End of a good run.

This morning Sam and I are headed to Madison to visit with a surgeon to assess Sam's central line site. Not the way I really wanted to spend the day, but, it is what it is.

From the time that Sam was about a year old until last November we were dealing with chronic infections at Sam's central line exit site. This is the spot on his chest where his tunneled line exits his body. This line goes directly into a large vein near his heart and is how all of his nutrition and hydration are delivered to him.

That period of time was extremely frustrating for us. This is Sam's life line and there are only so many places that one can be placed. It is possible to use them up - and Sam is not four years old yet - so any replacement is a serious deal.

For the last several weeks Sam's site has been irritated and draining a little. We have been treating with antibiotic cream and it was looking better. This week, however, it has become painful and looks to be infected.

Adding to the stress of that, our surgeon in Madison (who trained in Boston) moved out of state. I am sure that the replacement surgeons we have been offered are more than competent, but having someone here that knew our doctors in Boston personally was an added bonus that we will greatly miss.

I am hoping that we can come up with a plan today that will not involve replacing this line, but we have been through this before with Sam and know all to well that he tends to not recover from these types of infections and it is just a matter of time before the line will need to be replaced.

Where has the time gone?

We have had a very busy and healthy summer. Just one short admission in early summer and we have been busy ever since.

The summer was full of fun, with trips to the waterpark, amusement park, and day trips to the campground.

In between all of that the neighborhood kids spent a lot of time at our house over the summer playing in the yard or the pool. Sam loved spending time with all of the kids.

He made some great friends and really got to socialize more than he probably ever has before.

Unfortunately, the summer had to come to an end. (Who am I kidding, we were all ready for school to start). Sam was excited to get back to school as you can see from his smile as we waited for the bus yesterday.

When the bus arrived I didn't even get so much as a goodbye and he was up the steps on his way to school. The past three and a half years have just gone by way too fast.