A New Year

We had a very quiet and relaxing end to the year. My Dad was here to visit from December 23 through the 27th. Everyone has stayed healthy. We have mainly just enjoyed time together as a family playing games and enjoying being together.

Picking Grandpa up at the airport

Making Reindeer food

Christmas Eve Service at Church

Christmas Morning

Every princess needs a Tiara to ride her bike

Last Friday we had an appointment with our GI doctor. He is thrilled with how Maddy is doing overall. Since her Feeding Tube was placed she has caught up to the size she should be. She made huge strides in Therapy and is thriving in school. We tweaked medications a little to help her reflux and constipation, but overall she is good to go.

We discussed some big changes with Alex. Our endocrinologist had asked us to discuss a major surgery that may be necessary in the future due to all the bouts of pancreatitis he has had. we did discuss it with Dr. O, but he doesn't feel like we are there yet, so we tabled the discussion for now. We made some changes to his TPN (IV Nutrition). The biggest surprise was that Dr. O has gotten FDA approval to use a medication with 5 patients that was pulled off the market years ago. He has decided Alex is a perfect candidate. We are still in the process of doing some initial testing, checking with other doctors and signing consents. If we can get this medication, the hope is that we could get enough feeds going through his feeding tube that we could just do TPN overnight.

On New Year's, Alex, Maddy and I took on a project we have wanted to do for some time. We went to the store and got enough supplies to make 10 "blessing bags". We will keep these bags full of necessities with us to hand out when we see a Homeless person. (We see them on almost every trip to the hospital). We even included a bible verse on Hope.

Our supplies

Filling the bags

Adding our bible verse

10 bags ready to go

Maddy had discovered the game of Life!

A Zoey Update... Zoey has now been gone 1 month. We were originally told it could take between one and six months. We miss everything about her. We miss her cuddles, her "eyes", her constant presence. 

In her down-stay at Walmart

She is continuing to work hard and make progress. She is consistently holding her down stay at Walmart even with kids and carts going by. She is still working on her confidence so they can once again begin their scent training. We are continuing to fundraise. We currently have enough for 3 months of training. We are so very grateful to all of the friends and family who have shared, donated and prayed with us to make this happen. I wish we had enough disposable income to just pay for it ourselves unfortunately that is not the case, so we feel blessed that others are joining us on this journey. If you would like to help in whatever way, here is the link: Zoey's Fundraiser.

My prayer is that this new year is one filled with good health, happiness, and amazing memories.

Ali