More Tests! And a Busy Week

This morning Mrs. Mia and I took Tucker to Oschner in New Orleans for an endoscopy, which is a scope of his esophagus, tummy, and small intestine. The GI dr. said everything looks normal, but she will call me later this week with results from the biopsies of each part of his digestive tract. If she had seen inflammation or anything, that would have helped to explain his feeding issues, at least a little! So we will wait for the results, I almost fell out of the chair when she said she will call me this week. I said, "are you sure? that soon?? And we don't have to drive back out here to get the results?" That is nice, since it is quite a drive. We have done a lot of waiting this past year, and a lot of driving!

This is a pic of him, after he came out of anesthesia. He has been having problems with anesthesia lately, where he almost can not breathe without the ET tube. It is very scary for the docs (and us!), so I was very pleased that everything went well this time. The anesthesiologist woke him up very slowly, and made sure he was making breathing efforts before he extibated him. So that seemed to have worked. Then we waited for almost an hour for him to wake up, he is so peaceful when he sleeps! It's once he's up that is the problem, because they give him Versed, aka "goofy juice" so he is like a drunk kid once he wakes up! He tries to run and climb, but he literally can not coordinate any movement. He refuses to just sit still, though, because he thinks he can do whatever he wants! This makes for a few interesting, but frustrating, hours. Today was not so bad, though.

Chris was on-call last weekend, which meant we could make no plans, just in case he got called out to work. On Saturday we had some very special plans, though, so Gina and I took Tucker without Chris. Our cousin Claire had a "No Mo' Chemo" party Saturday evening, to celebrate her end of chemo treatment. Tucker can be crazy at parties, but we took him anyways to congratulate Claire. She looked great, and it was nice to see that side of the family. There was a pool and an inflatable water slide. Tucker was a little hesitant about the pool, but he loved the big water slide! After one ride, that was enough for me, though! I think all the moms watched us go down the slide, wondering how crazy was I? Tucker loves all of the sensory input from crazy rides like that, he is so small, but he is a dare-devil. So we came off the slide, with me about to cry, and Tucker clawing his way out of my arms to go back. I said "no!" and that was pretty much the end of our party time! We went inside and changed Tuck back into his dry clothes, then headed back home.

Tucker has always loved water, but it has been a "no no" for most of his life due to the trach. For those who don't remember, back in April of 2008 he took a nose dive in the bath tub (dare devil!!), and aspirated bath water into his trach, earning us one night in the ER and one night in the PICU. With the heat here in the summer, having a water ban is pretty cruel, so last year I let him play in sprinklers if the spray did not go above his tummy, and I let him sit in pools and the bathtub as long as the water was not above his g-button. He got his trach out in November, but his stoma (hole) did not actually close until February when the ENT closed it surgically. So this will be our first spring and summer where I can let Tucker really enjoy the water. So far, it has been great. Dad sprayed him and Sophie with the water hose last weekend,

and then Tucker tried the pool and water slide on Saturday. We want to have a "naked neck" party sometime this summer, and Chris has insisted that we rent a water slide. I thought Tucker was too little for that (wrong again!), but it looks like we will be having a party and a slide at some point.

The next few weeks will be crazy busy! Tucker sees several specialists every 6 months, and some of those appointments are due. We are also having an IEP meeting to plan for Tucker's 2010-2011 school year, as well as having meetings with his new teacher. Tucker takes all of this like a pro, though, it is me I am worried about!