John Douglass

Our verse for John, James 1:17 "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning."

John had an appointment with his geneticist, Dr. Escobar, today. The Doctor says he looks great and he can now go to a once a year schedule! In August it’ll be a year since his last ultrasound, so he’ll get one done then. We’ll then do a follow up with Dr. Escobar to go over the results and then not see him until August of 2009. What an answer to prayer!

That was a quick update for everyone who knows what is going on with John. For those of you who don’t know, here are two posts I took from John’s Carebridge.org site that I wrote almost a year ago, so you are not kept in the dark.

March 2007
John Douglass was born January 21, 2003 and after his birth Monte and I noticed that the left side of his lip and upper lip was severely bruised. The Doctors told us that he probably hit my pelvic bone on the way out and it would go away. The bruising took way too long to go away and he lip seemed really puffy. Starting at 6 months we took John to doctor after doctor and they all referred us to other doctors. This was a very frustrating part we had no clue what was going. Often a question was, "what is wrong with him and why doesn't anyone know the answer." By the time he was a year we noticed that his teeth were not coming in on the upper left side and the gum tissue was larger than normal.

I had had enough, so I went to our pediatrician in August 2006 and asked her what we should do next. She recommended we go to a pediatric geneticist. We had to wait three months for this appointment, but it was well worth the wait!

The geneticist, Dr. Escobar, immediately knew what John's medical condition was... hemihypertrophy. It is when one side of the body grows quicker than the other. There is no cure and they are not sure what cause is. After doing an extensive exam he also noticed that other parts of the body were different sizes, not just his mouth. He ordered a blood test and an ultrasound. The blood work came back fine. The ultrasound came back with his right kidney enlarged but functioning fine (very common with this condition).

At the follow up appointment three months later (February 2007) he referred us to an oral surgeon to get a biopsy of his gum tissue. We saw the oral surgeon in March and was scheduled the biopsy surgery on April 2, 2207.


APRIL 06, 2007
John had his biopsy surgery on Monday and it went well. He was only given laughing gas and was awake for the whole procedure! The doctor also took out more of his gum tissue to expose his baby teeth on the left side. He still has Tylenol through the day, but last night was the first night he didn't wake up in pain. We have a follow up appointment on the 16th to get the results of the biopsy (the results were fine).