Doc

Nate had a great day at the pediatrician's yesterday. She was very pleased with the progress he has made. His weight is always a big concern and every little ounce matters. He is growing perfectly along his growth chart without any dips or plateaus. She was thrilled. They also said that his coloring looked really good, which is a good sign that his liver is improing. The size of both his liver and spleen have gone down alot as well, but are still enlarged. We will take every little bit that we get. He is continuing to do well moving his arms and legs and lifting his head. She would like for him to spend a little more time on his tummy to work on his upper body strength. As he gets stronger everyone feels that he will continue to improve. His reflux should get alot better when he starts sitting up on his own and eating solids they said. It would be nice. His hernia at this belly button has almost completely healed, again a sign that his muscles are developing and strengthening. She also felt that we won't need to get a "g" tube in his belly. She seemed confident that his progress with his feedings will get to the point where he can do it all by mouth. He has made so much progress over the past few weeks. He is even taking entire feedings solely by mouth at times. We try not to stress about it, but it is exciting when it happens. We go back to Atlanta at the end of September for another swallow study. He is really alot of fun right now smiling and laughing and really interacting with us. What a bundle of love.

Friends and family

Nate has been doing well. Just working on taking his bottle. He is taking about half of his feeds while he is awake by bottle. There are two feedings at night when we do not wake him up. We are working on our sleeping schedule, which no matter how hard we try changes every night. We keep hearing that "early to bed" later to rise. He has been falling asleep early the past couple of nights. We tried to put him in his crib around seven and he was not up for it. He is currently sleeping on Scott's chest. Oh well.

Grandaddy Green

Alicia and Janie came to visit

Portable DVD Players

What a wonderful creation. A friend of Scott's recommended that we try getting a portable dvd player to entertain him while he was in his carseat, which he hates. We had to go to Macon today for an appointment with the pulmonologist and Nate usually cries the entire way up and back. Not today. Nate is now the proud owner of a dvd player that plays his new best friend "Baby Einstein." He watched it the entire time. What a relief.

We got a good report from the pulmonologist. His oxygen saturation was 99%. AWESOME. The doc said that he felt that Nate looked alot better. He is retracting less when he breathes and he said that his liver felt alot smaller. His spleen is still pretty big and will continue to prevent us from getting a g tube (one in the belly). He made a good point in saying that hopefully Nate will be able to take enough of the bottle on his own soon without the help of his feeding tube and we will not have to deal with a g tube. It would be nice to avoid it completely because they would have to sedate him. He did focus on the upcoming flu and cold season. We still have to be very cautious with Nate and try our best to prevent them. A simple cold could cause Nate severe problems and he would end up back in the hospital and back on oxygen support. We will do our best to protect him.

Taproot photography took some more photos of Nate that turned out really cute. I will attach them.

Therapy Day

Today was a day of therapy. Nate's speech therapist came for the first time today. The speech therapist is actually the one that will help us work with Nate on his feedings. He was very impressed with the progress Nate has made since his initial evaluation of him. He felt that he was getting stronger and that time and Nate getting bigger and stronger will be the most beneficial to him. He also feels that the feeding tube in his nose could be contributing to his problems with aspiration, which is a catch 22 because he has the feeding tube because he aspirates. We have discussed putting his feeding tube directly into his stomach through a small a small hole in his belly. He is not a candidate for this yet since his spleen is still enlarged. The spleen is overlapping into the area where they would put a "g tube," which is a tube that goes through the belly. Time will tell.

We also had a great opportunity to talk with a physician that has a specialty with children with auditory neuropathy. She gave us alot of very valuable information and hope that Nate will have the opportunity to live a healthy and normal life. We are going to take things one day at a time and will we have a little bit better idea about his condition after we have the next hearing test in November.

Taproot Photography

Here are the pictures they took of Nate back in July. Nate was a really good sport.

Hello Friends and Family,
I thought it was time to retire from Carepages and start a webpage all about Nate and how much better he is doing on a daily basis. It is also alot easier to post pictures here. Some days are better than others and I thought this might be a good way to express what we are feeling, a type of therapy. A friend told Scott this weekend some really good advice. He said that when you are having a tough time, think back two or three weeks and see how far Nate has come. This blog will let us do that.

Things have been going well recently. Nate has been off oxygen for two weeks now and we are loving it. It is so nice to be able to pick him up and carry him around the room without thinking about getting tangled in a cord. He is also taking his bottle alot better since he no longer has the oxygen in his nose. The milk he takes is thickened since he aspirates when he takes normal milk. It is like a milkshake and takes alot of energy to take down so he still gets some of his feedings through his feeding tube. We will go back in October to see if he is still aspirating. Keep your fingers crossed.

Here are some pics of Nate over the past couple of weeks. Go to http://taprootphotography.com/blog/ to see some more pictures of Nate. This is the photographer's blog. Scroll down and you will see one titled "Little Miracle."