Saturday, September 13, 2008

Counting the Days

Sam is still doing well and took in the sights of Boston today. He had a very happy day. That is a few happy days in a row and a good sign that we may be close to going home.

One thing I forgot to mention before is that we have begun feeding Sam again. It has been a few weeks since we ran into a multitude of issues arising from his formula feeding. This week Deb started feeding him rice cereal, which he appears to hate the taste of, but eats it none the less. We are starting slowly so he is eating about 1/2 teaspoon a day right now, but it is nice to be able to have him eat again. I forgot to ask Mom what his weight is, so I will update that tomorrow.

Deb and I are both anxious to get home and have our family together again. I will be heading to Boston on Tuesday so I can attend Sam's appointment on Wednesday. Sam's direct bilirubin was still just above 4 this past week and we were told he would be in Boston until it hit 2. When Deb asked Dr. Puder if we should change our travel arrangements he said no. Hopefully this means he is very confident that the small decrease this past week was at least partially caused by the issues with the antibiotic. Deb pointed out that his green bile filled poo's stopped when he started having issues with the antibiotic and are back in full swing now. Hopefully his body is flushing out toxins in high gear.

I have had quite a few depressing experiences in the past two weeks:

First I noticed a sign in a gas station that listed the year you had to be born in to buy cigarettes. I then deduced that someone born the year I graduated from high school can now legally drive in most states. Has it really been that long?

Since we initially brought Sam home from the hospital we have obviously gone through many changes in our life. The biggest for us was when we were out in public. He tends to attract a lot of attention (or at least he did when he was so jaundiced) from strangers. While these people are well meaning, they almost always said something that was terribly insensitive. We grew accustomed to that, and always tried to blow it off. I was not, however, prepared for what I heard this week. Someone at work was trying to tell another person where to find my desk. I was just around the corner at the time. Person one starts telling person two what row my desk can be found in. Person 2 then said "Oh, is he the one with the sick kid?" I realized at that point that I will most likely be identified by the fact that I am the one with the sick kid for years to come and there is nothing I can do about it.

My four year old told me today that three plus four is seven and proceeded to prove it by taking three blocks and putting them in one pile, four in another pile, and then combining them and counting them. Then he told me that seven minus two is five and took two away and showed me that there were five blocks left. I am not sure when he learned addition and subtraction, but life is going by way too fast.

No comments:

Post a Comment