Praise The Lord

We have an awesome praise in our household. I just have to say that God is so good and His goodness is not contingent on whether He answers our prayers the way we want. So, even if He had not done this incredible thing in our lives we would still think He is good. I just wanted to make that statement before I went on to the answered prayer.

Some people know about Jude and his genetic condition. For those that don't we found out when Jude was about 8 weeks old that he has a genetic condition where his body lacks the full enzyme to break down a sugar in lactose called galactose. Thankfully Jude did have part of the enzyme, there are babies that do not have any of the enzyme at all and these babies can have serious problems. With Jude we were looking at problems with his liver and/or kidneys and/or possible cataracts. The problems would arise if he continued to have high levels of the galactose in his body, because high amounts of galactose turns in to an alcohol, which is what could cause the problems.

In a normal person the level of galactose is below 1 in the body. When we first did blood work to check Jude's levels he was at 18.5. Which is very high, I had to supplement him with a couple of soy formula feedings a day. That in itself was very hard for me, I love to breastfeed and did not want to give that up even for a couple of feedings a day. After 2 weeks we went back and took some more blood and his levels had gone down to 6.8. Good, but still not great. So, 2 weeks ago we had our appointment with a geneticist and did some more blood work. I have to say that after our appointment and being able to hear what he had to say Todd and I felt much better about the whole situation. We did find out that in most cases like Jude's after they turn 1 we wouldn't have to do a special diet or anything. He turns 1 and it's like it's gone, so, it's until then that we will watch his levels to hopefully prevent any damage to his liver or kidney or causing cataracts. This news was very exciting to us and would have been the answer to our prayers. But God is bigger and better than anything we could ever ask. While we thought God was done and answered us God was doing even more.

We got the results back Friday from Jude's latest blood tests and his levels were at .8. Okay, let me just rejoice in the Lord and go through this again. We started off with Jude's levels being at 18.5, we did 2 bottles a day with soy I continued to breastfeed the other feedings...we did blood work again after 2 weeks they went down to 6.8, I didn't change anything in the way of feedings...we went back 3 weeks later and did more blood work and now his levels are at .8, a normal person with the full enzyme is below 1. Only God can do this! When the geneticist called me she was amazed, I was on the other end smiling and rejoicing. We don't have to have anymore appointments where they have to try to take blood from his tiny little veins and I want to cry because it breaks my heart watching them search for a vein...Jude will not have to be put on a lactose free diet...we've been given a victory.

I want to end with saying again how good our God is and we are so undeserving of His kindness. The night before the appointment with the geneticists Todd and I prayed that God would do something, what we didn't know, but that He would just take care of Jude. People He did better than just take care of Jude.