Progressing Well

As the week progressed so did James' health ... or visibly so it seems. We realize that James does not display the severity of his disorder and so we have no idea what is going on inside, but he definitely seems to be doing well.

During the day he no longer requires oxygen and has been able to maintain some pretty steady levels in the 93-95% area. We are extremely thankful for the cooler weather which has allowed him to spend time outside. During the hot days we definitely seen how the extra activity combined with the humidty was not good for him ... even when we only let him outside during the evening when it was a bit cooler.

Last night was the first time we did not turn his oxygen on for the night. Until then we had been turning it on a low level when we went to bed, but we figured we'd have to give it a try a few times so we had a good idea how he was doing before our next doctors visit on Monday. We stopped putting his prongs on at nap-time but will continue to put them on a bedtime for a while as it's no fun waking him during the night to battle them on. James has adjusted well to many different things, but still continues to battle whenever we put them on. Thankfully as soon as they are on he's fine ... it's be awful if we had to tape them to his face every night.

We thank the Lord for the progress we have seen and continue to pray that this progress is due to his treatment and not just another up in the many ups and downs we've gone through prior to treatment.

As for tube feedings ... I decided to go ahead and bump James up to 18 hours on feeds, 6 hours off feeds and see if it made any difference from when he was at 20 hours on. James' stools is how we gage things, but James' stools have never been steady (and have had lots of trouble since January) so it's often near impossible to really tell what's setting them off or making them better ... this is due to his colitis. So he now has 6 hours free during the day and what a difference this has made. This allows us a bit more flexibility and gives him time off in the morning ... previously I saved most of it for the late afternoon and evening since we only let him outside in the evening. So far we haven't seen any significant difference in his stools and so this seems to be working just the same as 20 hours.

On the homefront we have slowly begun to find some sort of routine ... as much routine as you get during the summer months. The house has slowly begun to take shape again ... just gotta finish finding room for the baby stuff. Thankfully I only had one day of appointments this week (myself - OB and Pre-Op - everything is good!!) so my time was not taken up running all over ... especially good since I remain without a vehicle. It seems that the tranny Rob spent time putting in had been sitting a little too long and is not going to work afterall. After attempting one more thing (which took several nights of work) it was confirmed the tranny was definitely a no-go ... and so after some hum-hawing we decided it was time to find a "new" vehicle as it was not worth spending the money to put another tranny into this one. Yesterday Rob found another ugly Pontiac Transport (the only kind of van he'll buy due to the engine in it ... as well now we'll have a parts vehicle for the new one) and hopefully by Monday or Tuesday I will once again have a vehicle ... yah!!! Sometimes you get the feeling when it rains is pours and so it seems with our vehicles. We've been so thankful for our beater car that Rob uses during the summer months when he works ... but it's on it's last wheel too. Rob had said he'd be thankful if it made it through this summer, so it's no surprise when we suddenly seem to be having more trouble with it too. Thankfully these problems came after we were out of the hospital ... but with so many appointments all the time I can't really be without a vehicle for long ... and don't have much faith in driving the beater off to Toronto. And so it seems whenever Rob is home he's buried under a vehicle ... hopefully we're done with that before baby arrives.