De-Escalation

That's a lovely title for a blog post.

I am so thankful to report things are looking better for James. Insert sigh of relief.

The last week has been unbelievably stressful.  We have been back and forth to the hospital every other day.  We have visited the speech pathologist twice and the cardiologist once.  We have pressed James to drink his medicated cocktail multiple times a day, comprised of 4 prescriptions.  We have slowly gotten James back to a normal diet--I think I would pin Wednesday as being the day he finally decided to eat normal food for every meal (though not quite the same portion sizes). At his last doctor appointment, he was back up to 27 pound, having dropped from 29 to 25 during the course of this illness.  He is only waking up once a night now in tears, and is sleeping in his bedroom again.  He doesn't grimace in pain anymore, though he will still tell us not to touch his heart line.  He is smiling more and more, and being just a bit naughty.

All in all-he is getting better.  :)

Our run of antibiotics will conclude on Tuesday, and then we will carefully watch James the rest of next week to see if the infection flares up again, which is pretty common.  If not, I think we can safely say we can get back to normal life with only a few minor areas to monitor.  I am so grateful to have my James back, almost to his regular state.  He still can't laugh without feeling some pain, though his quiet little giggles have been making an appearance.  He can't cry or giggle loud at all-his vocal cords are still trying to recover, but we think that is coming along.  His incision looks SO much better-I'll post a stream of pics to show the progress it has made in a little bit, though it won't be for the weak of heart.  The bubbles have all disappeared, as has the redness other than the top inch or so of the incision-and even that looks like it is scabbing over, so to speak, and getting smaller everyday.  I think having that stitch pulled really helped-that really seemed to be the turning point to the infection getting better.

I feel like so much stress has been lifted from my shoulders.  Life has kind of been put on hold for a long time, and especially for the past week.  I totally spaced on a lot of school-related things for the kids, our schedule went out the window, and I don't think I cooked a single dinner this week.  Jared and I have been utterly exhausted in taking cared of James and the kids, rarely going to bed before 1AM because the mental worry has been so extreme.  We have a ways to go before things feel back to "normal", but I feel like we have permission to start getting there and that is such a nice thought.  We'll have more doctor appointments next week, but after that, I think we might be done with them for a little while-and perfect timing, with the holidays right around the corner.

I am so thankful things are getting better.  Such an amazing blessing for our family and for James.