if you know the Burdette Family, you love them. Let’s show them our love by praying for them and if you are able, blessing them financially to help with Blakily and Cooper’s growing medical bills. We love you Shawn and Jordyn!

The Burdette story in Jordyn‘s words:

Over a year ago we started seeing some changes with our 7 year old daughter Blakily . She was falling a lot and having gait issues . She was having almost daily headaches and vomiting a few times a week . She was having leg pain and lots of numbness in her arms and legs . We were seeing some cognitive changes and short term memory issues .She was in the hospital twice and had many test ran but we were unable to figure out what was causing these progressive changes to her body . Then in February we went to Vanderbilt hospital and we saw a neuromuscular specialist that diagnosed her with dopa responsive dystonia . This is a progressive condition similar to Parkinson’s disease. Only 1 in 2 million people have this . She is now on a medicine that will hopefully keep her symptoms minimal .Just as we were processing this devastating diagnosis coopers bladder stopped emptying in April . Cooper has a spinal cord condition called tethered spinal cord . Many of you graciously helped us get him to Boston for spinal surgery in 2020 . Due to his spinal cord condition he has developed neurogenic bladder. His bladder was filling up and backing up into his kidneys. Thankfully we caught it early and he only had minor Hydronephrosis to one side. Cooper has been in the hospital around 9 times since April . We were having to catheterize him every 4 hours which as you can imagine has been hard on the whole family . He ended up having surgery to have a Supra pubic catheter put in because the nurses were unable to get a catheter in at the hospital . Now we drain his urine from a port located on his belly . We love this port but he has been in excruciating pain because his bladder is trying to push out this catheter . We have had some hard times but nothing has compared to seeing our baby boy in this much pain . There are no words to describe the heartache and panic we have felt hearing him scream the last few weeks around the clock .He will scream and hold his groin for hours . He is on multiple medicines to try and control his pain . The next step will be to inject his bladder with Botox to get it to calm down . We will also be sending his mri to Boston to see if his neurosurgeon thinks his spinal cord has retethered. In June he will be going to Vanderbilt to be seen by Blakilys nueromuscular doctor to see if he also may have dopa responsive disorder . This condition is genetic so they will both be having genetic testing done . We are also currently working on getting cooper a mobility device to use part time . He does fine during every day activities but after playing hard his legs start just giving out every few steps . This makes him very upset and he ends up missing out on the fun.We think this will be a great tool for him to use as he needs intermittently for traveling, festivals, parks etc. Please pray over these things . We are so thankful Blakily is no longer in pain now she is on her medicine . She said this was a birthday gift from God . She said the best gift she could get is to no longer be in pain . We desperately want this for cooper too. So please be praying we are able to get his pain under control . We are so grateful to everyone for the prayers and encouraging words over the years .