Rolling with the Changes

Go figure, it wasn't even 30 minutes after typing the last update that the Little Dude decided to start throwing up. It was only a few meals yesterday. Today proved much tougher for him. Since 5am he's had over 15 diaper changes and his stools are totally runny.

He also has been running a temp and hasn't slept for more than 10 min straight. So around 6 we took him to the ER. There's no acute care here, but we got service right away. We did take him home with the plan of giving him the Tylenol with Codine every 4hrs along with continuing the stronger doses of Imodium AD. He also was started on some oral antibiotics this afternoon. They started one bacteria culture from the stools and are trying to collect more. However he's only had one right after getting home, so that's good news.

James is also looking a bit better. He was looking really rough at 6 and still is pretty wiped out. Good thing he's been gaining weight. Hopefully the next dose of Codine will knock him out and give him some good rest. The bad side to that is it's tough to wake him enough to eat.

Needless to say it's been a rough day. This is why we are reluctant to give such raving reports like the last because we know days like this are right around the corner. Since this has come on fast we think it is likely an infection either viral or bacterial. His wounds haven't looked infected so we are surprised to see him like this. We are hoping he turns the corner on this so we don't have to have an IV as we doubt there is much experience here giving 7lb kids IV's. That and we saw how hard it was with Tony.

That said, the weather has been great and we both slept well because one Grandma took care of James and the other Abby. And of course we still felt tired in the morning. We hit two quick rummages before giving our nickel tour to some friends visiting from Sioux Falls. After that we spent a few hours at the park with the kids. Surprisingly our daring Abby is scared of the swings.

Dad is well into his project of installing an underground dog fence. Reina should enjoy her expanded territory and it will be easier on us. The cat has been sneaking out quite often with all the company and Dad had to climb out on the roof to get her while installing a window AC unit.

Even with the extra sleep we are quite exhausted from the the emotional drain today. Even though we know he would be in total peace in Heaven we are scared to have to let another child go. It seems like well over a month that we have been out of the hospital the last time, but he's just over 3 weeks old and still seems to be progressing much faster than Tony.

We are continually strengthened by your prayers and request them even more for endurance, wisdom for decisions and most of all comfort and healing for James.

All we can do is trust, pray, praise and do what we can for our family.

Stu, Tashia, Abby and James