Belated update

Well, I tried to do an update from the hospital Saturday evening and it was lost in cyberspace. Saturday was a boring day in the hospital day--which was just fine with us. We snuggled a lot and watched LOTS of episodes of the old TV Superman show. James is pretty fun to watch--he does the motions to the whole "faster-than-a-speeding-bullet; stronger-than-a-locomotive; able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. It's a bird, it's a plane......"

Mostly our goal was to keep him lying down, so the ever-so-slight pressure of the g-tube button inside his belly didn't press inside preventing further erosion and allowing healing to begin. Saturday night, we began using James' g-tube for feeding and Sunday morning he got a bolus of formula. There was no leakage and it didn't seem like it was getting any worse, so they discharged us on Sunday.

Between the time James got his IV out and we left, he was walking around (with the help of a Little Tikes shopping cart toy) and visiting some of the nurses. One even commented that she didn't know that James could use his legs! He was really doing great and all the nurses that had seen him back in April (when he had colitis and got his ileosotomy) were pretty excited for him. Of course, we were glad to head home and even more glad to BE home!

During our visit at the hospital, we ran in to Nathan Suerdieck and his mom, Allison. Nathan was having a BMT for a rare disease called, HLH. It usually occurs in small children, but Nathan got it last year in his teens. Just a year ago, they weren't sure he would even make it. Nathan has lots of medical issues to deal with now, but he has a great attitude and Allison is a big encouragement to me too. They live just 25 miles away from us, but we had lost touch when we all left the hospital... so we exchanged info and now we can keep in touch! If you would like to learn more about Nathan or pray for him (I know he and his family would be grateful), you can look him up on http://www.carepages.com/ and enter his name.

When we 'moved in' from the car to the hospital, we met a very helpful young man on the elevator, Germaine, whose five-year-old son had been in the hospital for a week with inexplicable high blood pressure. We talked and shared and were able to pray with him. I'm sure he would appreciate any prayers you might offer for his precious son.

One thought I did have about regular hospital visits is to wonder if James would do better when he finally gets his ileostomy reversed, if we have some regular contact with the hospital and some of the nurses.

I should have written sooner (I did try last night, but couldn't sign it), because I don't remember all the silver linings from this visit, but there were more...

As always, the best part is coming home! Thanks for praying for us and checking in on us.

Love, Stephanie