There will be a poker run on June 23 at Shucker's in Florence. This was actually planned before Jacob passed away, but is now being done to help pay funeral expenses. For those of you who don't know, a child with medical problems is not insurable, so Jacob had no life insurance. If you want more information please email me or you can call me at 843-206-2276.

As you saw on the main page, Jacob passed away on May 4, 2007. He went into the hospital with pneumonia, as he has many times, but this time he just couldn't fight it anymore. I know that some people do not understand why I didn't choose to bring him home on a ventilator, but those who knew Jacob understand. Yes, Jacob was a sick child and yes he had a lot of health problems, but he was extremely active and happy all of the time. I could not be selfish and bring him home on a ventilator and watch him be miserable. If you have questions please feel free to email me.

Jacob has been to see a cardiologist and we got really good news. He was given the okay to have the surgery on his spine. We will have to go back to NY in a couple of months that will cost us another $1600 at least. Out last trip cost us almost $10,000 with doctors visits and travel costs. The surgery will be done up there, but only if we can raise the money to do so. It will be hundreds of thousands of dollars to have the surgery done. Please continue to donate. We did raise enough money to make that trip, but now we have to continue to raise money to have this surgery done. If anybody has any fundraising ideas please email me. I can use any ideas I can get.

Thank you to everyone that helped with the yard sa;e on October 7. It was a great success! Along with the yeard sale we raffled off several items. As soon as I get the names of the winners and the total amount raised, I will update the site. Thank you!!

First of all, I want to say thank you to everyone who has donated, you will never know how much it all means to us. We did finally raise enough money to go to New York for Jacob's first consultation on September 14. Apparantly, based on the MRI images, the doctors were expecting a completely different child. Based off of the images alone, Jacob should not be functioning anywhere near the level he is. Basically, no plans for surgery have been made, but we will have to go back to NY in about 3 to 4 months for a follow up. Jacob has 2 syrinxes( a buildup of spinal fluid on his spinal cord). One of them is pretty large and is consuming about 80% of his spinal cord. This could be what is causing problems with his breathing but they're not exactly sure. They wanted us to see a Cardiologist to have a heart catheterization done as step 1 to either confirm or rule out the pulmonary hypertension diagnosis that we got from MUSC. Apparantly, a heart cath is the only way to know that diagnosis for sure. He also told us to prop him up at night because of his reflux problems and that might help as well. Jacob also has a tethered cord which means his spinal cord is attached to a place in his back where it shouldn't be. His is attached at where is opening was originally in his back. The doctors really don't want to do any surgery unless he starts to go backwards in development because there is a very high risk that draining the syrinx would paralyze him. They have to put a hole into the spinal cord and drain the extra fluid out. Plus, if Jacob's heart is in as bad of shape as the people at MUSC think it is, it wouldn't be safe to put him to sleep. They have ordered him to get massage therapy because they seem to think it would help him. So, as for right now, we are going to a cardiologist in October to see about the heart cath and then we will go from there. Our problem is that whether is does have a surgery or not, either way the syrinxes could possibly paralyze him. As he grows, the tethered cord will pull the chiari down further and cause more damage. We are just taking it one step at a time. I will keep updating as I know more. Thank you again to everyone that has donated.