September

I love hearing from friends that check the blog. As we're all so busy, and overscheduled, it's a great way for everyone to stay abreast with River news. It also prevents me from having to explain things over and over again, which can be a bit tiring in itself.

River has been sick since Sunday... runny/stuffy nose, cough, occasional fever. It has made his vomiting worse, and keeps him up at night, which keeps us up at night. Julia started feeling sick yesterday so I've been on night duty by myself, and consequently staying home from work for the past 2 days. I am lucky to be able to do this with my new job. Everyone I work with is extremely supportive of what we're going through.

We've decided to go ahead with fundoplication surgery for River. It should help his vomiting tremendously. The surgeon will wrap the upper portion of the stomach around the lower portion of the esophagus. It is very common in children with feeding tubes, and hopefully will make feeding easier on all of us. For now we're feeding him smaller amounts more frequently, and adding a thickening agent which might be helping everything stay down a little better. Sometimes I feel like a mad scientist trying to figure out the exact formula for his comfort. The surgery will happen the 2nd weekend in October, and we are sadly, but necessarily, canceling/postponing our adult trip to Cape Cod.

One of the things that came from River's recent MRI, which I still have not blogged about, is the possibility of him having seizures. He had a 30 minute EEG when he was much younger which was very traumatic and showed no seizure activity. We'd been holding off on an overnight EEG until now. So we'll be scheduling that in the next few weeks, for which we'll be going to Boston.

And on top of all this scheduling we are planning to move this coming weekend. It's a local move into a 2 story home. Our good friends, Debbie and Patrick and their kiddos will be moving upstairs. It's a nice space with gardens and trails in the backyard. Still close to town and the heating will be much more affordable for us. Seems perfect to me but still a lot of work to get there. Julia and I are putting in a few hours each evening after he goes to bed.

And here are a few pictures for you...


Playing with Gee Gee while waiting to see the gastroenterologist.


Snuggling with his new monkey, a birthday gift from his Auntie Kelly.


King River sits in his laundry basket throne.


He likes to wrestle with his monkey (well, sort of), then take a nice nap together. Just like brothers!


Here I am, pretending to be a jogger. I've been out twice so far. I'm liking it, and River sleeps the entire time so I guess he likes it too.