Making Progress

James has been doing excellent at home. When we brought him home on Monday he looked pale and it was obvious he had lost lots of weight, his face had thinned and his eyes looked sunken in. He looks much better now, home is excellent medicine!! After some debate on Tuesday, we decided to put him back on his regular feeding schedule of 4 large feeds (meals) a day right away, plus 1 small (snack) feed. We started him at a slower rate then normal giving him less volume per feed then normal. Things went well on Tuesday and so Wednesday we slowly bumped him up each feed until at the end of the day he was back to his normal volume and speed. We were happy with how quickly he was able to go back to this schedule without any trouble, as so many times before we've had trouble with very small adjustments to his volume or speed. The quick return to normal was especially good because we were concerned about what would happen to his weight if we had to progress really slowly.

Except for the occasional cough when he lays down and a few slightly raised temperatures, James is back to normal; actually he's better then normal. We're not sure what happened, but he continues to be more interested in food. All day long he wants food. He's obsessed with Rice Krispies right now, which are okay for him in moderation, but he's starting to get to the point where he's past moderation. We are battling to teach him that he can't eat all day or whenever he wants, but there are specific times to eat. We often find him whining by the cupboard of the Rice Krispies, asking for another handful of them. He will not eat any other snacks, only Rice Krispies right now. He is also eating his meals well. We have even seen him go to the dishwasher and get his dirty bowl out of there and pick the leftover crumbs out of it because supper wasn't ready yet and he was hungry. We used to always give him 3 options per meal in order to encourage him. He would get a pasta, rice, and pureed fruit. He would pick a bit here and there but seldom ate a whole lot. We now only give him one item of pasta OR rice as we find he'll only focus on one, but he'll actually eat about 10 times more then before. I give him more generous servings then we used to and it's still not uncommon for him to ask for a 2nd serving and then eat most of it. He also continues to like ketchup and salad dressings. Before he would eat 1-2tsp of it, now he'd be happy to eat a whole bowl of the stuff. We're so happy to see this interest in food, (not really the ketchup part), but we wonder how long it will last. At this point we're going on the assumption that it's because he's making up for what he lost. At first he wasn't getting full volume, so he was likely hungry, and now he's only been on full volume for a few days ... we'll see how long this lasts, but we're enjoying it while it does.

We had a few more appointments this week. Nothing of huge importance. I did see the pediatrician on Tuesday, more just to review what had happened in hospital. She was actually already well informed, since she had talked to the doctor we had in the hospital just before we were discharged. We found it interesting that she told us the doctor we had did not believe that it was the para influenza 3 that caused James' hospital stay. I know my pediatrician did not think that this was the cause, and the doctors at the hospital knew that we did not believe it was, but we question why they wouldn't admit that they felt we were right. In hospital they kept trying to convince us that his symptoms did fit the description of the virus, they knew they weren't convincing us, but they kept trying. I do believe that at first the doctor really thought it was the influenza, but after a few days came to realize there must be something else because we really seen her change her attitude after a couple days, or maybe it was just because she knew we were going to stand our ground and not be easily swayed. I also realize that they couldn't do any further investigation because the fever disappeared (mysteriously as soon as he went onto antibiotics again) and they didn't reappear, so their hands were tied because the swab showed the influenza, but they could have simply admitted that they felt we were likely right. So now it's all a wait and see to see whether any of this will come back again. Our pediatrician is on call in January, so if it does we sure hope it's then.

It's good to be back together as a family, altho I must admit I haven't been the most pleasant person this week. Still fighting this cold, head congestion and borderline ear infection, the echoing from the congested ears drives me nuts. But oh well, I think we're finally making progress. Rob finished his exams on Tuesday and has been hard at work around the house the last few days getting that honey-do list caught up ... or at least attempting to.