Introduction to Jackson's Journal

For all of our family and friends, we have created this blog of Jackson's Journal as a place you can come and see how our special little guy is doing. Below are posts of the 1st and 2nd email updates we sent. We'll be posting updates on this site as we get time and we hope everyone continues to pray for Jackson as he gets stronger and grows over the next few months. Thank you.

P.S. You can also find pictures of Jackson on our family picture website at the following link:

http://spiess-archives.phanfare.com

3rd Email Update

Dear Friends and Family-


Kyle and I wanted to continue to thank you all for your thoughts, prayers and offers to help us. We appreciate everything everyone is doing for us. We can't thank you enough!


Jackson had a few good days in a row last week which was a relief. He was transported to St. David's Hospital downtown on Friday and had his PDA ligation on Sunday. He is now over 36 hours post op and is doing well. Infact, they weighed him yesterday and he is 2 lbs 11 ounces! We are very excited. Just the fact they were comfortable weighing him was a good sign. He is still on the oscillator and nitric and oxygen but we like to move slowly and take baby steps.

Jackson hasn't been working his nurses so hard either as they actually have had time to sit down and write their notes- he tends to keep the nurses at his bedside and we are thankful he is giving them a break. We pray he continue to progress in this direction. He is 3 weeks and 3 days today.

We can't thank you all enough- please continue to pass on to anyone praying for him.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

2nd Email Update

Hello Everyone,

Here is a status on Jackson Eric Spiess. Our little man keeps things changing which thankfully is good as of today. We pray he keeps up the way he has been for the last 3 days. Right now he has gone down on his O2 which is great- he was hanging out at 100% which isn't good but today he is at 42% - he is still on the oscillator which mom hopes they keep him on to give his lungs a rest- lungs looked okay the last two days but today they looked a little worse. Sunday we found out he has another infection, gram negative, which can be from the stomach- we are still waiting to see the strand and what is the best antibioticc to use- but they were proactive and have him on an antibiotic. I know you may think we are crazy when we say we are having a good day but still find out he has another infection- but considering all the news we had received and the way Jackson looked prior to these past 3 days, we are very very thankful for the "good" days. We can thank everyone enough! We appreciate all the thoughts,prayers, emails, care basket and meals. We ask that everyone continues to keep Jackson in your thoughts and prayers I know they are helping our little man. Thank you to everyone who has donated blood! I can't believe we would be in the situation where we might not have blood or platelets for Jackson but there we were Saturday- with the nursing staff calling San Antonio and Dallas to find his type of blood. Jackson and the area blood banks are in need 0 negative blood- Jackson had to get blood from Dallas on Saturday- today the Austin bank had some blood for him - thankfully- but Jackson and I am sure many other micropreemies and patients will be needing more blood- he has had 11 blood transfers in 2 weeks 2 days.

Thank you Thank you Thank you!

1st Email Update

Dear Family and Friends,

Kyle and I can't thank everyone enough for all their support. We appreciate everyone's thoughts , prayers , emails and support and we ask that you keep praying for Jackson Eric Spiess. We wanted to reach out to everyone and give them a status on how Jackson is doing. Feel free to pass this letter on to everyone who is praying for our little guy as we believe the prayers are helping. Jackson was born on September 23rd at 1:32 a.m. 1 lb, 15 oz. He will be 2 weeks old in 1 hour! He was doing okay considering how old he is, until around last Friday when we found he had an infection. The infection has taken a toll on his lungs but he is a trooper and is working hard to get better. In the interim we found out he has a PDA (Heart murmur) which is common in preemies. He was given some medicine to close the murmur but thankfully the murmur didn't close. The reason I say this is because the blood flow has changed directions through the murmur which actually made it better for Jackson's weak lungs. If the murmur had closed down while his blood flow through the PDA changed in direction then it would have flooded his lungs with blood. I am sure I don't need to explain the affects this would have caused and we are very thankful that this didn't happen. We pray that the steroids he is getting for his lungs help and do not cause any permanent damage to his lungs or brain. We continuously are weighing consequences every time something is done to help Jackson out. Jackson has had two head ultrasounds thus far and we are very happy to hear that there hasn't been any damage to the blood vessels in his head and he doesn't have clots or hemorrhaging of the head. We thank God and everyone's prayers for these results and for the wonderful medical team working on him. He has many wonderful caring nurses and excellent physicians looking out for him. We also would like to thank every one who has sent cards, food and been there to help us with the house, the animals and moving furniture. We are very thankful to have such wonderful family and friends. I will do my best to keep everyone posted on Jackson's status. Thank you again for everything!