Day 91 - 3 Months

Today is day 91 of Joshua's life and hospital stay. We have just 15 days left until Christmas and his homecoming, I hope. Joshua is three months old now!! I can't believe he's already that old. Wow.

He is doing much better as far as surgery recovery goes. He is no longer on any pain medication and is as happy as can be. In fact he rarely even whines. His incision is healing beautifully and the sites where the stomas were have scabbed over and are also healing well. He weighs around 12 pounds 8 ounces right now. He gained some weight last week and has lost a little over the past few days.

Feeding is still on hold. We tried to feed him on Monday, but after two 10ml bottles, he started vomiting. He ended up vomiting several times that day and they decided to put the NG tube back in to help him empty his stomach. He still has the tube in and he's still having a large amount of stuff coming out.

Tomorrow we're doing a test to help determine why he's having such troubles getting things to go down. We're basically trying to determine if he's got a spot in the intestines that's not open, or if we just have a motility problem where things are just not moving. So they'll be doing a barium enema and watching via x-ray to see if the liquid can make it's way all the way up the stomach. If for some reason, they can't get it to the stomach just because of how big he is, then we'll have to wait until Monday and do they test from the mouth done. It would really stink to have to have that test because those are more days we'll just be waiting. I'm so tired of waiting.

I really don't know what we'll do other than wait (and I'm tired of waiting) if it's diagnosed as a closed spot. I think the theory at this time is that if it's closed, we just have to wait for it to open. But if it's just motility, there are drugs we can use to try and get things moving. Oh, how I hope it's that. His Dr. believes it's motility. I hope he's right. So after we get a diagnosis, we'll know more of what's going to happen. It's looking bleak for a Christmas homecoming, but I'll have hope until 11:59pm December 24th. God has done much bigger things than this, so I know He can do it, if it's His will. Plus, even if we do miss Christmas, I know my son will get out of the hospital and come home sometime soon. I know it. And that gets me through these tough times. I remind myself of what I used to say during my very short stint in the Army (if you didn't know I had a short stint in the Army, ask me about it the next time you see me!!), whenever we were being made to do all these horribly physical "punishments" I would recite to myself "this too shall pass" over and over and that's what I'm telling myself now.



The rest of us are doing ok. Abby is loving cheerleading!! She is doing cheers and cartwheels all the time! It's driving poor Noah crazy! He is having a great time in basketball. They are both so ready for Christmas. I wrapped most of their presents the other night and when they woke up in the morning they were amazed! Our tree is bursting!! I'm trying to get the playroom organized and cleaned up. I want to re-do my scrapbook room/closet to allow for some toy storage in there as well. I'm also working on some ornaments for Joshua's nurses and therapists to give to them when we're about to go home. We're having meals delivered from our church the next few weeks. That's really a great help. We also got a package of cookies delivered to our door from the church. They were yummy!! We've enjoyed lots of Christmas cartoons and movies. Charlie Brown and Elf are my favorites! The kids really enjoyed the new Prep and Landing, I slept through it!!

Well I'm off, it's Survivor time!! Please pray for the test tomorrow. Pray for a diagnosis from that one test and that we can finally get things moving and get that baby eating. And please pray for peace and calmness for Steve and I as we are really feeling pushed to our limits right now. It's just been sooooo long. And please pray for Noah and Abby who have been such troopers through all this and may end up with a delayed Christmas. They really have taken everything so well and I hate asking them to postpone it if necessary, but they happily agreed. They're such good kids. I'm so blessed.