rare genetic mutation to a gene called CHAMP1.

Sep 08, 2018

Silverthorn Golf and Country Club

Charity Dinner

Details TBA

50$ tickets

Dinner and entertainment provided

Silent auction.

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Here's the Blog:

Jeff
- Apr 30, 2018
- 2 min read

I think she loves me.

Updated: May 15, 2018

Trying to make our marriage a priority.

Marriage is not always easy, especially having a newborn and a 4 year old that literally requires around the clock attention. It's a work in progress, but having we started looking at each other as teammates rather than adversaries. We have got to a place where we are learning to make even the most stressful of situations managable and even learning to handle life with joy.

Hard to believe!

Approaching a time in history where it is more likely for your marriage to end up in a divorce than to stay together. The divorce rate is roughly 50% and for parents with children with special needs it said to be a lot higher .

I would be completely lying to you, if I told you we had it all figured out, we were a perfect couple and that didn't still get into disagreements.

Have you heard my wife chew though?

I have heard somewhere that if you are bothered by other people chewing then you have some form of a mental disorder called misophonia. I'm not sold on the idea, but if its true call me crazy.

My wife and I used to get in huge arguments, mostly my fault, for her chewing like what I would call a cave woman....being honest.

These CHAMP kids and teeth grinding.

My punishment, Out of the blue, JJ Started grinding his teeth with every bite of food. I have to say this is probably the most frustrating noise on the planet. We have literally tried everything humanly possible to get him to stop. so far, we are taking a loss. It's typically really easy for me to overlook all of the things my son struggles with because I completely love and accept everything about him. His teeth grinding is hard to listen to, but I love the kid so much I don't let it get to me.

This is about the same time I started realizing that I need to approach my marriage the same way. With raising these kids, and especially a child that demands a lot of attention, there truly is little time to argue or stay mad at one another. My wifes favorite line is not to sweat the small stuff. It took some growing up for myself to appreciate the partnership Katis and I have. She really is Superwoman.

Just in the last year we have made a commitment to make our marriage a priority, It was so easy to get frustrated with one another when we really don't get a moment to ourselves let alone together. Yes JJ Sleeps in are bed don't judge us.

It was 3 years before Katis and I left our boy over night. What we are finding is that we do a lot better job raising our kids and doing it with joy when we are committed to making time for each other. That doesn't always translate into leaving the house to go on dates sometimes just sitting not the couch or having a cup of coffee together with no distractions. Our lesson we learned is its hard to take care of kids when you aren't taking care of your marriage.

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Raising a CHAMP

Here's the Blog:

I think she loves me.

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