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!