Allen’s Story

Site created on March 2, 2022

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement.  Mostly, we appreciate your prayers for Allen and our family.  Thank you for visiting.  

Allen has been diagnosed with familial adenomatous polyposis. He will have the first surgery to remove his colon and rectum on April 19th. The second surgery to redirect his digestive tract will happen after he has healed from the first surgery, hopefully 6-8 weeks later.


David and I had been noticing that Allen was tired. He would come home from soccer this fall/winter and before his BUSA soccer practices, I would call for him upstairs to remind him it was time to leave for practice. I always found him asleep in his bed. Allen has always been an early riser and never really napped, so we thought this was odd. We had also heard from his BUSA coach, Josh Greene and Coach Webb at MBHS through Coach Josh that Allen was having trouble keeping up.   He was not feeling well in early November so I decided to take him to our pediatrician, Dr. Robert Sellers. .  As we discussed how he was feeling with the cold and sinus issues, we decided it would be a good idea to do a blood panel.  The results from the blood panel returned with anemia. Of course, we thought that the anemia explained the tiredness, but why was he anemic? Dr. Sellers put him on an iron supplement and rechecked his levels 4 weeks later.  After the recheck, the levels did not improve much. We proceeded with testing of his stool, as anemia is common in teenage girls but not in teenage boys. Since there was blood in the stool, we were referred to Children's. Dr. Mestre saw us at Children's and, after an office visit, he wanted to proceed with an endoscopy and colonoscopy.  Allen had those test done on Jan. 31st. 4 weeks later, we met with the surgeon at UAB to discuss removal of the whole colon. 

Newest Update

August 14, 2022

Journal entry by Kim Hobbs —

It's been a wild ride.  So thankful to be on this side of colon surgery.  The unknowns and sickness was overwhelming but we made it through with the help of friends and family praying for our boy.  Also with an amazing surgeon and team at UAB! We can't say thank you enough! Many emotions in our house as the girls moved to college this past week and Allen has started his senior year.  He's back playing soccer on his fall league team and even scored a goal this past weekend. He's still trying to get back into running shape but has been working out and gaining weight.

He will met with the new GI doctor in September that will follow his progress and we will return to the surgeon in December for a scan just to make sure all is well.  Hopefully I'm signing off for awhile but again thank you for loving our boy and our family through this process.  Praise be to God! 

Also please reach out if you have any questions about his procedure and go get your colonoscopy! 😍 

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