Hi-Ho...Hi-Ho...it's off to therapy we go,

With a tear and a scream and some vomit? No! No!
Hi-ho...Hi-ho...Hi-ho, Hi-ho!

Yes, I know we were meant to throw ourselves head first back into therapy last week but with my sore throat and Sam's daily throwing up, decided to leave it for another week. So, we did physio on Wednesday and speech on Thursday. Physio, although accompanied by the squeeling and crying that had become a thing of the past, thankfully brought with it no throwing up. Sam's reaction was a little unexpected as Heidi took it super easy on him with a half hour of mainly just gentle rotations and stretching and not more than five minutes tummy-work. Guess, as with everything else since the op, it'll just take some time for him to settle down again. Speech was no less stressful, as Sam's speechie worked in his mouth (which of course he does so love) trying to desensitise his gag reflex again. He did show off his new hand-clapping expertise to both Heidi and Madre and even added in an extra dose of cute in ST when he leaned forward and gave the little doll M sometimes uses a little kiss! The only thing he's ever kissed before is his books and only after we've told him to (not kiss the book itself but, say, the kitty in the book). Sam's gagging is going to take a bit of work still, although the sides and front of his mouth are fairly okay, the second you cross the midline on his tongue he gags (which does kinda make sense). As for the sensitivity to temperatures (we have to repeatedly heat his bottles and food as the second it starts cooling, he gags) M hasn't really seen this before...but that's our Sam in a nutshell, isn't it? All things unfamiliar and unusual. We have a rather busy week or two coming up with appt's with Prof F, Dr C (orthopaed - hands) and Dr D (orthopaed for everything else) as well as Sam's therapies.

So what else has Sam been getting up to? As I've mentioned before, Sam loves playing on the keyboard although he was recently "banned" in an effort to avoid either him or the keyboard, or both, being hurt. He seems to somehow have understood because I let him play again this week and he was so gentle, whereas he would usually just bash the keys with either his hands or feet, he now plays with one tiny finger most of the time and has fairly mastered the Jerry-Lewis-style of running his finger along the keys. He now also claps for himself every time I say "Clever Boy!"...that's probably the cutest accomplishment of the week, nothing like a little self-praise. Or, self-rebuke for that matter : there's been some talk on the RTS listserv the last week regarding hair-pulling and throwing things, etc. Now, Sam has already started dabbling in both of these activities, especially the hair pulling (which has now claimed TWO unsuspecting strangers - one at the store and one at church, of all places) but also throwing things. I usually put him in his feeding chair while I prepare his cereal, etc and place a couple of toys on the tray to keep him occupied, but all he does is repeatedly throw everything off. The second you pick it up, the second he throws it down again. So, with the listserv talk in mind, every time he throws something off I lightly shake my head and say and sign "No". Now, over the past couple of days Sam picks the toy up, looks at us...first shakes his head...and then throws it off anyway!! So either he's confused and thinks shaking your head is the sign for "please throw it off Sam" or he's just been super cheeky. LOL! At this point, I think it's still very much a game for him as opposed to disobedience and how can you do anything else but laugh?

I've finally resigned myself to the lost cause that is trying to mix Pediasure with Nestargel. For now we do thickened S26 before sleeping and potential throw-up triggers (like car trips, etc) and then just plain old Pediausre the rest of the time and its working okay for now. Also, with the heat, it does help that Sam is having something other than that awful thickened mixture as he still refuses juice and water. I am not sure what he now weighs, he was 9kg on the dot week before last (it's almost hard to believe - seemed like such an impossible target) so hopefully he's picked up another 100gr or so, at least. The Cipla-Actin has definitely increased his appetite, as prescribed by Dr S, and it's wonderful not having to fight with him to eat or drink. We are still doing Hypafix on the cut, for at least another two or three months which works out great, although it's a bit of a mission or remove, the wound is obviously still extremely itchy so it provides some protection from tiny little fingers.

Meg is now settling down nicely into Grade 4 and Luke has written two tests so far, Maths of all things (his real achilles heel) and obtained 85% for the first one and 90% for the second...woohooo! I have been desperately searching for something to do from home which might bring in an additional income into the household, but am really battling to find anything which might work for us. I found numerous adds on a career site stating specifically "Home typist/Data Entry Specialist" and I thought Yay! That sounds perfect as it's something I can do after Sam goes to sleep at night. Sent in several enquiries and almost signed up for the one until the lady responsible was kind enough to be completely honest with me and advised that there's actually very little genuine typing work involved, you basically earn your money by trying to get others to sign up as well. So, still trying to come up with something....have considered 100% personalised printed mugs and plates, etc. (ie, you tell me a bit about the person and I will come up with a completely unique poem for the item) or even thought of special needs "Baby on Board" signs/stickers. Is there even anything like that in SA? If there was, I would certainly buy one. So...any suggestions folks?

Still settling in to 2011....

It is so hard to believe that we are already through the first month of 2011...the days are literally just whizzing by, perhaps because we are still trying to find our feet in our new routine. With Luke taking classes a fair distance from where we stay, Sam and I are spending on average about 2.5 hours a day in the car and that's on the "good" days, which are days without doctor's appointments, etc. From tomorrow morning though Luke is going to be braving the South African Transport System (Yikes!) and attempt travelling in by train. Our suburb is unfortunately not very central so there is only one train he can catch and one bus. He would need to be at the bus depot at 6:05am though, so we have opted to try the train first. He has never been on a train before and I can see he is really nervous about a) getting off at the wrong station and b) not being able to find his way to the college as he doesn't know the area very well. I am just holding thumbs that it all works out great as it would be a HUGE relief if all we had to worry about was fetching him in the afternoons. Brampies has been an incredible help (as always) and is eager to take or fetch Luke whenever he can...we are truly thankful to have the luxury of always being able to rely on him for help no matter what the inconvenience to himself. My three hooligans are blessed to have such a wonderful Grampa.

Speaking of doctor's appointments, we have as yet been unable to secure an appointment with Prof F but did manage an appointment with Dr S who was the paediatrician who oversaw Sam's care after the operation. He had a look at Sam's reflexes, which he said look great, as well as the scar and suggested we place Hypafix strips over the cut for a minimum of three months in order to aid the healing process, which we've done. He was quite amazed at the amount of aggressive teething going on in Sam's mouth, thanks to three of Sam's molar's battling to come out (one from more than three months ago). He suggested putting Sam on Vit D drops to help the body better absorb calcium and suggested I put him back on something for pain for a little while longer, at least in the evenings. Dr S also gave us the go ahead to dive back into therapy so that's what our little smurf has in store for him this week.

Sam's weight has unfortunately taken a bit of a dive as he has not been eating or drinking like he used to, so we have switched his formula to PediaSure, which conveniently comes in Vanilla and...Sam's fav....CHOCOLATE! So hopefully he'll manage to find some of that weight that's gone missing.

Perhaps the highlight over the past couple of days is that Sam has been sitting much better than he has for quite a while since the surgery, but more importantly, has been using that right leg more and more each day. In fact, we have spent a great deal of time over the past two days on one of Sam's favourite activities...walking! How wonderful is that? He still has some shaky moments...literally and figuratively when he either suddenly gets scared and almost clambers up to my arms himself or when he somehow loses his "swagger" and suddenly becomes completely unco-ordinated. Still, it is a huge improvement and very promising that there are definite signs of healing.

Below are some pics of his budding soccer-star potential as he demonstrates his great footwork....(note poor "Bot" lying utterly defeated, facedown on the ground after been wrestled into that position by our Conqeuror!)

On Thursday afternoon we had the wonderful opportunity to be completed sandwiched between two veld fires, on either side of our house and close to our neighbourhood - or so we thought due to the severity of the smoke, but with the gusty winds that were blowing the fire could really have been a fair distance away. Regardless, our house was covered in suffocating amounts of smoke with pieces of ash raining down in the garden. Needless to say, we all woke up on Friday with sore throats and irritated sinuses and smelling as if we'd just been to a braai/barbeque...as the meal!

This is the normal view from our front door....

This is what it looked like on Thursday...

Just before all the smoke rolled in, Meghan noticed our neighbour wheeling a large tree stump into his garden - that's all the inspiration she needed to fashion a wild theory about where the smoke was really coming from and so spent most of the afternoon with her eyes glued to our neighbour's house expecting to see flames out of their front door at any given second.