Cruising Along

Things continue to move along here. Alex and I quickly fell back into our routine after our quick trip to Houston. We are doing great with school. We are two thirds of the way through are year. We are on track to finish at the end of May. What an incredible accomplishment as my boy pushes through so much to succeed in his schoolwork. Just yesterday he had an 88 question unit test that he once again scored 100 on! I am so proud of the hard work and effort he gives me day after day regardless of how he feels.
We continue to love our time with friends and look forward to each cub scout and playgroup event. Our friends bring so much joy and excitement into our otherwise monotonous days. Alex is thriving with his psychologist who he loves dearly and is holding his own in OT and PT where he is slowly making progress.
Medically, things are going pretty well. Alex's bloating is a little better since we have started intermittenly using the ferrell bag again and are trating his Small Bowel Bacterial Overdose with antibiotics. He has tolerated the decrease in TPN well. We are hopeful we will be able to stop it again in the near future. We had a night where we think he suffered a series of small seizures, but is okay now. We will continue to watch and be sure he doesn't start having more seizures, but it seems to be an isolated incidence.
We had a few rough spots over the last week as Alex's pet fish, Harry died while we were in Houston. Alex was very sad, but handled it pretty well all things considered. Then this past Saturday, my sister had to say Goodbye to her beloved black lab, Ernie. We were all sad as Ernie was an awesome dog. One of the things that has been apparent is how far Alex has come in his year working with Dr. Kristy. For so long a week like this would have sent him into a really hard stretch of sadness and grief over our sweet Samuel. His handling of these losses was so "appropriate" and while there was talk of Samuel it was in a healthy way. It still breaks my heart how much more poor boy has endured both physically and emotionally in his short life and yet his empathy and compassion is incredible. He has been so sweet to his Aunt Jenn-Jenn as she hurts over her loss. He has even offered to giver her all his money so she can get a new dog. I love to see the kindness in his heart.
It hasn't also been sadness though....Alex who has always been a character has been so funny these last few days. I'll leave you with two hysterical quotes from the mouth of my Bug. I wish I could bottle him and sell him. We were talking about our upcoming camping trip with Cub Scouts. He said, "I hope I don't get Poison IV's". We tried to correct him to explain Poison Ivy, but in our house it will forever more be Poison IV's. Then he was joking about Bruce passing out. He told us, "Daddy, if you pass out don't worry. I'll give you mouth to mouth precipitation". Oh boy does he make us laugh!
As you pray for us over the next little bit, I ask that you continue to pray for Buggy's health, but also for Bruce to find a new job. While we are thankful that Bruce is employed, his current situation is very stressful, a ton of hours (most days he leaves before Alex wakes up and gets home after he is in bed) and not enough money! We are hoping he can find something that is an all around better solution for our family.
Thank you for always sharing our ups and downs with us. We love you!
Ali