another yale update

he's home!!! yay!!!

Yale update

check out his blog for details. keep him and tanna in your prayers. thanks!

http://babyboyseaton.blogspot.com/2008/10/still-at-sick-kids.html

yup, he can talk... now if only he'd stop once in a while!

i'm not kidding, he even talks with the soother still in his mouth! now, i'll admit i'm a bit of a newbie to the world of soothers, given that the other kids prefered me over anything else and both flat-out refused soothers (ok, i didn't even offer one to blithe, but we all know what bram's like... total mama's boy, he only wanted me, and if he couldn't have me, nothing else would do). but really, i would have assumed that the whole point of the soother is to stop noise from coming from the child's mouth. or am i wrong here? have i been misinformed somewhere along the way?

anyhoo... asher talks. a lot. like, all day. non-stop. suddenly, i'm the quiet one in the house! stop laughing, it's true. you doubt? allow me to illustrate:

today, i was getting asher dressed for his appointment with dr b (asher's fine, just an ear infection - another first in the family! - and that's causing his heart to work harder than usual, which is causing all the cardiac-looking symptoms). i went to put on his socks. i put on the first one. no biggie. then he picked up the second one.

me: where does that go?
asher: sock... toes.

look at that, folks! an (almost) sentence! how do you like them apples, eh?! :)

not that i'm counting down or anything...

in exactly 2 months, Asher turns 2!!!!!!!!!!!!

who knew he would make it this far, eh? and he's still going strong! yay, asher! :)

yes, but we got to come right home!!! how much do i like dr b!!!!

so, i took asher in to paeds today. he's been pale (not even the rosy cheeks!), sweaty, puffy, refluxing, short of breath, and when he sleeps, his arms and feet are almost charcoal grey. not pretty.

so i took him in to see dr bertoldi today, who checked his sats. 87%! (i'm loving post-Coles! it would seem as though asher likes having blood flow to and from his lungs) everything else seemed fine. even his liver was, to doc's surprise, right where it's supposed to be. imagine that, a liver tucked up in its own little nook, as though that's where it should be or something. she also checked his ears. his right ear is not red, per se. it's more along the lines of pink-ish. so basically, i'm to keep an eye on him and if he needs to be seen, he needs to be seen. sheesh! it's like she thinks i keep him away from doctors as much as possible, waiting as long as i can stand it to take him in. now, where would she get that idea, i wonder... lol

here's what you need to take away from this post: no meds, no call to liz, no trip to emerg. delightful! here's hoping dr b remembers this next time we're in, and we can repeat this. no more "yeah, i'm calling liz." (hint hint) ;)

something normal... and it was wonderful!

i took the kids to Springwater for a nature walk yesterday. it was wonderful. the weather was perfect for a hike: cool, with no rain in the woods, not too bright, not too dark, absolutely perfect!

i wore asher in the sling yesterday, too. i haven't been able to do that with him. i think he only ever went in the sling once, and he threw up all over me (obviously before we had his reflux under control!). so this whole time, he's been in the stroller. but let me tell you, it's not easy taking a stroller for a hike. so, i decided to wear him, and then he could walk for a bit, too.

it was nice to wear him. i wore the other kids so much, and i've been feeling a bit like i've been missing out a bit. i just haven't had nearly as much "cuddle time" with asher as i'd have liked. but you know what? he loved the sling!!! he spent the whole time chatting with me, pointing out things he saw ("tee," "chi-uk" [chipmunk, for those unversed in toddler-with-throat-issues-speak], "eef," "bam bife" [bram and blithe, according to asher], and of course, "mummum" which is what he calls me... awww!), giving me hugs and winks and loving every bit of "mummum" time. and i wasn't complaining, either! :) it all felt so normal, so simple, so perfect.

a couple times he wanted down from the sling, so i obliged. you can see for yourself how much he enjoyed that. [dr bertoldi, stop reading for a minute... just skip ahead a couple sentences... you don't need to read this next bit. i'll tell you when to start reading again.] but he was so short of breath, he'd be huffing and puffing pretty fiercely within a minute or so of walking, which isn't so normal for him lately, but i'm going to tell myself that hiking is more strenuous than running around the house. yeah, that works. [ok, dr b, you can start reading again.] he loved chasing after blithe and bram, and the older two loved being able to sit on the ground with him and look for acorn caps. [yikes! paeds should probably ignore that sentence, too. kids with no t-cells shouldn't really play in the dirt. so, dr b, just ignore this whole paragraph. thanks. lol]

it was, at least by my standards, a perfect morning. and i hope we have many, many more of these. so let's all touch some wood and say a little prayer and light a candle and do whatever it is we do to beg and plead to the cosmos for some stability, health and happy/normal days for asher and the rest of us. fall is upon us, my friends, which means that, for my immunodeficient boy, there will likely be many trips to paeds, who will call cardio, who will say "to emerg with him!" who will now have to actually look for something wrong because it's not hot out anymore. and let me tell you, that's not nearly as fun as it sounds. i'm hoping that none of the new cardios will know how i take my coffee (black, hint hint) for a very long time.

and while i've got your attention, an update on yale: he's being admitted in toronto tomorrow for a sedate echo, CT scan, and who knows from there. likely a cath and a barrage of other tests. please, God, let him just need a med change. anything else is just too much. please keep yale and tanna in your prayers. i'll post when i have details. or you can check for yourself; the link is on the sidebar. thanks. :)

please pray...

asher's friend yale is having some trouble right now. he's heading to SickKids this week for an MRI, and from there they'll determine what needs to be done. there are many possibilities; the big three are

1. med change. this is the easiest, for everyone, especially for Yale and his mom, Tanna.
2. surgery.
3. transplant (if the other 2 "solutions" don't work).

you can imagine this is a very stressful time for them. please pray for them and the doctors. the link to yale's blog is on the side bar (i think it's the first one listed under "Heart Journeys"). check out his blog for all the details. thanks.