Cleveland Clinic, the end of summer, and a family of four

It's hard to believe the summer is almost over and school is about to begin again!  Of course it definitely doesn't feel like the end of summer since it's been over 100 degrees here lately.  We've had a busy few months and of course most of the things I had hoped to accomplish, were never done, but, some great memories were made - who will ever remember that the closets weren't cleaned or that math homework wasn't completed.

Since it's been awhile (again) since I've posted, this might be kind of long....sorry!

Since going to the Cleveland Clinic on July 23rd, we had a wonderful and restful week up at Glen Lake with my family in Michigan.  Tanner loved the water and playing with his cousins.  Here we are on the Sleeping Bear Dunes.

I have a lot of other pictures from Michigan, but, they're hard to add on here, so I'll add them to Facebook soon (hopefully).

After arriving home from Michigan we have enjoyed visits with Jon's family for a couple of weeks including a fun day at a waterpark in the Dallas area with the cousins.  Tanner loved that too!

So, for our trip to the Cleveland Clinic.  It was a tiring few days and on the way there, we discussed our hopes for the visit and both anticipated that we wouldn't really learn any new information, but, were happy to be able to have another opinion.  We were also unsure that all the traveling would be worthwhile, but, in the end we were very happy to have gone.  The doctor we met with is a pediatric neurologist who specializes in headaches.  After spending over 2 hours with us, we were pleasantly surprised that he had a new plan for Tanner.  There weren't any new medications, but, we were happy to follow up with a new plan.  He believes that Tanner does have both migraines (with cyclic vomiting syndrome) and daily chronic headaches.  He told us that it's very rare for children to have daily chronic headaches, but, that does appear to be the case.  For this, we're going to do some bloodwork and hopefully switch around his medications to try to get these better controlled.  For the migraines, we have a plan to follow as soon as his symptoms start with multiple medications that will hopefully control the migraine and avoid hospital visits.  He also has Tanner trying to avoid some specific items that can be triggers for migraines for the next 6 weeks. 

We were very thankful that our neurologist here sent us there and are eager to see if these new ideas will help.  What a blessing that we have knowledgeable doctors, the means to travel halfway around the country to find help, and health insurance to help with the expenses.  We're so thankful for all the Lord has provided!  We're sad that Tanner will probably always suffer with these headaches, but are thankful there are hopefully some ways to help him. 

So, one more bit of news....2 months from now, we may be a family of four!  It's a long story we'll have to write out here later, but, for now the short version is this.  There is a 13 year old boy in China who is deaf that may become our son by September 29th.  We would appreciate your prayers for this, for God's will to be done!  There's obviously a lot more to this story :)  this has been a possibility since the end of May and it's still up in the air as to whether everything will go through or not.  Adoptions in China are a lengthy process and so for this all to happen, will be a true miracle and a wonderful testimony.  Tanner is thrilled and prays every night for God to keep his brother safe.

Thanks for keeping up with us and caring for our family.