Clayton Health Update - 8/18/26

From Darby: It was been a while since we have written an update, so we figured it was time to bring you up to speed. After Clayton’s spinal fusion on May by Dr. Staub in Dallas, he came home to recuperate and do outpatient physical therapy work when he was cleared to do so. But with the amount of medication he was on from all the pain, it made it difficult for outpatient therapy to be as effective as we needed it to be for him to really make significant progress after such a major surgery. So we worked on adjusting medications and decided that an inpatient physical therapy rehabilitation facility would be the best option for Clayton to make significant progress. So he spent 2.5 weeks at Trust Point and was able to do just that- he was able to come home and not use his walker anymore for short distances and has been able to work much harder on outpatient physical therapy as well! We can not speak highly enough about Trust Point!

We were also looking into other options for his treatment and have decided to move forward with MD Anderson and have an appointment for September 9th!!! PTL!!! Clayton will continue taking the kinase inhibitor and other non-traditional forms of treatment until we go. Because our insurance doesn’t cover MD Anderson, it was going to cost $20,000 to become a self paying patient, BUT God answered our prayers!! Southcrest Baptist Church provided the funds for us to go! We are so overwhelmed by God’s faithfulness and their generosity…God continues to remind us in just the exact moment of despair just how much He loves us and reminds us that He is still walking through this with us. ❤️

We also just went for our first in person follow up with Clayton’s doctor in Dallas who did his spinal fusion. Dr Staub said everything for the most part looked good- he said one rod had pulled out of a screw at the very top of the fusion but the bone was still healing correctly so it shouldn’t matter right now. He is going to have us do an mri in 3 months to make sure the bones are healing correctly and everything is still looking good at that spot. Clayton has a spot on his spine that is still healing from the surgery incision, that reopened from some pressure, and he doesn’t love the way the wound is looking or how long it’s taking to heal, so we will have a plastic surgeon in Dallas close that wound since it has not closed after 6 weeks with wound care. He also wants to have an mri done when we get back to Lubbock to check his t4, which is where one of his lesions is. He wants to make sure there hasn’t been significant growth there that would be causing nerve compression and making it difficult for clayton to have strength in his legs or causing pain. If there is, we would need to come back for him to possibly do another surgery, and then most likely have MDA do radiation or whatever treatment they saw fit. So once the orders clear, we will have the mri done on Lubbock for Staub to determine what the next step will be for the t4 spot.

We clearly still have a long road ahead of us, but so much progress has been made, and it is all because of the goodness of God and prayers of everyone of you. I know I say this every update, but we truly could not do this without you standing in the gap with us. Thank you for fighting for my family with me. At times you’ve done it for me when I couldn’t do it myself. ❤️