[summer.phillips]

cole and i made our weekly trek to children's mercy today to meet with his eye dr.  today was the first time we've seen him since cole's surgery because he was out of town last week for spring break.  dr cassel said that he had been thinking a lot about cole's situation while he was on vacation and he thinks the best thing for us to do now is to go to detroit michigan to the best pediatric retina specialist in the country, named dr trese.  dr cassel said that dr trese gets all the really difficult cases from all over the country and that going to him for the next surgery would give cole the best chance to see again. i'm not sure why this news feels so heavy to me but it does.  we were hopeful that the cataract and debris removal would be an easy fix but now we know that it is not going to be that simple.....nothing with cole's eyes ever is, so i should not be surprised.  we did not expect this news today but the dr said that cole's case is extremely complicated [and i don't think he expected what he got in cole's last surgery....as i said before, dr cassel was visibly frustrated when the surgery was finally over] he said that the procedure that he did last time was not successful and so it probably would not be successful the second time around so he feels that cole's best chance is to have someone else with experience handling difficult cases to do it. we have not done any research on retina specialists yet so we are going to talk to his glaucoma specialist at duke before we make the final decision on who to take him to next.  we may decide to go back to duke if that is what dr freedman recommends. all we know right now is that cole can not be helped [surgically] anymore here in kc so...our journey continues.  we have been blessed by so many of you along the way and we are sooo thankful.  know that God is using you all to help us and that your prayers and gifts have been a huge blessing.  we have received meals, gift cards, and money from so many people...some that we do not even know! if it weren't for those gifts we would not have been able to pay our bills this month so thank you, thank you, thank you....i can't tell you enough how much it means to us.